Shane Wright

Shane Wright’s tenure with the Kraken hasn’t gone quite as well as he or the team would have hoped.  Now, it appears his time in Seattle may be coming to an end.  Wright’s agent Kurt Overhardt told Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman that the team has agreed to try to move him:

I can confirm that we have had positive conversations with GM Jason Botterill, and he has agreed to move Shane this summer to a team in need of a top young centre.

Botterill declined to comment on the report while Friedman noted that other league sources have suggested that there’s an agreement between the team and Wright’s camp to work on a deal but no firm guarantee a deal will happen.

The 22-year-old entered his draft year in 2022 as the consensus projected first-overall pick.  However, he wasn’t as dominant as expected in the OHL (though he still managed 94 points in 63 games) and ultimately slid to fourth overall, where Seattle scooped him up.

Wright played in eight NHL games in each of his first two seasons; in doing so, he didn’t activate the first year of his entry-level contract.  He went back to junior in 2022-23 and, when eligible, Wright was assigned to AHL Coachella Valley for the bulk of the 2023-24 campaign where he had 22 goals and 25 assists in 59 games as one of the youngest players in the league.

But that offensive success hasn’t carried over to the NHL just yet.  2024-25 was Wright’s first full NHL campaign and he had a solid showing, notching 19 goals and 45 assists in 79 games.  He was largely used in a middle-six role, often anchoring the third line where he struggled at the faceoff dot, winning just 44.4% of his draws (though that’s fairly common for rookie centers).  It wasn’t a flashy year but it seemed like a good start.

Things went in the wrong direction last season, though.  Wright saw his output drop to 12 goals and 15 helpers in 27 games while his faceoff rate dropped below the 40% mark.  His usage was largely the same as he averaged a little under 14 minutes per game after being just above that the year before.  His stock has dipped as a result.

Having said that, 22-year-old centers still on their entry-level deal with the draft pedigree Wright has are hard to come by, especially in a market where any help down the middle is pricey.  With that in mind, Botterill should be able to elicit a quality return for Wright’s services, as long as he’s open about different types of returns.

While Overhardt is hopeful of Wright landing with a team that will use him in a second-line role, those types of teams may be more of the rebuilding type that can afford to give the extra developmental runway.  But while Seattle is hoping to turn things around to get back into the playoffs, the types of teams that will likely have Wright slotted in that high on their depth chart probably don’t have the type of win-now talent that Botterill would prefer to get in return.  If he’s willing to accept more of a futures-based return (draft picks or young prospects), that could boost the number of suitors for Wright.

With the UFA market not really having too much in the way of impact centers available, the only other ways to address it are a trade (or a high-priced offer sheet).  Trades at this time of year aren’t typically pressure-packed in terms of getting it done quickly so this is a situation that could take some time to get resolved.  But as things stand, it looks like Wright could be getting a fresh start over the coming weeks or months.

Photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images.

1/29/2026: A little over a week after the initial reports emerged that the Kraken were considering trading Wright to acquire a dynamic top-six scoring winger, The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta issued an update on Wright’s situation.

According to Pagnotta, not only are the Kraken seriously considering dealing Wright, but now “word has spread” that Wright himself may also be seeking a change of scenery, and that the relationship between the player and club in this case “may be on the ropes.”

As one would expect, Wright was unwilling to go into great detail when asked by the media about his name surfacing in trade rumors. He told the media, including local outlet Sound of Hockey, that he’s “not too worried” about the reporting and speculation surrounding his future.

As we covered last week, Wright has been unable to gain the trust of first-year head coach Lane Lambert, who has thus far been unwilling to grant Wright the greater lineup role most expected him to earn this season. It could be that the slowed pace of Wright’s development has frayed the player’s relationship with his team, potentially helping pave the way for a deal that allows him to continue his career elsewhere.

1/22/2026: The Seattle Kraken are reportedly open to trading 2022 No. 4 overall pick Shane Wright as they pursue adding an impactful top-six scorer, according to David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period. Pagnotta wrote yesterday that the Kraken have “been searching for a top-six forward,” and believe including Wright in a deal could be the key to landing a caliber of player that makes a real impact on their team.

That Seattle is even considering trading Wright would have been a stunning development before the start of the 2025-26 season.

Entering the season, Wright looked well on the way to becoming a long-term core piece in Seattle.

His development path in years prior endured a few stops and starts, but 2024-25 was Wright’s first campaign as a full-time NHLer, and he blossomed.

He scored 19 goals and 44 points, the second-most points by a Kraken center and production that was just seven points behind 2022 No. 1 pick Juraj Slafkovsky.

Wright’s encouraging NHL campaign ensured he was viewed as a key cog in the Kraken’s future plans. The Athletic’s Corey Pronman ranked him as a top-25 U23 player in the entire NHL, writing that Wright “has no noticeable flaw in his toolkit” and “could be a second-line center on a top team or a fringe 1C on a lesser team.”

In a league where quality centers are always in high demand, he looked to be an asset for the Kraken that got as close to “untouchable” status as anyone on their roster. The belief was that Wright and 2023 Calder Trophy winner Matty Beniers would form a formidable backbone of two-way centers through whom the Kraken could anchor their forward lineup.

Wright’s 2025-26 season has, unfortunately, appeared to change the team’s calculus looking into the future. While Wright saw real developmental gains under former head coach Dan Bylsma, that momentum appears to have largely stalled under new coach Lane Lambert, even as Lambert keeps the Kraken in the thick of the Western Conference playoff race.

The hope for Wright was that after finishing the year as one of Seattle’s top scorers despite earning just 14:04 time on ice per game, he might be able to earn a greater role in his sophomore campaign, and something that could consequently power an even greater developmental leap.

That has not happened so far. In fact, it’s been the opposite. Wright has struggled to gain a foothold in Lambert’s lineup, averaging just 13:43 time on ice per game, with a second-unit role on the power play and no role on the penalty kill.

For a variety of reasons, including his role, Wright’s production has declined steeply. He’s scored 17 points in 49 games, which is just a 28-point 82-game scoring pace. His shooting percentage appears to be a major culprit, as he converted shots into goals at a nearly 21% rate last season, but is hovering at 9.3% this year.

Wright’s shooting ability was generally assessed by scouts to be his most high-end offensive tool, so the fact that he is struggling to find the back of the net this season only compounds concerns about the current state of his development.

With Wright’s current situation in mind, it can’t be a huge surprise to see his name surfacing in trade rumors. It may have come as a great surprise entering the season, but Wright’s development appears to have stalled to the point where a trade is only a natural thing to consider.

Whether that would be the best idea for the Kraken is, of course, a matter of debate.

On one hand, Wright remains an undeniably talented center on a team still short of high-end pivots. While his struggles this season may have shifted his projection in the eyes of some evaluators, the reality is he is still just 22 years old. There’s still reason to believe he can end up becoming the high-end second-line center scouts have long believed he’d develop into.

Impactful two-way top-six centers don’t grow on trees, and any deal involving one, even a potential future player for that role, becomes a difficult deal to win.

Trading Wright this season would also be, undeniably, “selling low” on a player who was a premium draft pick and high-end prospect. This season has been the low point of Wright’s career since being drafted, so it would be an inopportune time for Seattle to trade him, from a pure value standpoint.

On the other hand, the Kraken could badly use a dynamic offensive creator, and even the high end of Wright’s projection doesn’t include a realistic possibility of him becoming one. Centers are in demand across the NHL to a severe degree, and even with his struggles in 2025-26, Wright still figures to command a significant amount of value if dealt. There’s no doubt that if he were dangled in a trade, the Kraken would have the buying power to be able to land the kind of winger that fits their clear need for a dynamic offensive creator.

When considering what kind of player the Kraken could target if they indeed shop Wright, they could either leverage his age, pedigree, and positional value to land a more established scorer than Wright is at this moment (perhaps even adding other assets to swing a deal for as high-end of a target as possible), or they could target a winger in a similar developmental situation to Wright who happens to better fit the kind of talent profile they’re targeting.

If they elect to pursue the latter tactic, a name such as Columbus Blue Jackets forward Kent Johnson checks a lot of boxes. He was the No. 5 pick of the draft before Wright’s, and like Wright, appeared to be nearing “untouchable” status in his market after 2024-25.

He scored 57 points in 68 games, looking every bit like the hyper-skilled, dynamic offensive creator he was drafted to be. Also like Wright, Johnson’s 2025-26 season has been virtually unrecognizable compared to the year prior.

A player such as Johnson, even with his struggles this season, would require a significant trade asset in order to pry loose — which is where Wright could come into the picture. The idea of a Wright/Johnson deal is entirely speculative, of course, as there have been no firm reports of who Seattle might be targeting specifically.

But when examining the league-wide landscape for players who could be a fit in a Wright deal, his name emerges as an intriguing possibility, as both players look like they could benefit from a change-of-scenery transaction.

Regardless of what player Seattle might target — or if they end up even trading Wright at all — Pagnotta’s report underscores how important Wright is to the Kraken’s future.

He’s either going to get his development back on track and become a valuable two-way pivot in Seattle, or the team will leverage his trade value to acquire an impactful roster addition. Either way, his progress is one of the key storylines to watch in Seattle moving forward.

Photos courtesy of Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images