Kraken's improbable playoff success was 15 years in the making

What was the moment when this town started dreaming about what’s become a heartening, heavenly hockey reality? 

What do you see when you look back at the ever-undulating road that led to this winter-sports wonder? 

The Mariners, fresh off their first playoff appearance in 21 years, are a month into their season — and the Seahawks just completed what may have been their most hyped-up draft in over a decade. Yet after ousting the defending Stanley Cup champion Avalanche in Game 7 of the first round Sunday, it is the Kraken who rule the day. 

Seattle sports fans have been aching for this flash point for a while now, as the existence of an NHL team has morphed into a phenomenon. But the path to get here was hardly as smooth as a freshly Zamboni’d rink. 

A timeline:

The winter-sports thirst around here surely began with the devastation of the Sonics leaving in 2008. This was two years removed from a playoff appearance and one year removed from the drafting of Kevin Durant. 

No, fans hadn’t been flooding KeyArena during the team’s final seasons in Seattle, but it was still a shock that continues to depress and infuriate Seattleites. The plans to one day lure the Sonics back — in whatever form that may be — began almost immediately, and that desire burns 15 years later. But in the opinions of many, hockey would have to come first. 

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This was a point Oak View Group CEO Tim Leiweke stressed during the height of the arena wars that divided much of Seattle’s sports fans. Because if there were ever to be a major professional winter sports team in the 206, there’d have to be a place to house it. And so began the battle between hedge-fund manager and Sonics die-hard Chris Hansen — who hoped to erect a venue in Sodo — and OVG, which hoped to renovate KeyArena. 

Times reporter Geoff Baker wrote a book that outlined this conflict in detail. But the gist is that Hansen couldn’t get the necessary support from the Seattle City Council, and engineering and logistical concerns encircled Leiweke’s vision. 

Could they properly renovate the outdated building without removing the roof? Would the hypothetical traffic and parking nightmares come to fruition? 

These questions lingered for a while. Just as the price of the project incessantly increased and the end-of-construction date was incessantly delayed. 

But OVG got the nod, and with that came the Kraken as an expansion team. Celebrations ensued. Anticipation did as well — with season tickets selling out in minutes. And, of course, there were expectations — with fans acutely aware that the last expansion team (the Vegas Golden Knights) reached the Stanley Cup Final in its inaugural season in 2018. 

This was a fairy tale — evidenced by the thousands that gathered at Gas Works Park for the expansion draft in the summer of 2021. It’s just that … fairy tales often place their protagonists in ghastly situations midway through the plot. 

If the volume for the Kraken was turned up to 11 before the start of their first season, it waned to about a two a few months later. With the Golden Knights alerting NHL general managers to the potential hazards of an expansion draft, Seattle wasn’t able to build anything close to a championship-level roster. 

Like a date who looks nothing like their filtered pictures, the Kraken seemed to turn off much of this town’s eager sports crowd by cratering to the bottom of the standings within the first couple of months. They’d end up finishing with the third-worst record in the NHL. 

That, however, is what seems to make this current run so blissful. It came without a hint of expectation and little room for disappointment. It’s kind of like a 14-seed reaching the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament. 

Yes, Seattle came out blazing at the start of this season and hung on to make the playoffs. But it played so poorly against playoff-caliber teams in the second half of the season that advancing past the first round was improbable — particularly against the reigning champs. 

But it happened. In the most dramatic way possible. An overtime win at home. A Game 7 win on the road. Seattle royalty born in an instant. 

Who knows how long this ride will last. But the road to this moment has been 15 years in the making. A departed NBA team, a fight to build an arena, a flop of a first year — all leading to the point Seattle’s most optimistic fans dreamed of. 

We long wondered if we’d have an NHL team. Now we’re an NHL town.

Lots of history behind the Kraken. Lots more of it to be written.