Seattle Kraken should hire Gerard Gallant as their first head coach

Gerard Gallant would be the perfect first head coach for the Seattle Kraken.

The Seattle Kraken have already gotten a lot of their team figured out even before next summer’s expansion draft. Most of their front office has already been hired and they’re figuring out future plans. One thing the Kraken have yet to take care of yet is finding their first head coach.

With Peter Laviolette being hired by the Washington Capitals, the Kraken need to act quickly. There are several qualified head coaches on the market, but if they want to hire Gerard Gallant, they must do it sooner rather than later.

One has to imagine Gallant would love to coach the Kraken. He had a very fun time coaching the last expansion team, the Vegas Golden Knights. Getting to mold a team in your image and starting a team from scratch is a very rare opportunity. If the Kraken want to hire Gallant, there’s no reason to believe the interest wouldn’t be mutual.

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There’s also no reason to believe the Kraken shouldn’t be very interested in hiring Gallant. He’s the perfect man for the job. As stated earlier, coaching an expansion team is a very unique challenge. Gallant’s one of the very few people on this planet who can say he’s done it.

One of the most important things to do when building a hockey team is building a team culture. Gallant helped the Golden Knights build an impressive culture very early. They fought for each other and were able to make the Stanley Cup Final in their first season.

He took them back to the Stanley Cup Playoffs and had there not been a very controversial major penalty in Game 7, Gallant might have taken the Golden Knights to the Western Conference Final, maybe even further.

Now, there are some concerns with Gallant. It would be negligent to not at least address them. Gallant’s been removed from his position under suspicious circumstances twice in the past five years. The Kraken should do some digging and try to figure out more about why he was let go by the Florida Panthers and Golden Knights. If it was just one time, you could ignore it. But twice seems like Gallant might have some bad patterns. At the very least, he deserves a bit of scrutiny.

The time is perfect for the Kraken to name their first head coach. Whoever their coach must have time to prepare for the expansion draft, give his or her input into the roster, and start helping to get the city of Seattle excited for an NHL team. Gallant is the perfect man for the role.