What happened to Shane Wright and should Canucks take a chance on him?
It’s not every day that a recent top-five draft pick hits the trade market.
And when they do, they typically aren’t choosing Vancouver as their preferred destination.
However, the culmination of both of those apparently just happened with Seattle Kraken centre Shane Wright.
It puts the Vancouver Canucks in a fascinating situation. Even though they’re just entering a rebuild, the idea of adding a young, right-shot centre, especially one who was long touted as a potential number one overall pick, is tantalizing.
But is it worth the risk?
To answer that question, we need to understand: what exactly happened to Shane Wright in Seattle?
Post-draft development
The nickname Suitcase Shane (or perhaps Shane Flight) would have made sense for Wright in the first year after being drafted.
Seattle faced a tough decision during Wright’s first season. If this were 2026, Wright surely would have gone the NCAA route. Instead, the Kraken had to choose between sending him back to the OHL, where he had already dominated, or keep him in the NHL.
They decided that the NHL was best. Or, more accurately, that practicing with the club was best.
Wright played just seven of Seattle’s first 13 games, averaging just 8:07 of ice time per contest. He was then sent to the AHL for a conditioning stint, since he was too young to be sent down full-time.
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That’s when Wright started to find his mojo. He scored four goals in five AHL games, then scored his first NHL goal during his first game back.
Ironically, that was the end of Wright’s NHL season.
He left Seattle to captain Canada at the World Juniors, where he led them to gold. Then, he went to the Windsor Spitfires of the OHL, before returning to the AHL come playoff time.
In a matter of months, Wright had worn four different jerseys.
If the Kraken were bad, perhaps Wright would have stayed in the NHL to develop. However, 2022-23 was the lone year where they made the playoffs.
“There was a lot that happened to Shane, and a lot going on with his situation,” former Kraken coach Dan Bylsma told TheAHL.com when asked about Wright’s draft plus-one season.
“It didn’t feel like he had an opportunity to just play hockey and display how good of a player he is.”
He got some normalcy in the AHL in 2023-24, where Wright posted 22 goals and 47 points in 59 AHL games. Surely, good numbers for one of the AHL’s youngest players. He also added another four goals and five points during eight NHL games.
It was a solid year, but perhaps not one that foreshadowed star potential, especially when you consider that Logan Cooley (selected one spot ahead of Wright) had 20 goals and 44 points in 82 NHL games that same year.
Wright finally cracked the NHL full-time in 2024-25, alongside his AHL coach, Bylsma, who was promoted as Kraken head coach. It was another slow start for Wright, who had one goal and two points in his first 18 games.
From there on out, Wright led the Kraken with 42 points over the team’s final 61 games.
Everything was looking up until the 2025-26 season.
Did Shane get shafted in Seattle?
The 22-year-old regressed under new head coach Lane Lambert last season, who was the third head coach of his young NHL career.
Even though Wright led the Kraken in scoring for the majority of the 2024-25 campaign, he was basically utilized as Seattle’s fourth-line centre from the get-go of the season. Chandler Stephenson and Matty Beniers got the 1A/1B minutes, while Frederick Gaudreau was primarily the third-line centre.
At five-on-five last season, Wright ranked 12th among Kraken forwards in ice time. He didn’t kill any penalties and was banished to the team’s second power play unit.
Lambert never overtly criticized Wright publicly, often sugarcoating his lack of progress on the offensive side of the puck.
“Sometimes you have to sacrifice a little bit of your personal statistics in order to embrace the way to play, in order for the team to have success,” Lambert told the media back in January. “I think he’s done an amazing job with that, I really do.”
Still, the lack of ice time and opportunity speaks for itself. Wright went from making progress while showcasing chemistry with players like Eeli Tolvanen and Jared McCann, to playing fourth-line minutes while being saddled with a barrage of different linemates. His most common linemates in 2025-26 were Berkley Catton, Kappo Kakko, Jani Nyman and Ryan Winterton.
It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that Wright wants out of Seattle, a franchise with no apparent direction, paired with a coach who is confusing a fourth overall pick with a fourth-line centre.
Is Wright worth the risk for Canucks?
Thinking that Wright is going to blossom into a first-liner is probably wishful thinking for whichever team is interested in acquiring him. Although his usage last season was baffling, he still only produced 1.25 points-per-60, which is basically a fourth-line rate. His rate of chances also suggested his pedestrian production wasn’t unlucky, and Wright also had the benefit of playing against weak competition.
However, the majority of his 2024-25 season suggests it’s reasonable he couldn’t be a second-line NHL centre. Even at worst, with proper development, he’s probably a high-end third-line pivot in the NHL.
Whether or not it’s worth the risk for the Canucks to acquire Wright comes down to the acquisition cost.
The Canucks aren’t in a position to trade high-end draft capital or prospects, being that they’re in the infancy of a rebuild.
But you have to give up something of value to get Wright.
Jonathan Lekkerimäki might make the most sense as a trade chip, but the Canucks would probably have to add something to make the return worthwhile for Seattle.
Could the Canucks use Jonathan Lekkerimäki as the centrepiece of a Shane Wright deal? (Bob Frid/Imagn Images)
The Kraken were reportedly interested in Willander, but does Vancouver want to stomach the risk of trading someone who projects to be a second-pairing, right-shot defenceman for a player who currently looks to be a middle-six NHL centre?
It’s also fair to wonder if the Kraken could be interested in some kind of Elias Pettersson for Shane Wright swap. Seattle has gone big-name hunting recently, going after both Artemi Panarin and Jason Robertson before failing on both fronts.
Of course, Pettersson’s downfall doesn’t put him in that same stratosphere as those two players. That, coupled with former Canucks GM Patrik Allvin working in Seattle, someone who subtly criticized Pettersson, makes that swap seem unlikely.
The main question Ryan Johnson and the Canucks likely need to ask themselves is: are they willing to part with an asset like Willander or Lekkerimäki to take a chance on Wright?