The Seattle Kraken have put a number on Shane Wright — or more precisely, a name. CHEK’s Rick Dhaliwal reported on the Oilers Now podcast that the Vancouver Canucks inquired about the 22-year-old center, and that Seattle’s asking price was one of two young defensemen: Zeev Buium or Tom Willander. Vancouver, per Dhaliwal, was not willing to pay it.
The talks confirm what Wright’s camp set in motion earlier this month. His agent, Kurt Overhardt, told Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman on July 4 that GM Jason Botterill had agreed to move Wright this summer to a team in need of a top young center — though Friedman’s league sources framed it as an agreement to work on a deal, not a guarantee one gets done. Botterill declined to comment.
The ask tells you how Seattle values what it still holds. Wright is a former fourth-overall pick who put up 19 goals and 45 assists in 79 games in his first full NHL season in 2024-25, then slipped to 12 goals and 15 assists last year while his faceoff percentage fell below 40. That decline cost him standing, but he remains a 22-year-old center five years from unrestricted free agency — the exact profile every team in the league is short on. Botterill is treating him as a core asset and demanding a core asset back: a young, club-controlled defenseman, not picks and spare parts.
That stance narrows the market, and it may keep Wright in Seattle into training camp. Teams willing to hand Wright the second-line role Overhardt wants for him tend to be rebuilding clubs that guard their blue-line prospects most jealously. The standoff with Vancouver is a preview: interest exists, but the match between what Seattle wants and what suitors will surrender hasn’t materialized yet. Summer trades rarely carry a deadline, and Botterill has shown no urgency to create one.
For fantasy purposes, Wright is a hold in dynasty formats until this resolves. A trade to a team offering second-line minutes and power-play time would restore much of the value his 64-point rookie campaign built, while another season buried on Seattle’s third line would keep him off redraft boards entirely. The destination, not the player, is the variable right now.
