Former Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres head coach, and current Coachella Valley Firebirds head coach, Dan Bylsma was named the new bench boss for the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday. The AHL affiliate Firebirds are still taking part in the AHL playoffs so he's not 100% with the big club just yet, but he will be returning behind an NHL bench to steer the Kraken in 2024-25.

Bylsma came to prominence over a decade ago as coach for Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, and Kris Letang in Pittsburgh. They won a Stanley Cup together in 2009, but Bylsma was let go in 2014. A year later, he was hired by the Buffalo Sabres to be their coach of the Jack Eichel era, but that lasted just two seasons. After kicking around as an assistant coach, he was hired by Seattle to run their AHL program, and now he's back in the NHL.

Immediately, Bylsma brings experience with the current crop of young Kraken players. He will be very familiar with the prospect side of the organization, be it Shane Wright or Ryker Evans, among others. That kind of familiarity should help him design an approach to both sides of the puck that plays to the strengths of the skaters.

It will be curious to see how much Bylsma has changed his approach since his last NHL run. The Kraken are a team devoid of superstar talent, and when we look at the four teams left in the current NHL playoffs, there are multiple superstars on all four rosters. That is markedly different than his time in Pittsburgh, or even Buffalo when he had Eichel, Ryan O'Reilly, and Sam Reinhart.

For fantasy managers, there really is no telling what changes he makes that will improve (or not improve) the team's offence. This is a team that balanced their offensive attack and split their power play units. Some players (Matty Beniers) earned more ice time after the trade of Alex Wennberg, but the team has a chance to re-tool a bit in the offseason and give themselves a different kind of roster. However, unless Beniers or Wright really takes a leap forward, there is still no superstar forward on the roster, so seeing any of them in the 20- to 21-minute range feels unlikely.

Where improvements can be made is the power play. This is a franchise with three seasons of power play goals-for rates in the bottom half of the league and that, combined with the split power play time, caps the upside of their forwards. It isn't keeping someone from a 100-point season, but changing that approach to that ice time allotment could mean the difference between a 60-point and a 70-point season for a couple of their top names. We will have to wait for the exhibition season to see if this will happen or not.  

All told, it's hard to imagine this team being a whole lot better offensively. They are too balanced without high-upside forwards to really take a huge leap forward. Small steps might be the best that fantasy managers can ask for right now.