AWA: Daniel Sprong comes to Seattle with a big shot, what comes next?

Daniel Sprong is perhaps a player looking to make a statement as he joins the Kraken. At 25 years old, the forward from the Netherlands is joining his fourth NHL club after being part of the return from the Washington Capitals in the trade for Marcus Johansson.

Sprong was drafted in 2015 by Pittsburgh and played 186 NHL games with the Penguins, the Ducks, and the Capitals prior to coming to Seattle, amassing 64 points and 40 goals along the way. And in his first game as a Kraken player, Sprong showed off what he can do offensively. Almost 14 minutes into the first period, positioned on the left flank of the Seattle power play, Sprong let go of two heavy shots that challenged Arizona goaltender Karel Vejmelka.

And then later in period two, with the Kraken once again playing with the man-advantage, Sprong finished on his next chance.

"In the first period he had (a shot) he put off the pad, and the second (shot) he just missed," Dave Hakstol said postgame. "We hadn't (had) a whole lot going off the power play in the second, so it was a nice way for him to take some of the pressure off the power play by coming down that wing and finding the far side of the net."
But it wasn't just the goal that caught the eyes of coach and fans alike, it was the shot behind it. Hakstol called it "a weapon." Let's take another look.

That shot is something Sprong is proud of.
"It's a quick release, it's hard," Sprong said after the Kraken's 4-2 win in Arizona. "I like to shoot the puck, I think I (have) a pretty good shot, and my linemates did a good job trying to find me and when I get in those areas, I just have to make sure I hit the net and there's a chance to go in."
A player is certainly right to highlight their strengths, but in comparing it to an experience that Sprong described as being "snake-bitten" in Washington - a team that traded him at the deadline - we decided to look at what might be ahead for the young winger as far as his offensive game.
Let's dig in.
First, Sprong does have an incredible ability to get pucks in the net. If we look at the career isolate below from HockeyViz.com, we can see that his finishing ability lives among the upper ranks of the league, rating six percent above average.

But as a player who lives in an offensive space (his defensive contributions are four percent below league average), that offensive production needs to be at its best. Is that how Sprong is playing?
It is true that this season has seen the lowest goal per 60 production for the Dutch forward since his rookie season (.88 G / 60 in 2021-22; .76 G / 60 in 2015-16), and, outside that first NHL year, this has been the second lowest point producing campaign of Sprong's career since 2019-20 in Anaheim. Couple that with the second highest shooting rate that Sprong has ever produced (10.52 per 60; all situations) and one might have some concern.
But there are signs that Sprong could be an offensive contributor after all. Outside his time in Anaheim, the majority of the winger's points have come at even strength, and interestingly this season is his second best in terms of producing individual shot quality (.98 iXG per 60) coming behind only his 2017-18 season in Pittsburgh (1.17 iXG per 60).
Back to that snake-bitten comment.
If you're playing in a way similar to how you always have and the points aren't coming, is it possibly a bit of bad luck? This year marks the second worst shooting percentage of Sprong's career (7.84 all situations, 7.92 even strength) coming only behind the abbreviated 2019-20 season when Sprong played in eight total games. That's well below the current league average shooting percentage (all situations) of 9.67.
That underlying behavior being stronger lends itself to seeing offensive potential in Sprong's game.

Of course, this doesn't mean that now buckets and buckets of goals will come off Sprong's stick, but it's possible that a bigger opportunity in Seattle for a player on the final year of his contract may be able to find his way back to the part of the game that makes him special: offensive production.
"Daniel is a young player, he has some skill," Ron Francis said on trade deadline day. "We'll give him a look in the last 19 games and see what he can do."