Kraken and Jessica Campbell, NHL's first women's assistant coach, part ways

Kate Shefte, The Seattle Times on Apr 30, 2026

Published in Hockey

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SEATTLE — Jessica Campbell will look beyond the Kraken bench after two seasons in Seattle.

The trailblazing assistant coach has opted to explore new opportunities, according to the team. It was a mutual decision, and her contract expires this summer.

The door is still open for a potential return, and the Kraken will keep in touch.

“She has expressed her desire to explore other coaching roles across the league and we support her in this process,” general manager Jason Botterill said in a team statement.

“We respect her decision and believe strongly in her as a coach in this league.”

Campbell, 33, was a forward at Cornell and spent three seasons in the Canadian Women’s Hockey League. After her playing career ended, she started working as a skating coach. During the pandemic, she started coaching NHL players in the Kelowna, British Columbia, area preparing for the 2020 Stanley Cup playoff “bubble.”

She then took a job as an assistant and a skills coach for the Nurnberg Ice Tigers of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga in Germany. Campbell was the first woman on the coaching staff of a men’s national team at the 2022 IIHF Men’s World Championship.

As former Coachella Valley Firebirds coach Dan Bylsma filled out his staff before the Kraken affiliate’s inaugural season, he recalled then-Seattle GM Ron Francis asking — would he be open to hiring a woman?

Campbell’s name kept coming up. Bylsma reached out through the “contact me” box on Campbell’s coaching website. Campbell said she thought the “nonchalant request” from a well-known hockey name was spam, but they connected eventually.

In 2022, Campbell became the first woman to coach full-time in the American Hockey League. That new team, populated with veterans while the Kraken’s farm system filled out, went to the Calder Cup Finals twice in two years.

Campbell was promoted from Seattle’s affiliate to the NHL club alongside Bylsma in 2024, becoming the first woman in a full-time, behind-the-bench role. As an assistant coach, she helped oversee the power play, which landed 23rd (18.9%) in the 32-team league.

The season went sideways fast, and the Kraken finished tied for the fourth-worst point total in the league. When head coach Bylsma was fired after just one season, the organization announced Campbell would stay on under the next coach they hired. She was the only returnee as the staff turned over. She remained an assistant, albeit in a different role, on current coach Lane Lambert’s staff.

Lambert took charge of the forwards, Aaron Schneekloth had defense and the penalty kill, and Chris Taylor ran the power play. Campbell remained on the bench, offering observations and guidance, and was something of a liaison. She wore an earpiece, communicating to Lambert and the rest of the bench what the video coaches were seeing. She was particularly involved during coaches’ challenges.

During practices she worked with the Kraken’s younger forwards, players coming off injuries, and extra skaters.

“Her skill set is skating, and she’s done a really good job of working with our players, improving in that area,” Lambert said in March.

“Definitely very involved, hard working. She’s got a lot of ideas.”

She prepped video packages for 23-year-old, top-line center Matty Beniers and helped him improve his skating, specifically his edgework, lateral movements and glide.

“And she has a good feel of, like, how guys are feeling … if they’re kind of down, if they’re not really confident right now,” Beniers said recently.

“She does have a really good feel about the locker room.”

Campbell is often credited with coaching up undrafted NHL forward Tye Kartye, who appeared in 180 regular-season games with the Kraken before he was waived in February. He landed with the Rangers and nearly doubled his Seattle season point total in New York.

The Kraken missed the playoffs again this season under Lambert, finishing 27th.

Campbell only quit playing in 2020, but her résumé is full and diverse, with skills and development bolded alongside her work with forwards and the power play.

Her name is certainly out there already. The wild reaction to her NHL hiring may have died down, but she will always be the first.

“It’ll be a great day when it’s old news and not as exciting and (actually) kind of boring, to see a woman behind any men’s pro bench or just working,” Campbell said in February.

“(The fanfare) definitely died down. And I think that’s actually something to celebrate in the sense that … now let’s win. Let’s make a story about winning and moving forward. That diverse teams, diverse staffs, can have just as much success.”