The Seattle NHL club is an expansion professional ice hockey team situated in Seattle, Washington that will begin play in the 2021-22 National Hockey League (NHL) season. The team will be owned by Ice Edge Holdings and will be called the Seattle Kraken. The franchise was announced on September 18, 2019 as a part of the NHL's annual draft lottery. The Kraken will be the first major sports team based in the state of Washington since the SuperSonics left Seattle for Oklahoma City in 2008. The NBA's SuperSonics were founded in 1967 and relocated to Oklahoma City four years later. The Sonics played in Seattle until they were forced to relocate due to financial difficulties. The team became the Trail Blazers in 1977 after previously being known as the San Francisco Warriors and Denver Nuggets. In the NHL, only three teams have been established without having played a single game yet still taken part in the playoffs: the Ottawa Senators (1892-1993), the Winnipeg Jets (Manitoba Hockey Club), and the Tampa Bay Lightning (1997-present). The Kraken will be the second American ice hockey team after the Colorado Avalanche to be named after a sea creature (the first being the marine-themed Vancouver Canucks).