Interesting to see a few Canadian team games on the ESPN / ESPN+ schedule. Aimed at expats perhaps?
The Vancouver - Seattle game may be just trying to tap into a budding regional rivalry.
1.) They are limited by the number of times they can take a US team for an exclusive game. Because they are near max on the exclusivity they have to work in more games with Canadian teams.
2.) ESPN+ is a subscription streaming service, so rating don’t matter. The aim is to get US fans to subscribe to get the 8 or so games that are exclusive to ESPN+. Who those teams play those games doesn’t matter. There is only 1 Leafs game on actual ESPN and that is the only ESPN/ABC game that has a Canadian team. Turner has more Canadian games, but that is more of a function of having to fill a bigger schedule, team limitations and having to do a last minute schedule adjustment because of the AEW situation.
3.) the Vancouver-Seattle game is the Kraken’s first home game.