After signing defenseman Brandon Montour to the largest contract in franchise history at the opening of free agency on Monday, Seattle Kraken general manager Ron Francis raised eyebrows for a second time by signing center Chandler Stephenson to a seven-year contract that carries a $6.25 million average annual value.
Like Montour, Stephenson is also 30 years old, but while Montour was brought in to help drive offense from the back end, Stephenson will be expected to slot in as a pivot on one of Seattle’s top two forward lines.
After a few low-production, bottom-of-the-lineup years with the Washington Capitals, Stephenson’s career blossomed with the Golden Knights after he was traded there in December, 2019. He ascended to a top-six role and became one of the key pieces that helped Vegas win the Stanley Cup in 2022-23.
How Stephenson fits
In the current makeup of the Kraken roster, Stephenson is a good fit. He’s a solid face-off guy, a two-way forward, and can chip in offensively, having produced at least 16 goals in each of the last three seasons.
Assuming Shane Wright becomes a full-time NHLer next season, and assuming no trades of centers, the Kraken now have Matty Beniers, Stephenson, Wright, and Yanni Gourde down the middle. In a way, Stephenson replaces Alex Wennberg, who went to the New York Rangers at the NHL Trade Deadline in March.
Last week, I predicted the Kraken would aim to add a 20-goal winger and a 20-goal center but did not predict an upgrade to the blue line, which came by way of Montour.
Jared McCann // Matty Beniers // NEW 20-GOAL WINGER
Jordan Eberle // **Chandler Stephenson // Andre Burakovsky
Eeli Tolvanen // Shane Wright // Oliver Bjorkstrand
Tye Kartye // Yanni Gourde // Jaden Schwartz
Brandon Tanev
We still think there’s a chance Seattle looks to snag a scoring winger either via trade or with a shorter-term deal for one of the remaining free agents out there.
Worth noting, Stephenson only broke that 20-goal plateau one time in 2021-22 when he notched 21 goals and 43 assists, so whether he really drives a big offensive improvement for Seattle remains to be seen.
Considering Stephenson’s age and the length of his contract, there are concerns that this deal could be a bad one to have on the books in a few years. The analytics community was overwhelmingly down on this signing, which is certainly concerning.
Still, as I noted with Montour, teams have to overpay to land some of the biggest names in free agency. Is this an example of an overpay? Yes. Could it end up being worth it? Maybe.
Cap situation
As I noted when writing about Montour earlier, the Kraken are reaching salary cap pinch territory. We still don’t know where new contracts for Eeli Tolvanen or Matty Beniers will land, and even without those factored in, Seattle is already down to about $8 million. Add in Tolvanen and Beniers, and they’re likely over the cap.
So, there are certainly moves coming to create space, and if the team does want to add one more forward, then multiple contracts will likely have to be dumped.
Aggressive moves
The Kraken have made no secret they want to be more competitive next season. These are now two splashy moves, and we do not believe they are done.
What say you, folks? Have the Kraken made themselves better?
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
Oh boy yet another center?
They’re certainly better, I’ll take Stephenson as an upgrade over Wennberg, but at this price and terms its kind of hard to stomach. Maybe they see something we don’t in how he was utilized this past year, but he really seemed to regress just from a quick look at the numbers. Not sure how we manage to add another scorer without moving salary like Tanev.
One thought, I can’t help but notice our old friend Daniel Sprong is still available. With Hakstol out, I wouldn’t be opposed to a reunion for a guy who could bring scoring back to the 4th line.
I think the Montour signing absolutely makes them better in the short term. I don’t love the Stephenson signing short term or long term. These don’t seem like Francis type moves. I wonder if he’s getting pressure and maybe realizes he won’t be around when these contracts become a real problem. I hate that I have that outlook.
Totally agree. Someone like Duclair would’ve been a way better fit in terms of scoring and term (only 4 years). In other words, there were ways to make this team better next year but not pay for it years down the road when this team is not just better but actually playoff competitive. Brutal signing.
I like the Mountour deal a lot better than Stephenson. While I applaud the action and the sentiment, I am quite concerned. GMRF’s FA track record is…spotty at best.
Any buyout candidates? Grubauer is the most obvious, but they will need a 2nd goalie, and I am not convinced Joey is ready for 60 starts; they would need a solid vet, who would probably eat up at least half of the savings.
Joey played 64 games in Coachella season before last, and while it is the AHL, he was actually better in the playoffs posting a .926/2.22 in 26 playoff games versus .918/2.38 in 38 regular season games. It doesn’t seem like he wore down.
I think he’s ready for 60 games.
They have made themselves better for maybe a year or two. Maybe. I can only hope they have some non-public information showing that Stephenson was dealing with some ailment that hampered his speed the past year, and they expect him to bounce back? Because otherwise, this smacks of desperation.
Also, with the reasonable goalie deals handed out today (Stolarz, Brossoit), the Kraken could have bought out Grubauer, signed a much better backup to Joey and still saved cap space. Maybe it’s not too late! And may we interest the Leafs in a matching Tanev?
Say what you want…
Beniers
Wright
Stephenson
Gourde
I’m good with that down the middle for the next season.
Definitely made themselves better. Not surprising they’d have to overpay to get quality talent for a fourth year expansion team. Will we hate these deals in five years? Probably, but it’s a cost if doing business.
The problem is there’s a decent chance we’ll hate the Stephenson signing as soon as next year. He’s already 30 and was mediocre last year on a very good team, and now he’s on a much less good team. He is also the highest paid forward on the Kraken, and there’s little to no chance that he’ll produce like it. Grubauer was a terrible signing, but this might be even worse. It may also spell the end of RF if he doesn’t produce and/or if they miss the playoffs.
Ugh I hate that I agree with literally all of this
I didn’t mind a single 7-year contract that will suck near the end, the second one, for a mediocre player, was too much.
To me it smacks of RF only being concerned about the short term and saving his job. Taken together, these moves hurt the Kraken chance of bringing the cup to Seattle. Before any buyouts, they will now have about 10% of the cap space wasted on over the hill players about the time our plethora of high picks are in the league on cheaper deals. I was really looking forward to that window, now not as much.
Totally agree that it smacks of RF being desperate…or….getting pressure. I think I read he signed just one guy (Slavin) to 7 years in his whole time in Carolina. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when RF talked to ownership (assuming that happened). Stevenson especially- there’s no way RF thinks he’s providing value in the future years of this deal. I wonder if ownership was like “we can buy them out or LTIR them. Improve the team in the short term at any cost”. If you can imagine that, you can sorta make sense of these deals. And I totally agree that it will be a huge bummer when these deals suck up cap space when our young guys are on ELCs.
One of those FA moves that will never show up as good value given the contract but can help the team win in the short term. The lack of center depth kinda forced their hand as you can’t run back last year’s scenario where they were woefully thin at C (especially after trading Wennberg). But Montour’s contract will likely to age much better than Stephenson’s.
Dumoulin and Tanev are two guys they should look to move before the season – could clear $3.0 to 6.5 mil which potentially could add another winger via a trade if they are willing to move picks or prospects (depending on what’s available). Evans then plays 3LD. An AHL guy is 7D.
If Daccord performs well again this season, and they can ink him to an extension, Gru is 100% going to get bought out prior to 25-26 – it just makes too much sense to clear additional cap off the books.
Wennberg signed for 2 years, $10M with San Jose. Are the Kraken better with Stephenson than we would have been with a Wennberg reunion? I’m not so sure and don’t want to pay five extra years of Stephenson to find out.
And Skinner just signed with the Oilers for 1/$3M, $500k less than what Brandon Tanev is making. Reminder that he scored 24 goals and 46 points last year in what was considered a disappointing year.
Francis was aggressive in the wrong way, it seems. There were ways to improve the team without signing these awfully long and bloated contracts. It could also be that none of the FA wanted to come to Seattle without getting a premium, for whatever reason. Either way, today was a huge bummer for me. The team is a bit better, sure, but I have less faith in this FO than ever, and a team needs a really savvy FO to win the Cup. I just thought RF was better than this.
Yes… I like Wennberg… the Kraken are better with Stephenson.
I’m so disappointed, this is exactly how I feared things would play out if we were to get aggressive in the FA market. Yes we’re a better team for the next couple of years but not good enough to win a cup…. If we were took a longer term approach and waited for our prospects to develop we could have been in position to challenge, now we we won’t be in a position to resign some of our top players when we need to and instead be watching overpaid vets at the end of their careers…. Fun.
I know I’ve been a bummer on SOH today, but I guess I’m just trying to pinpoint why I feel so bummed. This is something I found online, which pegs it as the worst FA signing of the class, and sums it up nicely:
I have no idea what possessed the Kraken to sign 30-year-old Stephenson for seven years or to give him $6.25 million per season — let alone both. This is an immediate albatross that’s hard to stomach.
Stephenson has a lot of red flags regarding his game, but the main one is that Mark Stone does not play in Seattle. Even if he did, it’s hard to picture Stephenson living up to that price tag in his 30s. He’s an empty-calorie scorer who’s lost a step. With speed being his primary asset, this is a deal that looks ugly on Day 1, let alone seven years from now. Looking at the whole term, Stephenson honestly might not be worth half of what he’s getting.
We’ll always have that hour where we thought we only were signing Montour
Honestly feeling the same way, this signing in particular is really making me question Ron’s plan in general. Why in the world do you give so much term AND money to a player that by nearly every advanced metric says is declining? Never mind that by most accounts his game is based on speed, which is not a skill that ages well. The whole thing is just so bizarre. Would have just preferred Skinner at $6m/1yr and CERTAINLY would prefer DeBrusk at $6m/7 years instead. Or hell, just give Matty the big contract instead.
Just feels like they took advice from a USA Today “top available FA forwards!” list rather than doing any actual in depth research on him.
The guy you’re quoting… he just wrote a lengthy apology for calling Maurice a POS. Not an actual piece of s**t, just an absolutely terrible, horrendous coach. But in his defense, that’s what the spreadsheets said.
It seems to me… and this is just a “vibe”… the “they’re gonna hate that contract down the road” deals are most often not the doom and gloom everyone fears. Plenty are, but I think those get most of the attention. Even during the “flat cap”, teams were doing okay. Sure, there’s Skinner and Vlassic and such, but Dallas is paying Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin a combined $19.35m. They’re 34 and 32 respectively and scored a combined 46 goals. That’s tied with Kaprizov and Point… not combined… individually. Somehow those “albatross” contracts aren’t keeping the Stars from being contenders. All four of those contracts are in the $9m+ range, but Dallas is paying two of them. They contend because they’ve drafted well without tanking and have developed players. To me, that sounds familiar. And also, I think Sean nailed it in the Montour posts… these contracts are largely going to get inflated away.
On Chandler Stephenson… the analytics folks are really showing their talent on this one. I’m a huge advocate for diving into the numbers. I do it all the time to excoriate Grubauer – unfairly sometimes I’m sure. With Stephenson’s numbers though, some context is needed.
Last season he averaged eighteen-and-a-half minutes a night, but only played more than a hundred minutes on one line. By comparison, Eichel’s line with Barbshev and Marchesssault logged 449 minutes together – swapping Marchesssault for Stone was another 186. Stephenson by comparison, topped out at 129 with Cotter and Stone. If everyone remembers, the Knights started the season putting up 23 points in twelve games… and then struggled to make the playoffs. There was a lot of turbulence in Vegas last season and Chandler Stephenson was put into a blender playing on “makeshift” lines for most of the year. I’m not saying he’s a bargain at $6.25m… but the folks that are saying he’s “cooked” are day traders rather than value investors. Context matters, and no offense to Dom and Shayna, but they just read the spreadsheets, they don’t purchase the product.
I applaud the signing.
Go Kraken!!!
I get what you’re saying but let’s talk in three years, this is really more about the term. This contract will tie our hands and don’t give me Ben as an example not even remotely the same players.
I agree with you here… let’s talk in three years. I would have preferred four years, but if that wasn’t an option, I’ll take this over nothing. This year, I think folks are putting was too much stock in what the analytics folks are saying about last season.
I wasn’t trying to compare Benn to Stephenson, I was only pointing out Dallas pays $9m to a 34 year old player who logs 15 minutes a night and only scored 21 goals.. and they are still contenders.
Love the optimism. Hope it’s all true. Hope Stevenson proves the doubters (especially me) dead f’ing wrong. Go Kraken!!
I’ve been a Francis fan but this draft combined with the very bad contract for Stephenson has me seriously doubting whether Francis is right GM for team. Drafted a bunch of left shot centerman plus other centers from previous drafts and in a few years where are they going to play with beniers, wright, and Stephenson taking up top 3 lines unless your going to pay your 4th line center 6.25 mil. Might not even have enough cap space to sign both tolvinin and beniers even with bridge deal. I am very confused by this signing. If Seattle struggle this year next change may be at GM, not coach .
I imagine Gourde will be on the move. It’s way too high a cap hit for a 4C and he is better than a 4C. If they can move Gourde without retention they probably have enough cap space. I loved the Montour signing and even if they had to buy out the last year or two it wouldn’t be horrible. But having to do that with Stephenson too wouldn’t be great
The issue is that Gourde kind of played like a 4th liner last year. Good news is that his contract is up after this year, seemingly right at his decline, unlike these other contracts we just signed.
I know capfriendly is going away, but it used to make me happy and give me solace that we were one of the few teams without the dreaded “red arrow” on the right side, indicating length beyond the page. It is true no longer and it makes me sad.
Feeling sick to my stomach over the Stephenson signing. Makes no sense at all. My only hope is when this contract and the draft prove to be brutal failures that it’s the end of the analytics group in Seattle. This penchant for soft and undersized, “two-way” forwards who shoot from the perimeter and can’t carry the puck into the OZ has to end.
Undersized? Stevenson is six-feet tall and over two-hundred pounds. He is exactly the kind of guy who can play down low, force his way through to the front of the net, screen the goaltender, and deflect the puck in with his reach. He can play the bumper on the power play. He is the big-bodied center that the team has been desperately missing since day one. Yeah, the numbers look godawful on the signing, but the physical presence and play style fit what the Kraken have been lacking to an absolute T. I get why Francis was willing to overpay the guy. It makes hockey sense.
https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/60726/chandler-stephenson
…and he actually wins faceoffs!
We are all entitled to our own opinion, but if you consider Stephenson’s age, the term of his contract, and when this team could have the pieces to contend, I feel this move was the antithesis of hockey sense. Analytics showed him declining already at 30, which happens pretty often for guys with speed as one of their biggest strengths. This signing will be nothing but a burden by time the team has all those extra picks they stockpiled in the league.
Oh yeah, it’s terrible analytics sense. The numbers undeniably hate the signing. My point was that his game, his skills set, is exactly what the Kraken have been missing for the past three years. In terms of actual hockey and not math, the signing makes sense. The Kraken have never had a reliable guy to play the bumper on the power play who is not named Jared McCann–a guy who is much more valuable shooting the puck than he is passing it. They haven’t had a big-bodied center who can win face-offs in the offensive zone and not then be a liability on offense. They have never before had a guy with the combination of speed and size that is needed to blast through the defense of teams who like to load up the defensive zone blue line with four guys. Still, that term makes the contract an albatross. No doubt it is going to suck in a few years. Right now, though, we can expect to watch a better team than what we saw last season because of the signing.
By the way, I have to wonder if this signing was also intended to be insurance in the event that Matty Beniers does not come to camp about twenty pounds heavier than he was last year. And could Francis be thinking that, should contract negotiations go to arbitration, he could point to Chandler Stevenson and say “Matty Beniers is not our first-line center.”? I don’t want to do that stupid “4d chess” thing, but with Beniers not yet signed, could Francis be counting on generating some savings on the Beniers contract with this signing? Just spitballing.
Like Montour, I absolutely love this signing. We now have two more Cup champs in the early phases of their prime (30 is not old) who are going to be great additions to the locker room and will help develop a strong and positive Kraken culture for years to come. Matty Beniers, Shane Wright, Ryker Evans, Berkly Catton will all benefit immensely from these signings, as they will get a chance to be teammates with blue chip level NHL players in the early years of their careers.
If we left things up to the analytics community, we would end up with the Kyle Dubas Toronto Maple Leafs. Lots of great stats, but left wondering why they lack success as a team. Lead by Ron Francis, we have a chance to have a great hockey team.
Just read all the negative comments in here. The hand wringing is borderline hilarious. Seattle just picked up two recent Cup champs who could both easily have 7 more solid years in the tank. The stars of this team are going to be Matty Beniers, Shane Wright and Berkly Catton, but will take a few years to get there. Who better to guide these future young stars than players like Montour and Stephenson?
If you want a great team for years to come, you have to make these types of foundational investments. The amateur outlook is we just added Montour and Stephenson. The evolved, nuanced outlook is you are adding Montour, Stephenson, Wright, Evans and Bylsma, and you just enhanced the environment for Beniers and all the other players with high potential, like Burakovsky, Bjorkstrand, Kartye, McCann, Tolvanen and even Dunn.
On what basis are you saying that those two players have 7 solid years left in the tank? How many hockey players are good or even decent into their mid to late 30s? There’s general consensus that hockey players tend to peak in their mid to late 20s, and decline pretty sharply in their 30s. So, even if Montour and Stephenson are decent or even good for a couple years, this team is not a Cup competitor in the next couple years anyway without any true star level top line talent (like you mention), so what’s the point of these lengthy contracts?
In terms of “cup winners”, the magical cup-winning auras of Dunn, Schwartz, and Gourde hasn’t really helped so far, so why would it all the sudden make a difference to have these particular cup winners on the team?
Do you think Wyatt Johnston could have been as confident and good as he is at the NHL level without Pavelski and Suter? And you’re just wrong about age in hockey. Go try to build a playoff contending team with a bunch of sub 30 year olds.
Montour is a D-man. They can be very good well into their 30’s. Stephenson will be fine.
Definitely some over reactions, including by me on Stephenson. Further digesting this signing there are positives. Stephenson contract will not age well but no question these additions immediately make team better and provide another solid center along with Beniers and Wright. And when looking at historically bad contracts; 6.26 mil is not too bad. Its the 8+ mil long term deals that can really hurt a team.
In about three years, when this team should be on an upward trajectory, you will realize how bad the Stephenson signing was. Until that time, it will look just fine.
In about three years Stephenson will be on the left wing replacing Jaden Schwartz at about exactly the same cap percentage he’s taking up right now.
There are plenty of folks who’d like to move Schwartz, but I don’t hear anybody talking about how he’s killing this team.
The difference is Schwartz will be 34 when his contract expires. Stephenson will be 37. Those years of suck with the Stephenson contract line up so, SO, poorly.
I think the three final years of Stephenson will be circumstantial. If they’re competing, they move that contract, if they’re not, it doesn’t hurt so much.
Regardless of the term, I think folks should be focusing on the first three to four years… and I think that is a “wait and see”.
They almost went to the Western Conference final in their second season. Took Dallas to game 7. This is not a team in rebuild looking for young players.
Right now the fourth line is Kartye, Gourde, and Tanev. That’s $9.5m. I think there has to be something still in the works…
Stay tuned…
True, but I don’t think Bylsma and Francis care about the Lines 1-4 hierarchy. The culture they are going to try to continue is 4 lines that grind the opposition into submission, at least until Matty, Shane and Berkly mature. Then maybe they re-assess. Personally, I love the four-line grind that potentially makes us hard to play against. It confuses all the pundits in suits, too, and that’s really fun to follow 😄
I absolutely agree with that… I think they’re definitely rolling three second lines and adding another line. I was listening to a podcast yesterday and the guys were going with the idea the Kraken were going to return to a traditional 1-4 and all the problems that was going cause with Stephenson being signed. With this roster, I don’t see that… especially when you look around the league.
That being said, I think the money being spent on Tanev could be better deployed further up the lineup and a less expensive alternative could provide the same result next to Yanni.
I’m okay with this group, but I think it needs one more upgrade.
Whose Line Is It Anyway?
In 75 games…
…15 goals, 44 points, minus 14.
…16 goals, 51 points, minus 9.
Chandler Stevenson and Alex Wennberg. I wasn’t keen on moving Wennberg either. He would have been the perfect 3C to have locked up long-term
Actually, the first one is Elias Lindholm last season and the second one is Chandler Stephenson last season…
Lindholm also signed yesterday for seven years, but for a million-and-a-half more a season… he’s 7 months and 10 days younger.
That made me look it up, and, wow, Wennberg only had ten goals and twenty assists last year. I could have sworn that it was more. That shows my bias, I guess.