Several weeks have passed since the Seattle Kraken made a significant splash in free agency by committing $90 million to two high-profile signings. Assuming no trades on the horizon, the Kraken’s roster appears set for the 2024-25 season. I have previously stated on the Sound Of Hockey Podcast that both Chandler Stephenson and Brandon Montour are likely to immediately join the first power play unit when the regular season begins. Evaluating the impact of these additions to the power play is challenging, but I wanted to take a deep dive into the Kraken’s power play potential.
Historical power play performance
The Kraken’s power play performance last season was not bad; in terms of power play execution percentage, they were just slightly below league average and ranked 17th in the league.
Additionally, the Kraken’s power play has improved in each of the last three seasons.
The improvement between 2021-22 and 2022-23 can largely be attributed to the acquisitions of quality shooters Oliver Bjorkstrand, Andre Burakovsky, Eeli Tolvanen, and a full year of Daniel Sprong, replacing the power play minutes of Marcus Johansson, Calle Jarnkrok, Morgan Geekie, Joonas Donskoi, and a portion of the minutes of Ryan Donato and Yanni Gourde.
It is probably a safe assumption to expect Montour to take Schultz’s power play time on ice, plus more. Stephenson will likely end up in the top five in power play time on ice next season. He will replace all of Wennberg’s power play time and, likely, Jaden Schwartz’s time as well, since they all play similar roles on the power play. Montour had the most power play time on ice for defensemen on Florida with 15,466 seconds, while Stephenson had the third most power play time on Vegas with 12,957 seconds. Clearly, Montour and Stephenson were key pieces of their respective teams’ power plays, but how much are they contributing to power play scoring?
Contribution of power play points
Evaluating how much a player contributes to scoring on a power play is a rather simple calculation: the sum of a player’s points divided by the total team’s power play goals.
This is how the Kraken looked last season:
Now let’s bring in Montour and Stephenson to see how they stack up.
It is not a perfect analysis, but if Montour and Stephenson contribute at the same rate with the Kraken as they did with their 2023-24 teams, they will certainly provide an upgrade over the players they will be replacing on the power play.
Chandler Stephenson’s passing
One thing public models cannot evaluate very well, if at all, is a player’s ability to pass the puck. Most public models use the play-by-play data published by the NHL for every game. If you scan through any game’s play-by-play data, you won’t see ‘pass’ as a play type. This unfairly handicaps the evaluation of elite passers. I am not saying that Chandler Stephenson is an elite passer, but I know he is at least a ‘very good’ passer.
Here are a couple examples of power play assists from Stephenson.
Adding a player like Stephenson to the Kraken’s power play will be exciting to watch. He has the potential to elevate the play of those around him and could significantly increase the team’s execution and options on the power play.
Wrapping it up
The Kraken’s power play has steadily improved over the past three seasons, and the additions of Stephenson and Montour provide an opportunity to build on that momentum. Both players bring substantial power play experience and proven track records of contributing to their former teams’ success. Stephenson’s exceptional passing ability could be a game-changer, creating a more dynamic power play. While predicting the exact impact of these new additions is challenging, the potential for a more potent and effective power play is evident. As the season unfolds, it will be exciting to see how these changes translate on the ice and if the Kraken can become one of the top 10 power play teams in the league.
Monday!
I know the public stats don’t quantify passing, but Corey Sznajder’s All Three Zones tracks five different plays to try and capture this dimension.
Stephenson’s numbers were outstanding season before last; unfortunately, like most of his other numbers, they fell off a cliff last year.
I know there has been speculation that his speed – which has been an exceptionally strong trait – may have slowed a bit and that age is behind his decline last season. It seems to me that would show up more unevenly in the stats, but his drop off was very uniform.
I’m expecting the Kraken have scouted him very carefully and have identified something else. Personally, I think being shuffled around on different lines had a lot to do with it. Last year, he only topped 100 minutes (128.5) on one line. The three seasons before he logged at least 250 minutes on the same trio. Hopefully some consistency can help him return to form.
Go Kraken!!!
I don’t care how well they scouted him it was a huge overpayment in both cap hit and term. An overpayment that was out of desperation to sell seats without clear vision 5 years down the road. We will be without doubt a worse team in the future because of this trade, yes better for a few years until our youth needs new contracts….. are we going to package him with a few picks or prospects to clear him out? A buyout? I wish we’d stop talking about this signing it’s just depressing.
Edit, because of this signing not trade….
If you were to tie RF to a lie detector, I am sure even he would say the term is way too much. That is just the nature of free agency. I often say when you sign 7-or 8-year deals, what you are really paying for is the first four years. In my opinion, it becomes what do you get out of him in the first four seasons. IMHO, if you get ~50 points/season over the next four seasons, it is undoubtably worth it. If it is less, it becomes a little less obvious if it was worth it.
What would your threshold be for it to be considered a success?
John,
I’ve been thinking a lot about where these contracts are going to end up and what that means long term. A couple things have come to mind.
First, it seems like a lot of the “contenders” are carrying around these “anchors”. Florida will still be paying Keith Yandle next season and Edmonton will still be paying James Neal. I don’t think Stephenson’s contract is going to be nearly the barrier folks are thinking it will be.
The second thing has to do with your article about which contender Seattle is most similar to and the New York model specifically. The biggest issue I had with that version was the Panarin factor. I was thinking that sort of “elite” player is going to be very difficult for the Kraken to attract… and then I think about the Panthers.
Florida was a backwater nobody wanted to go to… until they started winning. Lately, they’ve been able to attract top talent – like Matthew Tkachuk – because they’ve proven they can win… and there’s no state income tax.
I think if Seattle can get three or four decent seasons out of Stephenson – seasons where they make the playoffs – and he can help give the club time to develop down the middle, I think the payoff will be more than just on the ice. I also think the backend of the contract will be manageable.
I also don’t think people understand how much the cap will go up in the next 5 years making that cap hit in year 5 – 7 being much much lower of a %. The dramatic increase is related to catching up now that COVID $ has been repaid. I’ve heard that it could go up 3M a year.
Is four 50-point seasons realistic, though? Your analysis of free agent signings from last month (as well as the public aging curve work I’ve seen) would seem to indicate it’s unlikely. If you use last season’s 0.68 points per game as a baseline and apply the percentage drops from the article, you would get two 48 point seasons and one 42 point season (assuming he plays full seasons every year). Using 22-23’s .80 points per game would give you 57 points in year 2 (year 1 of this contract) and 49 points in year 3 (contract year 2).
Were the numbers significantly different for the next tier of free agents (in which case I’d be interested in seeing them)? Or are we assuming that the magnitude of his dropoff last year means that he should be expected to rebound enough (on a new and possibly worse team) to cover for any further aging-related decline?
totally fair asking if those are realistic. My point was more along the lines of saying, if he gets 50pts/season over the next 4, it would be hard to argue it is a bad contract. 40pts/season it is maybe just ok. It is just an exercise.
There is no guarantee that any of the other centers would have wanted to sign in Seattel but I see the comps in the ballpark were Elias Lindholm ($7.75 * 7 years), Wennberg ($5M * 2), Sean Monahan ($5.5M * 5), and Yegor Sharangovich ($5.75 * 5). The next tier would probably be Max Domi ($3.75 * 4), Yakov Trenin ($3.5 * 4), and Blake Lizotte ($1.85 * 2). I don’t think Duchene or Henrique are fair comps since it seemed like both took discounts to stay at their existing teams.
I should clarify, by “the next tier of free agents” I meant the next cohort of older free agent contracts since Stephenson doesn’t make the cutoff of 8% of the cap that you used in the “are huge free agent contracts worth it” post.