Just moments after free agency opened on July 1 the Seattle Kraken stole headlines, announcing the team had signed defenseman Brandon Montour to a seven-year, $50 million contract. The move may have been a bit of “zag” for those expecting a forward addition, but Montour was a premier piece. And the importance of a high-end offensive defenseman was on display just months earlier when the Kraken entered a late-season nosedive following Vince Dunn’s injury. (Blaiz Grubic broke down the Montour signing for us.)
Yet, as Kraken fans and media basked in the Montour news believing it to be Seattle’s one big splash, a second report struck like lightning: The Seattle Kraken were also signing former Vegas Golden Knights center Chandler Stephenson to a seven-year, $43.75 million deal.
Huh.
With the benefit of time, there is a lot we can say about the Stephenson deal. Stephenson will play a vital role as a short-term shield for Matty Beniers and Shane Wright–and an Alex Wennberg replacement–who can take difficult matchups and play in all situations. If the team wanted to be competitive this year, it needed someone to take on that role. And Stephenson brings more transition and finishing skill than Wennberg, so the team should see at least a modest bump in offensive production from that role.
That said, the seven-year bet on a 30-year-old forward with limited overall offensive and defensive value brings questions. It may be a move Kraken management felt like it “needed” to make–particularly since it faced offseason pressure from ownership to be competitive. But the deal has potential to be an anchor almost immediately, not to mention years five through seven.
While the salary cap will go up and ease the contract burden down the road, the short-term opportunity cost from a cap and roster construction perspective is high. I do not know if other free agents were realistically available to the team, and Stephenson was one of just a couple of centers available that can play a top-six role.
But the team is now in a cap crunch and may need to retain money or attach an asset to a player in a trade to obtain needed cap flexibility. This underscores that the cost of the Stephenson strategy goes beyond his $6.25 million AAV cap hit.
In the end, two things can be true at once. The deal may end up being a painful one for Seattle, but if the Kraken claw their way back into the playoffs this season, Stephenson will be a critical reason why, and to some extent, that makes it worth it. Let’s get into it.
The Stephenson signing mitigates a key loss, fills an important role
The Kraken entered the offseason knowing they needed to improve. But the first step in getting better is not getting worse. And after last season’s deadline trade of Alex Wennberg, the team undoubtedly got worse.
“When we couldn’t get something done with Wennberg at the deadline, it left a big hole for us,” Francis told the media on July 1 after the Stephenson deal was announced. “So, getting Chandler to add to our lineup is a huge addition.”
As mentioned above, much of the team’s struggles down the stretch last season may be ascribed to the contemporaneous injury to No. 1 defenseman Vince Dunn, but Wennberg played an underappreciated and important role on the team.
First, the Kraken trusted Wennberg with the most difficult even-strength situations. One way a team “shelters” a player or a line is by deployment “on the fly,” i.e., in the flow of play as opposed to after a stoppage. In this regard it is notable that the Kraken did just the opposite with Wennberg. As of the trade last season, Wennberg led all Kraken forwards in deployments for face-offs, and defensive-zone face-offs specifically.
According to Evolving Hockey, Wennberg also faced a more difficult average even strength “quality of competition”–i.e., quality of players he was on the ice against–than any other Kraken player.
Second, Wennberg led all Kraken skaters in special teams minutes, which are by definition higher leverage.
These are vital minutes, and the team certainly believed that it would be a tall order to ask Shane Wright–in his first full NHL season–or Matty Beniers–coming off a challenging campaign–to assume those roles. At the very least, a team with playoff aspirations would risk exposing an Achilles heel without an alternative plan.
Enter Chandler Stephenson, who led all Las Vegas Golden Knights forwards who played at least 20 games played in the 2023-24 season in even-strength (1) total face-off starts per game played (13.7), (2) defensive-zone face-offs per game played (4.2), and (3) quality of competition, as measured by Evolving Hockey. In each instance, his numbers were nearly identical on a per-game basis to Wennberg’s numbers.
Not only that, Stephenson averaged more than a minute-and-a-half shorthanded and almost three minutes on the power play per game, for a per-game total of 4:30 per game on special teams. This would have topped all Kraken forwards, narrowly edging Wennberg, and ranked 42nd overall in the 2023-24 season in special teams time per game.
The Kraken knew simply giving Wennberg’s gloves to another Kraken forward wasn’t enough. Before the team could improve, it needed to replace Wennberg’s role in the lineup. And no other player on the 2024 free-agent market (short of Elias Lindholm) so perfectly fit the bill as Stephenson.
Stephenson’s sneaky skill set fits what the Kraken want to do
When the media assembled around Kraken general manager Ron Francis on July 1, Francis explained the signing by saying “Stephenson is a really good two-way guy who plays with pace [and] has a sneaky skill set,” before going on to mention the added value of Stephenson’s championship experience.
From a pure point production standpoint, Stephenson doesn’t stand out, even on a talented Golden Knights roster. His 51 points ranked 127th in the league in the 2023-24 season.
But Stephenson does have clear standout traits if you turn on the tape. First and foremost, his skill in transition and ability to push play north-south stands out immediately (see video at 1:43).
Over the course of the offseason, the team has made clear that it wants to prioritize a high-speed, rush-based attack as a team identity. On July 1, Francis said, “Stephenson has a lot of pace to his game, and that’s the way we like to play.” On April 22, as the team was contemplating the dismissal of coach Dave Hakstol, Francis mentioned that the team needed to get back to its identity as a “fast” team.
This is Stephenson’s strength. And if he helps the team play with more pace, it has the potential to unlock the most dangerous skills of the team’s other relatively recent big-money free-agent forward signing, Andre Burakovsky.
Stephenson may not rank among the fastest in the league in a 1-on-1 race, particularly at this stage in his career, but he plays with a relentless pace that can wear down the opposition.
He averaged 10.31 miles per hour at even strength during the 2023-24 season according to NHL Edge data, which ranked 60th overall in the league and would have been fifth-fastest on the Seattle Kraken, behind only Matty Beniers, Andre Burakovsky, Yanni Gourde, and Brandon Tanev.
Stephenson uses his speed to create scoring chances. According to data tracked by Corey Sznajder of All Three Zones, Stephenson was in the top 15 percent of the league in the 2023-24 season creating controlled zone entries into the offensive zone leading directly to a scoring chance. His statistics from previous seasons are even stronger, closer to the top five percent in the league.
His passing skill, particularly his ability to set up high-danger opportunities for his teammates, also stands out on tape.
Though his numbers were down in this regard in 2023-24, according to All Three Zones, Stephenson has been an above-average facilitator of dangerous opportunities over the last four seasons in Vegas.
Stephenson’s overall on-ice impacts are lackluster
That said, though Stephenson can dictate terms with skill in some ways, his overall on-ice shot impacts are fairly weak. Kraken fans no doubt recall with some frustration Wennberg’s inability to generate his own shots on goal. Wennberg has generated 4.24 shots on goal per 60 minutes on ice for his career. Yet, Stephenson has produced just 4.32 shots on goal per 60 minutes. (For reference, Stephenson’s career shot rate is the lowest among forwards projected to the 2024-25 Kraken roster; Brandon Tanev is the next lowest with 5.91 shots on goal per 60 minutes for his career.)
In terms of individual shot quality, Wennberg and Stephenson are again similar: Wennberg’s shots could be expected to generate .52 goals per 60 minutes, with Stephenson only slightly better at .61 expected goals per 60 minutes. (Stephenson’s career rate is again the lowest among forwards projected to Seattle’s 2024-25 roster.)
This hints at the broader concern. Overall team shot quality with Stephenson on the ice is a problem. Sorting through Natural Stat Trick‘s forward line tool, there are very few forward combinations where a companion Golden Knights player saw better shot quality outcomes with Stephenson on the ice rather than without him.
The most egregious and well-cited example is Mark Stone. Over the last three seasons, Stephenson and Stone played 1370 minutes together even strength and generated 51.9 percent of overall shot quality during that time. This is good. But the Golden Knights generated 60.6 percent of overall shot quality with only Stone but not Stephenson on the ice. In the reverse scenario–with only Stephenson and not Stone–Vegas generated only 47.8 percent of overall shot quality.
This same pattern repeated with many of Stephenson’s teammates. Data analysts use these disparities to ascribe relative play-driving impacts to individual players. And, as you might surmise, Stephenson has graded quite poorly. This past season, Evolving Hockey had Stephenson’s overall quality impacts once accounting for quality of competition and teammates in the eighth percentile in the league (i.e. bottom 10 percent).
HockeyViz–which provides visual mapping of shot quality outcomes attributed to a player–shows that Vegas generated fewer dangerous opportunities offensively (six percent below average) with Chandler Stephenson on the ice rather than off the ice (three percent above average). Likewise, the Golden Knights conceded more dangerous chances (18 percent worse than average) with Stephenson on the ice rather than off the ice (six percent better than average).
These trends extend to the penalty kill and power play as well. HockeyViz had Stephenson responsible for a five percentage-point reduction in power-play shot quality and three percentage-point increase in penalty-kill shot quality against.
While the 2023-24 season was a nadir for Stephenson, his previous seasons in Vegas were directionally similar. Overall, Stephenson has not been able to translate his skills into successful on-ice shot quality results when divorced from hyper-talented teammates like Stone.
The Stephenson contract is a risky bet
If Stephenson’s on-ice impacts are troubling at age 30, and his overall offensive impacts are similar to Wennberg–who signed a two-year, $10 million contract with San Jose this offseason–one may doubt the value of Seattle’s seven-year, $43.75 million investment. I assembled a list of all contracts signed in the last 10 years by a forward aged 29 years old to 31 years old with a contract term of six years or longer, and an AAV of between 6.1 and 8.1 percent of the salary cap in the first year of the contract. This exercise returned 11 total results, including Stephenson’s deal:
At the time of signing, these players had averaged .59 points per game. Stephenson trails that average only slightly, averaging .55 points per game for his career. However, that figure masks significant underlying weakness in Stephenson’s profile.
No player on the list had fewer goals scored per game played than Stephenson’s .18. No player had fewer shots on goal per 60 minutes than Stephenson’s 4.3–indeed, no other player was below 6.4. And no player in the grouping generated a higher percentage of his points via secondary assists than Stephenson (31 percent).
Perhaps most concerning of all, no player with a comparable contract had generated lower shot quality per 60 minutes than Stephenson’s .61 expected goals per 60 minutes. Tom Wilson was next lowest at .78 expected goals per 60 minutes when he signed his deal last offseason.
Based on how players age, we know that a long-term contract for a player over 30 is unlikely to be a good one. Yet, even when compared against this risky peer group, Stephenson’s contract may be a reach.
The Kraken are gambling their short-term competitive window on Stephenson
Entering the offseason, Kraken fans and media were rightly focused on acquiring a top-end offensive talent, perhaps via a prospect trade. Instead, the team signed Stephenson, an upgrade on Wennberg in the same role, but as we see here, only a marginal upgrade.
Like Wennberg, Stephenson is capable of taking tough assignments and may very well help Beniers and Wright succeed. But also like Wennberg, Stephenson is unlikely to flip his difficult minutes significantly to Seattle’s advantage. By acquiring Stephenson, the team avoided a step back, certainly. But the Kraken also committed its available short-term cap space without taking a huge leap with its forward corps.
The Kraken are gambling that they can get production out of Stephenson that hasn’t been there in the previous 10 years of his career. The Kraken may very well be proven correct; their scouting assessments have been at least solid previously. But it’s a long-shot gamble that will likely determine the team’s short-term competitive prospects.
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Your turn. Dig into our Chandler Stephenson All Shifts videos over on the DeepSeaHockey YouTube Channel and let us know what you see in the comments below or on X/Twitter @deepseahockey or @sound_hockey.
Curtis Isacke
Curtis is a Sound Of Hockey contributor and member of the Kraken press corps. Curtis is an attorney by day, and he has read the NHL collective bargaining agreement and bylaws so you don’t have to. He can be found analyzing the Kraken, NHL Draft, and other hockey topics on Twitter and Bluesky @deepseahockey.