The Seattle Kraken made their first dip into the 2025 free agency market on Tuesday with the signing of left-shot defenseman Ryan Lindgren to a four-year contract carrying a $4.5 million annual cap hit.
“Ryan’s a heart-and-soul player who competes every shift,” said Kraken general manager Jason Botterill. “He does whatever it takes to win and has been a key fixture on the penalty kill throughout his career. We’re excited to welcome him to the team.”
The 27-year-old, who was born in my hometown of Burnsville, Minn., is a defensive-minded defenseman who has consistently averaged north of 19 minutes per night. He doesn’t contribute much offensively, but he’s a guy who was leaned on by the New York Rangers for years as a shutdown-type player.
This past season, Lindgren had two goals and 17 assists in 54 games for the Rangers before adding two more goals and one assist in 18 games with the Avs. He’s considered a great locker room guy—one who will take on the toughest assignments, block shots, and—as Botterill noted—kill penalties.
Where Lindgren fits with the Kraken
If you’re scratching your head about how Lindgren fits in at this point, you’re not alone. The Kraken already had four left-shot defensemen in Vince Dunn, Jamie Oleksiak, Ryker Evans, and Josh Mahura.
So obviously, something has to give with one of those four. Any of Dunn, Oleksiak, or Evans could be valuable trade chips, although both Dunn (two years remaining on his deal) and Oleksiak (one year remaining) have 16-team no-trade clauses in their contracts.
This does harken back to memories of last offseason when the Kraken signed Brandon Montour to a seven-year, $50 million contract at the opening of free agency, leading to Brian Dumoulin being traded to the Anaheim Ducks the following day.
Could something along those lines be in the works? Stay tuned.
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.
I think this is getting Oleksiak’s replacement in place. I can’t imagine they’re resigning him. With only one year left, I think he’d be open to being moved and there will be contending teams looking for a player like him.
This feels like Oleksiak out.
Not sure how this could be confusing to anyone. You sign a guy you want on your team and figure it out. Oleksiak not a legit 2nd pair D, anyway. Now you have one. Good signing.
Lindgren has some serious sandpaper, too. Adding Marchment and Lindgren, I like where this team is heading. Definitely checking the box of being tougher to play against.
Don’t forget Gaudreau. I’m with you. I love how much tougher this roster is already. I will be happy to never again see anything as disgraceful as when Anaheim last visited.
Fourth D man on the Athletic UFA board behind Gavrikov, Orlov (33 years old) and Burns (63 years old).
I thought Burns was 64 😆
Oh yeah, he just had a birthday in March… 64.
Sounds like something else is possibly brewing in a package deal involving maybe Oleksiak with some other team.
Agree that this seems to be a replacement for Oleksiak. Or an insurance policy if Evans gets an offer sheet.
In other news, looks like Eyssimont is heading to Buffalo.
I read headed to Boston. I liked the player, good luck to him.
Puckpedia originally said Buffalo…looks like it’s been updated to Boston. At least they got the first letter of the city correct.
The only disagreement I have with Darren’s article is that after signing Montour, Dumoulin wasn’t really traded to the Ducks — he was given away. 🙂
We got a ’26 4th round pick
Seems like the Kraken have to push the term further than they should to get players to sign here, which leads to the contracts getting panned almost universally. This is likely a downgrade if he replaces one of Dunn, Oleksiak or Evans in the lineup, although you could argue Oleksiak isn’t a whole lot better at this point. I’m curious if Evans is going to play RD on the 3rd pairing with Lindgren.
Are you saying four years for a 27 year old defensemen is too long?
Have you looked at the Kraken’s defense prospects? I don’t think he has to be too worried about tying up a spot, and given the premium on defensemen right now… four years seems just fine.
4 years to Lindgren is about 2 or 3 years too long based on his performance.
There’s always some other GM that’s willing to take on a bad contract (i.e. Burakovsky) anyways so it’s probably irrelevant.
Prospects are irrelevant to whether a player is worth the contract they just signed.
If you’re not considering the value of a player to your team and taking into account roster construction (over time), how are you actually pricing a player?
Oleksiak Was high on a lot kraken fans wish list to trade, I fell this is reasonable $$$ and term as he’s still in his 20’s. Good signing if they can dump Oleksiak.
There’s zero evidence of that. In fact this offseason should show you the term is pretty normal. Provorov got a 7 year deal and he’s a far worse defenseman. Marchand is being paid till he’s 43. This narrative has no basis in reality.
Every team has to push further than they should on term, but just because other teams are handing out bad contracts doesn’t mean you have to sign your 5th LHD to a 4 year deal. It’s probably irrelevant anyways because they can always find another GM to take the contract on later.
As for Provorov Columbus had to go longer in term and dollars because they have the same issues getting players to sign there, not to mention he’s significantly better than Lindgren. Marchand got 6 years just to lower his cap hit, but we all know he’s going to end up on LTIR the last few ears of that deal anyways.
Sorry, but this is just a terrible take. This sounds like Lamoriello saying every contract is too long and too much.
Apparently, we’re supposed to sign or trade for the top 20 players in the league and sign them for 1 year on at $775k. How could they possibly say no??? After all, we don’t have sales tax and they can (hopefully) get a 1-bedroom condo in Ballard on that giant salary!
Oops meant income tax not sales tax. Cat is helping me post (his dinner is in 15min)
I’m with Daryl here, this is a next level bad take. It’s crazy the mental gymnastics people will do to avoid admitting they’re wrong. I’ll give you two other examples.. Codi Ceci and Dumoulin both signed two 4 and 3 years putting them in their mid to late 30s when done vs Lindgren who you’re buying 3-4 years younger. You’re just wrong here bud and that’s ok to admit.
I get that you guys like them to sign bottom of the lineup players to multi-year contracts because other bad teams do the same. It’s fine.
Lol. LA signed Ceci for 4 x 4.5m AND Dumo for 3 x 4m. Lindgren is a good signing. It’s especially good at 4 years. I don’t understand why some fans are allergic to building a hockey team. Signing guys you want for 1-2 years isn’t building a team.
And if you think Lindgren is a 3rd pair D…that’s also hilarious.
Lindgren is only twenty-seven, which means that this contract takes him to thirty-one, near the end of his prime years. If anything, I would imagine that Botterill wanted more term on the deal, not less. Also, Lindgren had been pulling down almost twenty minutes a night for the Rangers. He is a solid second-pairing guy when he is healthy. I imagine that his injury history is the only reason that Botterill got him so cheap. Another positive to Lindgren’s game is that he is capable of playing on his off-hand side, which means that he could move up and down the pairings pretty easily. This signing clearly makes the team better and tougher.
On the other hand, there is that injury history. I swear, every video I found of Lindgren during a quick search was of something awful happening to him. All except one: a high hit he once delivered to Joonas Donskoi. I did not particularly care for that. On paper, this signing was a fabulous bargain on a high-quality player, perhaps the best defenseman available. We just have to hope that his luck turns for the better on the West Coast.
Matt Murray?
At least they don’t have to rush Kokko, and Murry should have no problem getting through waivers.
The Senators’ backup? He’s not a terrible backup to have. I would think that he is going to start the year in Coachella Valley and serve as insurance in case Grubauer or Daccord struggles so that Kokko can spend the whole year as the top guy for the Firebirds. They seem to value that, given what Lambert said about giving Semyon Vyazavoy that opportunity in the KHL before bringing him across the Behring Strait. Besides, the Kraken seem to have good luck with former Senators netminders.
I will not be sad if Big Rig moves to a new home. He was great but if a big (read huge) guy playing D doesn’t like to hit? move along please. I’m excited for all these new players.
As I have said in prior posts, I did not think the LD with Oleksiak traded was strong enough with just Dunn, Evans, and Mahura and was wondering what the team was going to do about it. Here is the answer.
The things about Lindgren is not what he was but what he is. UFAs commonly get signed based on their prior reputations, not their current status. Reading through NYR fan and other comments, it seems he is regularly injured, due to his style of play. Another concern is that this had led to him slowing down from prior versions of himself. What the Kraken get might be less than what people believe.
With that said, pre-trade, Is JO no. 2 and RL no. 3 or vice-versa? And what happens to Ryker Evans, does he shift to 3RD? And what does this mean for the opportunities for Ottavainen in the NHL this season? Or are they assuming D injuries and will give VO his shot then?
Speaking of the chronically injured, Matt effing Murray? Could the Kraken have bottom fished any lower? Is he the Ales Stezka for 2025-26? Given Kokko’s trajectory last year, I can foresee both Grubauer and Murray soon being the goalies in CV, with Kokko given NHL reps. At least I hope so.
Still waiting for a meaningful needle-moving transaction from GMJB. Is one still coming this summer or it this it?
Considering he had a career-best 24-25 season with a career-high in points and assists and tied his career-high in goals, I’m ok with this…
This may ruffle some feathers of some by me even mentioning this… Since we are now in the month of July it is time to change the Seattle Kraken social media accounts back to its normal logo!