A recent story from Dom Luszczyszyn of The Athletic gained traction locally when it cast doubt on the performance of the Seattle Kraken front office in free agency. Luszczyszyn analyzed unrestricted free agent contracts from the last five years against the player’s “expected value” as of the time of signing under his player performance model. While Luszczyszyn’s goal was to understand whether teams in states without state income tax had an advantage, he noted that Seattle ranked last (tied with Anaheim) in contract dollars relative to value in his sample.
As Luszczyszyn concedes, his model is “not the [sole] arbiter of truth,” but his analysis raises a number of questions. How do free agency decisions get made? And how have the Kraken measured up against expectations? Are there other ways we can or should be looking at the issue if our goal is to understand Seattle’s performance signing unrestricted free agents on the market?
That’s our topic for today. With contract data from PuckPedia and contract projections from Evolving Hockey, I can offer a few more data points to consider. Let’s get to it.
The most dangerous day on the calendar
July 1 is a chaotic day for NHL front offices. The restriction on contacting free agents from other teams is lifted at noon Eastern Time, and within hours, a large majority of the “best available” free agents have signed a contract.
It is a frenzied end to an arduous process. In the months leading up to free agency, teams spend countless hours valuing players and identifying targets, culminating in June pro scouting meetings where an offseason plan is set. All of that work is deployed on July 1.
“I’ve always said the two most dangerous days are trade deadline day and free agency day,” Seattle Kraken president of hockey ops Ron Francis has often refrained, because “it’s easy to overpay for players” at those times. This is a common sentiment around the league. Columbus Blue Jackets general manager Don Waddell has called July 1 a day where “you can get yourself in big trouble.”
Why is this? What actually happens during those fleeting hours on free agency day? Kraken general manager Jason Botterill gave a glimpse behind the curtain to Seattle Kraken season ticket holders during a July 3 breakfast before the final day of the 2025 Kraken Development Camp.
Shortly after noon, teams contact player agents with a fully realized offer, along with a pitch about why the team and market is a good fit for the player. In a competitive situation, the agent is compiling multiple offers and helping the player decide between them. It is relatively rare that a negotiation on core term or value elements happens on July 1 because there is not time to do it. The agent may come back with a minor counteroffer around the margins relating to signing bonuses, cash flow, or the like, but July 1 deals often resemble the team’s initial proposal.
This puts a lot of stress not only on the team’s internal player valuations—we think this forward is “worth” X—but also its market analysis—this player is one of the only top-six centers available, and we think he’ll get a competitive offer from team Y or Z. Teams are making big decisions, in a hard-cap environment, based on imperfect information—hence the danger.
Methods of analyzing performance in free agency
Through five free agency periods, how have the Seattle Kraken performed in their unrestricted free agent contracts? Has the team beaten or fallen behind its competitors? We could strive for answers a few ways.
Return on investment approach. One approach would be to consider the return on investment. With the benefit of hindsight, how have the players the Kraken signed performed relative to the contracts given to them? This could be judged by various standard or advanced metrics measuring player performance.
This is a worthy inquiry, but it is probably premature to reach any conclusions for the Kraken using this method given that the final analysis remains open on several deals the Kraken signed before the team ever took the ice, including Philipp Grubauer, Jamie Olekisak, and Jaden Schwartz. Perhaps we can return to this approach a few years down the road.
Projected performance approach. Another approach would be to compare the contracts the team handed out versus a projection of player value over the term of the contract at the time the contract was signed. This approach is unconcerned with actual performance and escapes any accusation of hindsight bias by using only the information that was available as of signing. This was Luszczyszyn’s approach, using his model. Again, Luszczyszyn’s model is not the only one. One could use other methods of projecting player value using standard or advanced metrics or alternative player valuation models.
Market approach. As we discussed above, though, player value is only half of the player acquisition story. What if we wanted to understand how the player contract measured up against market expectations at the time it was signed? One could do this by comparing the contracts the Kraken handed out against contemporaneous projections of player market value.
This is a complex task that involves developing an accurate understanding of how to predict market value. Fortunately for us, Evolving Hockey has developed such a contract projection system that has proven quite accurate over time.
I would recommend giving Evolving Hockey‘s contract projection explainer a read. In short, the model uses inputs including position, age, contract status, draft round, years since draft, time on ice, goals, primary assists, individual shot attempts, individual expected goals, giveaways, takeways, on-ice 5-on-5 goal differential, and on-ice 5-on-5 shot attempt differential, among others, to create value projections based on various potential term lengths. The model yields a “projected” contract by estimating the contract term first and then linking it to the AAV the model projects for that term.
For example, Evolving Hockey’s contract tool projected a four-year contract for defenseman Ryan Lindgren in free agency this offseason with a further projection of $4.841 million average annual value. Ultimately, Lindgren signed a four-year contract with a $4.5 million average annual value in Seattle. Regardless of what a specific projection system may predict Lindgren’s future value—whether Luszczyszyn’s or any other—we can say that Lindgren’s contract was roughly in line with what the expected market was for him.
Using Evolving Hockey’s projections plus contract information compiled by PuckPedia, we can generalize from this individual example to every unrestricted free agent signing during the summer free agency period over the last five years—i.e., since the Kraken have been in existence—to determine which contracts and teams have gone over or under market expectation. How does Seattle fare?
Kraken contracts versus market expectation
While Luszczyszyn’s projected-value approach disliked Seattle’s contracts, our market-oriented analysis tells a slightly different story. On a per-year basis—which is how Luszczyszyn reported his results—Seattle’s contracts came in better than expectation: approximately $160,000 lower than predicted by Evolving Hockey’s model.
(It’s worth noting that for reasons explained shortly, goalies are not included here. If Philipp Grubauer’s six-year, $35.4 million deal were part of it, the Kraken may have poorer contract performance metrics.)
In terms of total contract value paid, however, Seattle does come in above the predicted level. The contracts averaged $1.15 million total value above expectation. This is because three of the more overvalued contracts based on Evolving Hockey’s model (Brandon Montour, Chandler Stephenson, and Jaden Schwartz) were also significantly longer-term deals than projected.
Where does Seattle stack up versus the rest of the league? In terms of annual contract value surplus, the Kraken rank 14th in the NHL over the last five years. In terms of total contract value, Seattle ranks 27th.
Remarkably, Anaheim’s contracts, which were tied for last in Luszczyszyn’s projected annual value analysis, come out middle of the pack in this look on an annual basis and best in the league on a total surplus value basis.
Market analysis methodology
For this exercise, I compiled a list of all unrestricted free agent skater contracts signed between June and September over the last five summer signing periods valued at $1 million average annual value or greater. I believe this mostly replicates Luszczyszyn’s sample, though he didn’t specify whether he included unrestricted free agents re-signing with their own team before reaching free agency.
I included signings in June because by that point these players understand their market value (ahem) even if they are not technically a free agent. It was also necessary to capture many significant signings, including the Mitch Marner signing this offseason.
I excluded contract extensions—deals that would begin a full season out—since those are not true unrestricted free agent signings. Goalies weren’t included because Evolving Hockey does not create projections for them. (Luszczyszyn’s analysis didn’t include goalies either.) And, finally, I excluded low-value contracts below $1 million because the question of “value” disappears for marginal players whose contracts can be buried in the AHL without payroll or cap consequence. (Luszczyszyn also excluded these low-value deals.)
Conclusions, caveats, and context (plus taxes)
Looking at Seattle’s contracts chronologically (as displayed in Table 1 above), we see that the Kraken have generally met or out-performed market expectations, with just a few exceptions. While Seattle signed a few “above-market” contracts in its inaugural year, this makes sense when factoring in that the team likely needed to pay a premium to attract veteran talent to a new franchise. Beyond that, only the 2024 signings of Montour and Stephenson stand out negatively based on Evolving Hockey’s market value model. And there is plenty of context to put around those signings—Seattle had a surplus of cap space, a deficit of talent, and immense pressure to compete as a new franchise looking solidify its fanbase and season-ticket renewals under the specter of the NBA’s return to city.
Even omitting that important context, Seattle’s five-year market performance (as displayed in Table 2 above) is very similar to that of the well-regarded Tampa Bay Lightning, both on an annual and total-value basis. Returning to Luszczyszyn’s original prompt, this is particularly notable because the Lightning’s home state of Florida is income tax free, just like Washington State.
Any approach has its limitations, and this one is no different. Looking at Seattle’s deals with hindsight, it’s easy to say that the “best” market value contract (Andre Burakovsky) was a debacle, while the “worst” market value contract (Montour) had a strong first year. Again, this market study is not attempting to measure return on investment. That’s a different analysis—one we may undertake in a few years.
Finally, a few caveats before we close this out. First, Evolving Hockey missed about a dozen projections league-wide over the five-year stretch. I don’t think those contracts would have significantly influenced the results here because each of the contracts were relatively minor.
Second, the five-year sample is quite small. There’s no way around that; individual outlier contracts can easily skew a team’s standing in this study.
Finally, as mentioned above, this study does not account for goalie contracts. Philipp Grubauer’s contract remains one of the largest in Kraken franchise history, and it was met with mixed reception at the time it was signed. That contract is part of Seattle’s history of signing free agents, even if it doesn’t factor into the numbers here.
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.
I think folks in general can deal with overpaying for a few players if the team as a whole produces wins. Well, we dont win. We basically stink. With the team now on its 3rd coach already and a new GM, things like “bad contracts” just add to the fodder for a fanbase that has good reason to question a lot of what this franchise is doing as a whole. Hopefully Grubi can bounce back but Chandler is never going to live up to his contract.
Stephenson is a Hall of Famer compared to Grubauer’s contract. That they carried it these extra years makes it even worse.
Big issue with Stephenson is that he’s blocking the young centers from minutes they (and the team) need for development. That means it gets worse before the financial hit ever becomes a real issue
Stephenson has yet to block anyone and his contract is functionally no different than Gourdes who was playing the 4th line (just new cap adjusted). Factually Shane was not read to take defensive face offs. The numbers will tell you this. Removing special teams Shane and Chandler was used comparably.
I agree Koist. On the contrary, I think Stephenson has been allowing Beniers and Wright to play the type of minutes they need to develop.
Thank you for putting this together! Definitely an interesting counterpoint to Dom’s analysis.
The thing to remember is Dom doesn’t do real analysis. He makes a model and then writes about it. He lacks a basic understanding of a lack of aspects of data science.
Don’t forget the fancy-looking visualizations!
Sadly, overpriced MBA programs have been churning out analytics “experts” like him for the last decade or so. They do their Billy Flynn razzle-dazzle to the Math is Hard crowd who happily hand over the dollars, then woe to those who then have to defend their crappy product when the engineering and data science teams tear it apart.
Good lord -could you imagine having Burky for $6.9M X 7 for $48M. We hated his contract for half that the last few years.
As usual, great analysis!!! My gut feel was we weren’t that bad. However, context be damned, the Stephenson contract is a moment of pure stupidity that will be hard to get over. It’s like the Jamal Adams trade, the people involved liked it and everyone else thought obvious mistake. The first year brought hope and then……ugh. That’s where it’s heading with that deal.
A 100k overpay is an act of pure stupidity? I feel like everyone that complains about him doesn’t actually understand the game. Watching him tells a very different story for the analytics to the informed viewer.
Maybe I’m missing something here with the comments… but I’m not sure why folks are spiking the ball on the “awful” Chandler Stephenson contract following this article. The overpay was purely on term, and if you’re pinning this team to a contract three years from now that
what will be a sub-5% cap hit… I think you’re missing the point.
Shouldn’t everyone be hating on that gawd-awful Brandon Montour contract?
Fair point. My view is that he is not a very good investment at market rates. The Kraken go and give him twice the going rate (yeah it’s term but it’s still a massive overpay against the market).
I don’t really feel that you crack on management to much as long as you can see the logic. Risks have to be taken at times. I just can’t understand pushing the boat that far out for this player.
I’m a finance guy and I don’t understand the it’s only 5% of the future cap argument. Resources are limited and they chucked 5% of the future cap in the trash for almost nothing in the near term. I’d be worried if I made a deal like that in my business.
I agree with your take jleau for the most part but I think I see things a little different around the edges.
I would absolutely have preferred a four year contract, but as Francis said at the time, unfortunately, if you want those guys, seven years is what it takes. Now, I recognize the Evolving Hockey model doesn’t just arbitrarily select four years and the expectation of term is based on historical comparison, but I think the calculus may have changed a bit here. It’s never been great, but the past couple seasons the UFA market as a whole has been very thin. For centers it’s been even worse. Regardless of Dom’s model, Stephenson was widely considered to be the No.2 center available – that’s thin. Lindholm was the No.1 center available. He’s just seven months younger than Stephenson but he also signed for seven years at a million-and-a-half more per. I agree, four years would have been ideal, but that doesn’t get you the player, which brings you back to the question Darren and John asked at the time of the signing – what was the alternative?
In the near term I wouldn’t consider it “almost nothing”. He was second on the team in scoring, plays all situations, easily leads the team in faceoffs, and takes tough matchups. Those are all points Luszczyszyn brought up in his “worst contracts” article recently. Since he moved to Vegas, the gap between Stephenson’s on-ice xGF% vs actual GF% (5v5) has been, on average, about 8% low. Dom’s argument against him – as well as his model – revolves almost entirely around xGF% 5v5. For whatever reason, I believe, his game is not well captured by the analytics tools. Rather than question his model against the assumptions of the market, Luszczyszyn has simply accepted that it’s accurate and these teams with a battery of resources and true incentives just don’t get it. I think, in the near term, they’re getting what they’re paying for.
As far as the future cap goes… I think chucking 5% in the trash is an exaggeration. First, at the end of four years he will be 33 years old and his no move converts to a ten team. While he will certainly not be in the role he is right now, the idea that he will simply have no value is extreme. The “it’s only 5%” is a recognition of the inverse symmetry between an aging curve and a cost curve. He will be making less than 5% of the cap and can likely fill a commensurate role. If, however, they do not have a need for him after four seasons, he’ll be around the same age and the same cap percentage as Yanni was this past season when he was packaged up with Bjorkstrand for two firsts, a second, and Eyssimont.
I agree, four years would have been great, but I don’t think the “perils” of the deal are as profound as a lot of folks fear.
Good perspective! I think you’re right that ” throwing 5% in trash” is an exaggeration over the length of the deal. I meant that only for the back end years.
I think you’ve left out an alternative which is walk away. Sometimes the best moves are the ones you don’t make. Without Stephenson are we much worse last year? Would our ceiling be lower this year? I would say not really to both. It’s a bad contract for a player that was never going to do more than make us marginally better in the short term.
My apologies, this deal bugs me. I have a lot less energy on Grubhauer. At least I understood the point and would never expected the downside to be so bad.
I 100% agree on Gru. I think it’s been an absolute train wreck that a lot of folks don’t truly appreciate what the consequences has meant for the organization… but I – like most folks at the time – thought it was a smart move. As much as I adamantly think they should have bought him out this off-season, I get why they didn’t.
On the “do nothing front”… I’ve gone into this too many times already, but just briefly, that would have left this team with a 20 and 21 year old centering the top six and a fading Yanni Gourde trying to prop up a third line. I think that would have been absolutely horrible for the development of Shane and Matty.
Here’s to hoping those guys both take a step this season.
His contract will be easily moveable at the end of its term. It’s a nothing burger. That’s the part y’all seem to fail to acknowledge
This
Since Luszczyszyn figures so prominently in this article AND it concludes saying Grubauer’s contract “was met with mixed reception at the time it was signed”, here’s what Dom had to say in the Athletic back then:
– The Kraken made a very savvy move at the draft nabbing Chris Driedger from Florida and only added to those riches in free agency by adding Vezina trophy finalist Philipp Grubauer to the tandem. Together, they’re expected to be the third-best tandem in hockey with Grubauer grading out as the 13th most efficient goalie and Driedger in seventh.
Most of the takes at the time were along these lines. Maron at the Score, Wyshynski at ESPN and McKenna at Daily Faceoff had them as the No.2, No.3 and No.4 ranked goalie tandem in the NHL going into their first season respectively. I’m not sure what “mixed reception” means here.
Well, the obvious answer COULD be that at the time DL liked the move more than the consensus opinion. Which means of course he was ultimately wrong which of course happens.
You pull this shit ALOT. Pull out random articles (sentences actually) from years past to discredit anyone writer who currently disagrees with your pollyanna-esq perspective. You’ve become the kid who covers his ears and sings “lalalalala” everytime he knows he’s about to hear something he won’t like. DL and others you disagree with know more about hockey than you or I will ever know, hence I at least consider everything they say.
You need to grow up.
I used the DL quote because he was specific to the article. I also included several other writers because as I recall it the “consensus” was Seattle had pulled off – as Darren said at the time to lift a sentence – “an absolute coup”. I’ll attach some more quotes below if you’d like a broader context.
As for the remainder of your commentary, I think I consider a broad range of what folks all across the hockey spectrum have to say. I also find folks sometimes have things to say that depart with what I believe. When that happens I try and use something I can actually point at to substantiate my point of view. I can see how that can come across as annoying or even petulant, especially for people who don’t like to be disagreed with.
Finally, as to your closing… I don’t think I really need to go into that.
Ask the goaltending community and they’ll tell you that Grubauer is not a product of the Avalanche’s greatness in front of him. From a technique standpoint, he’s got a lot of fans. From an analytics standpoint, he’s ninth in goals saved above average (29.9) over the last two seasons. The only knock on him has been his play during pressure situations. He wasn’t great down the stretch for the Avs last season, and his playoff numbers haven’t always aligned with his regular-season success.
“I’m really high on Grubauer, and they’ve got really good depth in net,” said Valiquette.
That depth includes Driedger, the former Florida goalie who was right behind Grubauer in goals saved above average over the last two seasons (26.1), while adding nearly five wins to his team. Add in Daccord, and the place to beware the Kraken most is between the pipes.
Grer Wyshynski ESPN
Ranked Seattle No.3 in NHL September 28th
Grubauer is an outstanding skater that’s been remarkably consistent throughout his career. The Kraken will need him to stay healthy. Driedger only has 38 NHL games played, but he was outstanding for the Panthers over the past two seasons. I’d bet on Grubauer to keep proving people wrong.
Mike McKenna. Daily Faceoff
Ranked No.4
October 12th
It was the consensus opinion back then that we had a top 10 tandem in the league. The signing was well viewed at the time. Maybe do your own research.
I didn’t go back and re-read all the articles at the time of the signing, but my recollection of the signing at the time was optimism about the player and the goalie tandem he’d form with Driedger, mixed with confusion about the cap allocation to the position and the sentiment that there was risk involved in giving a career tandem goalie significant starter money/term. Here are a few of the latter that popped in the first two Google pages when I searched Grubauer contract overpay. Don’t have any recollection of these specifically.
https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/four-ufas-nhl-teams-careful-not-overpay/
https://www.nbcsports.com/nhl/news/kraken-make-big-free-agent-goalie-splash-with-grubauer-wennberg
https://thehockeywriters.com/kraken-meet-goaltender-philipp-grubauer/
Either way, the Grubauer caveat is just that. He’s not involved in the numbers here. I’m not sure how Evolving Hockey/AFP/any other market model would have viewed the Grubauer contract at the time because I’m not aware of any such projection. So I’m not sure how it would have affected the Kraken’s performance against this “hypothetical market” value I’ve come up with. The Jordan Binnington contract was a comp at the time, and Grubauer came in right around that. So, it’s possible a market approach would be fine with the deal.
I’ve been milling on this very point a bit. The examples I referred to were about performance expectations rather than market expectations and as such don’t really appy to the point you were making. I think you’ve pointed that out quite well here.
While the commentary may have been positive around Grubauer at the time as far as him as a goalie, the contract value itself wasn’t as clear a point. I think the examples you give here illustrate there was in fact, as you said, more of a “mixed bag” opinion on the contract with these three touching perfectly on that.
Also as you mentioned, Grubauer was not the point at all in the article. I shouldn’t have distracted from what I think was an excellent piece of work and I appreciate all the effort to bring in what I think was a much more defensible analysis of the Kraken’s contract efficiency.
Thanks Curtis
Oh, no problem at all. I think this was a valuable/worthy discussion. To your point, I didn’t mean to imply by saying “mixed” that analysts were split on whether Grubauer was a good player. I think you’re right that the player was viewed very positively at the time he was signed.
🍳🍳🍳-Curtis