Hey, it’s the preseason. We can’t get too wound up about a 6-1 drubbing at the hands of an uninspiring Calgary Flames roster when we’re just four days into training camp. But we can dissect the Seattle Kraken’s first foray into game action and see what interesting nuggets we can dig up.
There were some nice flashes, including Nathan Villeneuve sending a one-time rocket past Dustin Wolf to get Seattle on the board. However, Matthew Coronato (who could be a stud player that Seattle will have to deal with for a long time) and the Flames took advantage of the Kraken’s many mistakes and cruised to an easy win.
Wow! Nathan Villeneuve with a rocket one-timer! 🚀
Bjorkstrand sets him up, and the youngster gets a pretty goal and a nice little “sheath the sword” celly. 🗡️ #SeaKraken
Here are our Three Takeaways from a 6-1 Kraken loss to open the preseason.
Takeaway #1: Many mistakes
Preseason is such a strange animal. You’re mixing NHL players with AHL players and even major junior players, several of whom are stepping onto NHL ice for the first time. In the case of Sunday night’s game, you’re doing it after just four days of practice and zero game competition.
Still, head coach Dan Bylsma was not particularly pleased with what he saw. “I think there was a concerted effort to do some of the things we’re talking about,” a very hoarse Bylsma said. “It just wasn’t on the same page. We weren’t at all connected, we weren’t doing it together, and the play was a lot like my voice as a result.”
It was one of those games where every mistake seemed to end up in the back of the Kraken’s net, something we’ve seen many times over the team’s first three seasons. On the first goal, right off a defensive-zone face-off, Berkly Catton lost his guy, Clark Bishop, who went straight to the crease and scored.
On the second goal, Josh Mahura got hit, lost the puck, regained it, and then sent a pass to David Goyette at the half-wall. However, the pass handcuffed the young forward, leading to a turnover at the blue line. A slapshot off the end wall caromed out in front, got batted around, and was eventually cleaned up by Coronato.
On the fourth goal, the Kraken got bottled up for a bit and seemed to have things mostly guarded. But then, suddenly, there was a glorious passing lane right through the middle of the ice. Coronato found it with a tasty backhand sauce pass right into Jeremie Poirier’s wheelhouse.
4-0 Flames.
Kraken get caught puck watching and leave a nice little seam open for Matt Coronato to find Jeremie Poirier. Pretty sick backhand pass all the way across. pic.twitter.com/GxUGwqnxix
Meanwhile, Philipp Grubauer looked like he was swimming around in his crease in the first period (he seemed more comfortable in the second period), but he also got hung out to dry a couple of times.
The good news about these mistakes is that they offer learning opportunities for the young players who are just getting a taste of life in the NHL. And thankfully, these mistakes came in a game that meant nothing, other than perhaps delivering a small blow to the ego.
“The correction doesn’t come today,” Bylsma said. “If they’re coming off the ice every time and hearing my voice saying, ‘you made a mistake,’ or ‘you messed up here or there,’ it’s just putting them in the wrong mindset. Did Berkly Catton make a mistake on the face-off, lose his guy? He did. But he didn’t hear it from me after that. We put him back out there and just kept playing.”
Takeaway #2: Some nice flashes too
When we saw the lineups, we hoped the two full lines of NHL players that the Kraken dressed would carry the play. Indeed, there were some good stretches of play from the Jared McCann/Matty Beniers/Oliver Bjorkstrand line and the Tye Kartye/Shane Wright/Jordan Eberle line. We thought Wright had a solid game, a positive sign for a young player we expect the Kraken to lean on this season.
There were also good moments from some of the younger players. While Catton had the early face-off miscue, he also had a couple of nice rushes that led to scoring chances, including a partial breakaway in the third period. That play should have at least resulted in a penalty on Adam Klapka, and perhaps even a penalty shot. Instead, the Flames went the other way, and Klapka ended up scoring his second goal of the game to make it 5-1.
Berkly Catton gets dragged down on a breakaway by Adam Klapka.
Flames go back the other way and who scores? Klapka. 🤦♂️
The highlight of the game for the home team was definitely Villeneuve’s one-time blast off Bjorkstrand’s cross-slot pass.
Villeneuve is an intriguing player. He brings a ton of grit, which was on display in this game, and now we’ve seen that he also has a scoring touch.
“Obviously, I like to play the physical part of the game, but I mean, a lot of people don’t see my offensive side,” Villeneuve said. “They only see my Matthew Tkachuk-type style of play. And obviously, I love scoring goals, but my main part is just to play my role.”
Aside from the goal, Villeneuve could be seen jawing at the Flames bench after nearly goading Dryden Hunt into a fight. He seemed intent on making his presence known throughout the game.
“We’re down a couple goals there,” Villeneuve said. “The goal [that I scored] kind of changed the momentum a little bit, but I thought I might be able to mix it up physically, maybe throw in a fight and try to get the momentum going more for our side.”
Takeaway #3: A feisty preseason opener
Speaking of physicality, there was an actual fight in this game after Tucker Robertson caught William Stromgren with a knee-on-knee hit and was immediately challenged by Artem Grushnikov.
Fisticuffs! 🥊
Tucker Robertson caught William Stromgren with close to a knee-on-knee hit.
But aside from that altercation, there were constant scuffles throughout.
“It’s the NHL, and it’s competitive,” Tye Kartye said. “Everyone wants to be here, and everyone on Calgary wants to be there… Nobody should have been surprised [by the physicality].”
Bylsma was also unsurprised by the feistiness of the preseason opener, but he wants his team to engage in the physical side of the game in a different way than what they showed Sunday.
“The thing that I didn’t like about it is it’s reactionary, and we don’t want to be reactionary,” Bylsma said. “We want to be ins— I can’t say that word. We want to be the aggressor, both in how we play and in physicality.”
The word Bylsma started to say before cutting himself off was “instigators.”
By the way, Bylsma is going to be an absolute treat to cover. Even on a night when his team got smoked and was reminded on home ice that there is a long way to go before the Kraken will be ready for the season, he brought honesty and bluntness, while still managing to mix in a little humor.
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.
If the first two days of Seattle Kraken training camp were any indication of what we can expect from a Dan Bylsma-coached team, then the players are going to be… well, tired. Bylsma and his staff worked the players very hard over their first two on-ice sessions, including a fitness test bag skate on Friday that had players doubled over before they moved from Rink 2 to Rink 1 and continued with battle drills and 3-on-2’s.
After the second of three groups finished its practice on Friday, there was a lengthy delay before Andre Burakovsky, who we were waiting to hear from in the Kraken dressing room, emerged to chat with media. “Sorry for [the wait],” Burakovsky said. “I had to get some treatment on my legs. They’re a little sore after that practice.”
Burakovsky elaborated on the pace of the practice. “We go hard. It’s good to be back. It’s been two really hard practices with ups and downs, a lot of battle drills, and it’s good to be back in action.”
Bylsma gave a simple explanation for pushing the players so hard in their first two days of Kraken training camp. “It’s hockey. In order to play this game, you’ve got to be able to skate up and down the rink, and that test we did today, I label it a ‘return to play’ skate. It usually comes after an injury or when you’re trying to return to play, but we’re all trying to return to play at the start of training camp.”
The new coach is setting a standard for the players to be well-conditioned and prepared to play at a high pace, night in and night out. “The pace with which we want to play and the speed we want to play the game at, you need to put yourself under duress to play that way,” Bylsma said. “And that’s what’s expected of them, so you’ve got to get the work in to be able to do it.”
Hints of a Kraken lineup
While there are still three groups of players in Kraken training camp, with the veterans sprinkled throughout, we’ve already been piecing together what Bylsma might envision as his first lineup if everyone makes it through camp healthy.
Here’s who we’ve seen skating together:
Jared McCann // Matty Beniers // Oliver Bjorkstrand Jaden Schwartz // Chandler Stephenson // Andre Burakovsky Tye Kartye // Shane Wright // Jordan Eberle Eeli Tolvanen // Yanni Gourde // Brandon Tanev
Vince Dunn // Adam Larsson Jamie Oleksiak // Brandon Montour Ryker Evans // Will Borgen
Of course, take that lineup with a huge grain of salt, but those are the 18 skaters we would all expect to be on the Opening Night roster, and they were taking rushes with players that make sense as linemates.
Regardless of whether the team ever plays a game with that lineup—or even something similar—you can immediately see that the group, if it stays relatively healthy, is deeper than last season. There are no bottom-line fill-ins here, and to have Tolvanen, Gourde, and Tanev on a de facto “fourth line” makes for some difficult matchups for opposing teams.
HOWEVER…
The resolution of Seattle’s cap crunch still remains to be seen. Will all 18 of these players still be with the organization when camp breaks in two weeks? Or will the front office be able to do enough cap gymnastics to keep them all around?
Chip on the shoulder
We’ve been doing a series of player interviews this week, which you’ll hear on upcoming episodes of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. One thing we’ve consistently heard in those interviews from returning players is that there is a bit of a “chip on the shoulder” mentality after such a disappointing result in 2023-24.
One player (we don’t want to spoil who it was before the interview comes out) told us the group wants to “prove” that it’s a good team. They want to show that last season was not representative of how they’re capable of playing.
Matty Beniers and Adam Larsson shared similar sentiments last week when they addressed the media about the contract extensions they signed this summer.
We asked Bylsma if he senses motivation from the returning players to be better than last season. “Yes, I do,” he said. “Even talking to the guys this summer… there’s a lot of sense of disappointment in the results last year. There’s disappointment for me. I don’t like the way we played at the end, I don’t like the results of last season, from my own standpoint. We think there’s a… I don’t want to call it a ‘chip on the shoulder,’ but I think there’s a lot of motivation, a lot of energy going into turning the script and putting that disappointment behind us and getting to the point where we think we can go like two years ago.”
Hearing this consistent message from so many players and now even the new coach is interesting. It reminds us very much of how the players were talking entering camp for the team’s second season. They were embarrassed at how the inaugural year went and wanted to do everything in their power to be a competitive team in 2022-23. That season, they racked up 100 standings points and came one goal shy of a berth in the Western Conference Finals.
The Kraken are back on the ice Saturday morning and will have their first intra-squad scrimmage. Their first preseason game against the Flames is on Sunday.
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.
Training camp officially gets underway Thursday, which brings with it a number of fun topics to monitor and discuss. The Kraken have a new coaching staff, a couple splashy offseason acquisitions, and a top prospect likely making the jump to becoming a full-time NHLer.
Those changes bring burning questions, though, so our team got together to talk about them. Enjoy!
Q1: Did anyone impress you at rookie camp or during the Rookie Faceoff games?
John Barr: I watched Andrei Loshko from time to time last season when he was playing for the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies in the QMJHL. I generally liked what I saw, but it’s always tough to make a thorough analysis when you’re only catching periodic views on a less-than-ideal streaming feed.
In rookie camp, he helped confirm my impressions by playing well on both sides of the puck and scoring a goal during the first showcase game in LA. He looked like one of the most developed prospects, and I’m curious about what the Kraken’s plans are for him. He’s eligible to play for the Coachella Valley Firebirds this season, but he remains unsigned by the Seattle Kraken. They must sign Loshko by June 1, 2025, or they will lose his rights, enabling him to sign with any team.
Blaiz Grubic: Finnish goaltender Niklas Kokko showcased his impressive skills during both rookie camp and the prospect game against the Colorado Avalanche. The 2022 second-round pick allowed just one goal and posted a .966 save percentage. He’s expected to play for either the Coachella Valley Firebirds in the AHL or the Kansas City Mavericks in the ECHL. Both teams will stream their games on FloHockey, so I’ll be tuning in to watch his development on North American ice this season.
Curtis Isacke: Lleyton Roed stood out to me with his pace, polish, and compete level. He probably should stand out as one of the oldest players in camp, but it’s not like he’s a multi-year AHL veteran at the end of the (ahem) road. He got into 10 games for Coachella Valley last season and is likely in line for a full slate of games this year. I wonder whether he can carve out a niche as an NHL checking forward in the future. He’s never going to be a top-of-the-roster scorer, but could he be a player who keeps the pace up, pressures opponents at even strength and on the penalty kill, and uses his speed for opportunistic strikes? I’m curious to find out more after a solid camp.
Darren Brown: Alright, well, you guys took all the obvious ones, but what about Nathan Villeneuve? At 18 and having just been drafted this past summer, he still has a long way to go before he’s NHL-ready. But he’s definitely pesky, and if he makes it to the big club one day, he’s going to be extremely annoying for opponents. I like what he brings.
Q2: Any other takeaways from watching the rookies at rookie camp?
Blaiz: The Firkus Circus is in town! Jagger Firkus, last season’s leading CHL scorer with 126 points, made a position switch from center to right wing. With the Kraken drafting Berkly Catton and already having Matty Beniers and Shane Wright at center, that change could make sense for Firkus’s long-term viability.
Firkus performed well at right wing, scoring one goal and three assists in two Rookie Faceoff games. One thing to keep an eye on: Catton was awarded one of the alternate captain roles, and Firkus was not. This could just be a “sharing the wealth” situation, but we’ll be looking for Firkus to emerge as a leader among the younger guys at training camp.
Darren: Yeah, I wouldn’t read too much into that Rookie Faceoff captaincy thing, although maybe it does say something about Catton’s maturity, considering he was one of the younger guys there.
My other takeaway? Lil’ Jani Nyman is a big kid. We knew this already, but I forgot just how enormous he looks on skates when he’s up close. It was fun watching him get paired up against Ville Ottavainen in drills.
John: It was interesting how much the older guys stood out compared to the younger ones, even though there’s only a year or two difference between some of them. Maybe this should’ve been expected, but guys like Logan Morrison, Tucker Robertson, Jacob Melanson, Ottavainen, and several others looked much closer to making it to the NHL than the younger guys. Both Ottavainen and Melanson seem ready to step into some NHL games if injuries force the Kraken to lean on Firebirds players in a pinch. I wouldn’t be surprised if both of them get called up at some point.
Curtis: What struck me most was the sheer number of intriguing players. Even without a few European professionals (like Oscar Fisker Mølgaard and Visa Vedenpää) and the college players, there were potential NHLers all over the ice. In past rookie and development camps, the total number of players was either much lower or the group was padded out with invitees. That wasn’t the case this time. As we mentioned in our prospect ranking last week, the “middle class” of Seattle’s prospect pool is incredibly deep, and it would be the envy of almost any organization.
Q3: Anything you are looking for during the first week of training camp?
Curtis: There’s a lot happening in the first week of training camp. Most of the rookies will still be around, looking to make an impression. The veterans are getting up to speed with a full-speed, competitive environment. And this year, we have a new coaching staff implementing its camp.
It’s that last part that will have my attention early on. What energy and compete level does the staff set? How are they deployed in managing specific drills and players? We’ve credited Jess Campbell and the Coachella Valley staff in the past for developing the skating games of Tye Kartye, Logan Morrison, and Shane Wright. How does that manifest, if at all, in what we see on the ice from a technique and drilling perspective? And then, of course, there’s the question of X’s and O’s. Do we start to see different breakout, neutral zone, or in-zone schemes practiced? I’ll be watching the coaching closely.
Darren: I touched on this briefly in the “Five Storylines” article I published Wednesday, but I’m really interested in seeing how Matty Beniers and Shane Wright perform. The Kraken are shaping up to be a three-headed monster of young stars once Catton arrives on the scene, but this year is critical for Beniers and Wright to each take big steps in their young careers. While Beniers has secured a huge seven-year contract, he should still be motivated to return to the form he showed in his rookie season. And Wright must be champing at the bit to make the full-time NHL roster—and be a key contributor—for the first time.
Blaiz: I’m most excited to see the Kraken back on the ice and skating together. With a stronger roster on paper than last year, there’s plenty of reason for optimism. While all the gameday roster spots seem to be filled, assuming Wright and Evans take full-time spots, the competitive nature of training camp could lead to surprises. Players like Winterton, Morrison, Roed, Robertson, Melanson, and Ottavainen could make strong cases for roster spots and potentially force some tough decisions from the front office.
John: Like Blaiz, I’m just really excited to see the team back on the ice, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more eager to watch a preseason game. If I had to be more specific, I’d say I’m excited to see how the power play units will work. A lot can and will change with the power play, but we should get an early look at how Brandon Montour and Chandler Stephenson might fit into the Kraken power play this season.
Q4: What is your biggest question for the Seattle Kraken that you expect to be answered in training camp?
Blaiz: My biggest question is whether the Kraken will make a trade to address their cap situation. With only a sliver of cap space left if they were to carry no extra players (that won’t happen), the team is in a tight spot. While the emergency recall option could provide temporary relief, it’s not a long-term solution.
The emergency recall provision allows the Kraken to exceed the cap by $875K (league minimum $775K + $100K). To use this, the Kraken would have to play at least one game with fewer than 18 skaters and two goalies. Given the front office’s playoff aspirations, a trade seems more likely. Sound Of Hockey’s own John Barr has already speculated on potential trade candidates, and training camp will offer a clearer picture of the team’s roster needs and trade possibilities.
Darren: Blaiz nailed it—that’s the biggest question.
Curtis: I expect to have a better handle on Shane Wright’s trajectory and role by the end of camp. Is Wright the player who looked fast, confident, and like a heady facilitator in his few games last spring? Or does he still look a bit green, playing reactively to NHL pace and physicality? The steps he took in Coachella Valley last season make me confident that last year’s NHL stint wasn’t fool’s gold. But he needs to prove it on NHL ice. If he does, we’ll start looking at his power play role and how his even-strength deployment compares with Matty Beniers. Is Wright attached to a steady veteran or trusted to take control of a top line? We’ll learn more as the season progresses, but I expect to know much more in three weeks about where Wright fits in this year.
John: There are a lot of questions that will take longer than training camp to answer, but like Blaiz said, you have to wonder how they’ll figure out their cap situation. Technically, they can start the season with a cap-compliant roster of 21 players, but only three out of 32 teams started that lean last year. Something’s got to give, and I imagine it’ll be resolved by the end of October at the latest.
Q5: What player has the most to gain or prove during development camp?
Curtis: Andre Burakovsky feels like he has a lot on the line early in the season, and it starts in camp. With a new coaching administration focused on a speed-based, attacking style that plays to Burakovsky’s strengths, he’s set up with every opportunity to recapture his pre- and early-Kraken form. We know he’s been plagued by injuries over the past 18 months and struggled to find his place in last year’s stagnant offense. I’m eager to see if the coaching staff has a plan to tap into his talents and if Burakovsky comes back with a renewed jump in his step.
Blaiz: I’ll be keeping a close eye on Ryan Winterton during the first week of training camp. Winterton not traveling to the LA Rookie Faceoff tournament suggests he’s higher on the depth chart than previously thought. With the Kraken needing to fill out their roster and the potential for a trade to clear cap space, Winterton could have a real opportunity to earn a spot. At 21, playing time is crucial for his development. If he continues to impress during camp, he could secure a spot on the gameday roster and contribute to the Kraken’s success this season.
John: I think we’ve all slotted Shane Wright into the roster this season, but he still needs to show up, so I’d say he has the most to prove this camp. I think it’s important for him to feel like he’s truly earned his spot and that he’ll help make the team better.
Darren: I think Beniers and Wright are obvious answers here, but what about newcomers Chandler Stephenson and Brandon Montour? Joining a new team often comes with growing pains, so will they slot right in and start producing? I’ll be watching for signs of chemistry between these two high-profile acquisitions and their linemates, especially in Stephenson’s case.
Is there anything you’re looking for during training camp? If so, share it with us in the comments section.
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.
Alex Wennberg (Photo/Brian Liesse)
“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.
All Three Zones Player Card
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 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.
The Seattle Kraken participated in the 2024 Rookie Faceoff hosted by the Los Angeles Kings this weekend, the first time they have taken part in such a prospect tournament. Seven teams participated in the series, but the Kraken rooks played in two games.
Colorado Avalanche, Saturday, Sept 14 – Kraken won 5-1
Vegas Golden Knights, Sunday, Sept 15 – Golden Knights won 5-3
New Coachella Valley Firebirds coach, Derek Laxdal, emphasized that this would be a “business trip” for the Kraken youngsters, and they did turn in a decent performance that taught us quite a bit about Seattle’s future. Here are our Three Takeaways from the series.
Jagger Firkus stresses the value of rookie tournament in finding the next level of compete and in getting to know the newly drafted rookie #SeaKraken as well. The message from Coach Laxdal was the LA tournament is a “business trip.” pic.twitter.com/HKSTGaXYZ7
Niklas Kokko started against the Colorado Avalanche on Sept. 14, performing exceptionally and stopping 29 of 30 shots. Despite the Seattle Kraken coming out flat-footed and being under heavy pressure for the first 10 minutes of the game, Kokko remained calm and made timely saves, keeping the game tied 0-0.
Buoyed by Kokko’s strong performance, the Kraken rookies exploded for three goals in the second period and never looked back. They easily defeated the Avalanche 5-1. Kokko played strong positionally and never let the Avalanche back into the game. The solitary goal was scored on a power-play rebound late in the third period.
Kokko’s development this season will be closely monitored, as he prepares to adjust to the North American pro game. He will play in either in the AHL or ECHL this season, but from this small sample size of one game, he looks like he can play.
Takeaway #2 – Players that impressed
Two players surprised with their excellent play: Andrei Loshko and Nathan Villeneuve.
Loshko lights the lamp
Loshko was a versatile presence in both Rookie Faceoff games, contributing in all situations. He saw ice time on the power play, penalty kill, and at even strength. Despite usually playing as a winger, he was frequently deployed on the faceoff dot for Kraken special teams.
In the first game, Loshko formed a dynamic line with Jacob Melanson and Nathan Villeneuve. Their chemistry was evident as they generated numerous scoring chances. Loshko capped off the performance with a wrist shot goal from the slot.
Loshko is entering his 20-year-old season, which means he is eligible to play in Coachella Valley, if the Kraken sign him to an entry-level contract (he is currently unsigned). If Loshko keeps up his strong play in training came, reporting to the AHL is in the cards.
Villeneuve drops the gloves
2024 second-round draft pick, Nathan Villeneuve, proved to be a physical force on the ice. Following a strong first game, he was elevated to the top line, joining Jagger Firkus and Berkly Catton.
Despite being just 18, Villeneuve quickly made his presence felt. Known as a gritty player in the OHL, he dropped the gloves in both games over the weekend, showcasing his toughess. Villeneuve also contributed offensively, scoring a shorthanded goal on a 2-on-1 rush with Jagger Firkus.
Villeneuve seemed to earn the coach’s trust and was out on the ice late in the second game as the Kraken attempted to get the equalizer with goaltender Victor Ostman on the bench.
Honorable mentions
Jagger Firkus – Tallied one goal and three assists for four points. His defensive play was also impressive; he made some key poke checks on the penalty kill that led to a goal and a breakaway opportunity.
Jakub Fibigr – Despite playing just one game, Fibigr showcased his defensive prowess. He was not hesitant to join the attack and capped off his outing with a snipe from the left point, securing the third goal for the Kraken.
Tucker Robertson – Robertson played in the second game against the Golden Knights and was a standout despite the team’s heavy shots against. He was involved in many of the Kraken’s offensive chances and scored the second Kraken goal by tipping in a shot from Caden Price.
Takeaway #3 – Kraken didn’t quit
Colorado Avalanche – Sept. 14
Despite the 5-1 score, the Avalanche dominated play for the first period. However, the Kraken improved as the game went on and eventually took over. Kokko’s stellar performance kept the Kraken in the game until the offense could find its rhythm. Once they had scoring chances, the Kraken capitalized, netting three goals in the second period and ultimately reversing the momentum.
Vegas Golden Knights – Sept. 15
The Golden Knights controlled the play early in this game and built a 4-0 lead. Led by Jagger Firkus’ three-point performance, the Kraken showed resilience, scoring three consecutive goals to narrow the gap to one. Despite pulling goaltender Victor Ostman, the Kraken couldn’t equalize and fell 5-3 to Vegas. But, the team’s push to get back in the game showed some heart and tenacity.
Welcome back to Year 2 of our composite ranking of Seattle Kraken prospects—which we have called the “Deep Sea Blue Chips.” Similar to our NHL Draft composite ranking—the Sound Of Hockey Big Board—we have gathered a shortlist of public scouting and draft analyst rankings often published this time of year and created a consensus board. Here are the sources we used:
Which Kraken prospects are at the top of the stack? How do these players match up with top prospects from other organizations? And how does the organization measure up as a whole? Let’s dig in on those questions first, and then I’ll give a few more prospect-specific thoughts, along with my own personal rankings and a few new “All Shifts” videos, to close it out.
Berkly Catton tops the 2024 Deep Sea Blue Chips
The drama starts at the top with Berkly Catton narrowly edging Shane Wright as the organization’s top prospect. Three of the six boards we utilized had Catton as Seattle’s No. 1 overall prospect, with the others ranking him second overall. Two of the six boards had Shane Wright first, with three slotting him second, and one (Elite Prospects) holding him ineligible based on their ranking criteria. Based on its writing over the summer, it’s fair to say Elite Prospects is bullish on Wright, so this is close to a dead heat, but Catton tops the list on the strength of his first-place votes.
Carson Rehkopf rounds out a strong top three. Talented 2022 second-round picks Jagger Firkus and David Goyette closely follow, joined by defenseman Ryker Evans if you still consider him a prospect, which three lists did. Evans is the only defenseman in Seattle’s top 12. Niklas Kokko is Seattle’s top-ranked goalie prospect at No. 12 overall.
The Kraken have a top-10 prospect pool in the league
Group wisdom puts the Kraken prospect pool somewhere around No. 9 in the league. Steven Ellis of Daily Faceoff, Corey Pronman of The Athletic, and Elite Prospects all have Seattle with the ninth-best system. McKeen’s is a little higher on Seattle’s prospect pipeline, ranking the Kraken fifth overall.
More data-inclined analyses have rated the Kraken even higher. My pre-draft data-only ranking had the Kraken third in the league based on the total Data Score of their prospects within the top 200 in the league. Before the draft, Scouching had Seattle as his top prospect pool overall.
The strength of the system remains its depth of viable NHL talent
Where the Kraken fall short of some of their competitors is in perceived high-end talent. No prospect analyst we consulted had any Kraken prospect graded within the top 10 overall in the sport. (For context, my data-based approach agrees, putting Wright just outside the top 10.) Berkly Catton and Shane Wright fell within the next tier—ranked between 10th and 30th overall by every analyst we consulted. After that, both Carson Rehkopf and Jagger Firkus were ranked within the top 100 on four of five boards. But no other Kraken prospect received more than one top-100 ranking.
The strength of Seattle’s system shows up in its depth. While ranking only two Seattle prospects in its top 50, McKeen’s gives Seattle 13 of the top 200 prospects in the game. The tier from Jani Nyman (No. 7) down to Ville Ottavainen (No. 17) on the list above would be the envy of most teams.
Few teams have the depth of viable potential NHL contributors Seattle currently boasts. The challenge ahead for the Kraken is in identifying which prospects to elevate into a future core and which to use as chips in acquiring the high-end talent the system seems to lack.
Lukas Dragicevic (Photo/Brian Liesse)
Scouting the Kraken—a personal list of top Seattle Kraken prospects
Here is how I would stack Seattle’s prospects entering the 2024-25 season. I’ve broken the prospects out into tiers, and I’ll provide brief comments after each group.
The “DSH Rank” is my ranking. The “Comp. Rank” column reflects the same consensus public ranking discussed above. The “Diff.” column shows how far my ranking departs from the public consensus. The “Upside” column is a numerical value I’ve assigned to each prospect’s ceiling on a 1-10 scale. My ranking considers upside, likelihood of reaching that upside, and the player’s timeline to the NHL. Let’s dig in.
While I agree with the public analysts that it’s a close proposition at the top, I’d have Shane Wright as the No. 1 overall prospect based on his strong—and underrated—2023-24 pro season with the Coachella Valley Firebirds. I believe Catton’s game will also translate, but he hasn’t had the same opportunity.
Wright has a bit more adversity on his resume than Catton does. But, particularly after last season’s skating improvements, Wright has every trait to excel in the NHL. He brings height, weight, speed, skill, hockey intelligence, and leadership. He plays a heady game in both the offensive and defensive zones, and makes his teammates better.
Catton has the advantage as a transition-game player and projects at least equally effective as a distributor and shooter in the offensive zone. But I have more questions about his long-term defensive value and suspect his highest and best use may be on the wing. Taken together, it’s close, but I give the edge to Wright.
Moving off that debate, it’s possible I buried the lede; I believe Carson Rehkopf belongs in the same tier with Wright and Catton. Like those players, he brings an offensive toolkit that can be confidently projected into the top six. He has similar defensive questions to Catton and has already been moved off the center position, but he has size and strength to pair a pinpoint shot with a physical style in the offensive zone. Rehkopf’s upside is closer to Catton and Wright than the next tier.
While players in the first tier match top-of-the-lineup upside with a strong probability to realizing an NHL role, players in this next tier are a step down either in overall upside or probability of achieving that outcome. The first two players listed exemplify this.
Evans—to the extent you still consider him a prospect—is a strong bet to play in the NHL for the next half decade as a bottom-four defender, but his upside seems capped. Jani Nyman, on the other hand, has the highest upside of any player in the system outside the first tier but needs to take significant strides with his skating and North American-style hockey sense before we can pencil him into an NHL lineup.
Public consensus says I’m high on Ryan Winterton, but I adored his game with the Coachella Valley Firebirds this past season. He plays tenacious defense, can kill penalties, and moves the puck on the rush. Even if he doesn’t add another level to his offensive game—which I believe he still could—he’s ready to be a good NHL checking forward already.
Oscar Fisker Mølgaard strikes me as a similar player to Winterton, one with the advantage that he may stick at center but with a longer developmental runway left to go. I admit I was excited when I saw Elite Prospects rank him third in the organization. I’d love to see that proven correct.
After that, we get to Seattle’s two hyper-prolific CHL scorers, Jagger Firkus and David Goyette. I switched them back and forth a few times in preparing this ranking. Both face questions about their size, ability to withstand physical pressure, and perform defensively. Firkus took a step forward handling and solving defensive pressure at the junior level this past season, but his ability to carry that over against bigger, faster pros is still up in the air. Goyette has stronger movement skills, but he needs to prove he can produce without the space his junior play speed afforded him. The two of them project to top-nine roles with Coachella Valley and will be Must-See TV on the AHL’s new streaming home FloHockey this year.
The third tier is a high-probability, lower-upside tier. I think Morrison and Ottavainen both have multi-year NHL careers. Ottavainen may be on track to take over the third pair right defense role in Seattle as early as the 2025-26 season, and Morrison has shown he is not out of place in a sheltered NHL role. I believe the consensus ranks on both are too low, failing to fully account for Ottavainen’s tremendous rookie season in the AHL (eighth in the league in plus-minus, first among rookies) and Morrison’s skating gains.
The fourth tier is the reverse of the previous one—made up of the high-upside, low-probability prospects in the organization. Niklas Kokko has shown pretty much everything he could in Liiga, and I believe he is deeply underrated when compared against fellow goalie prospects. That said, the unpredictable nature of the goalie position makes it hard for me to push his ranking much higher until he produces consistently at the AHL level.
Eduard Sale had a difficult first year in the OHL. He appeared to struggle with the transition to the North American game and at times failed to stay engaged off the puck. His production suffered. On the other hand, the flashes of brilliance with the puck on his stick remain—and have started to shine through with a bit more regularity this summer. Lukas Dragicevic is a project defenseman, loaded with offensive skill but working hard to layer in adequate defensive instincts and production. If he can do that, he has second-pair upside.
The fifth tier is separated from the fourth by a step down in overall upside. These players could end up as average NHL contributors if everything clicks for them. Bizarrely, I probably had the most difficult time ranking Julius Miettinen. For a time, I had him ranked in Tier 3 because he strikes me as a higher-certainty projection, but in the end I decided the track record just isn’t long enough yet. If he can improve his on-puck play and scoring production in the WHL this year, he would quickly move up my ranking and closer to his consensus position.
Tier 6 is made up of mostly high-uncertainty players, but also a handful of players who are farther along in their career arc but with more limited upside. I wouldn’t put quite as much stock in the order of the prospects at this point, but I’m intrigued whether Lleyton Roed can carve out an NHL role in the coming years and considered ranking him higher. His play speed and compete level provide a good baseline.
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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.
