Each summer, The Athletic ranks every NHL team’s contracts — highlighting the best deals, the worst, and everything in between. This season's edition featured the Seattle Kraken ranking 32nd, dead last in the NHL.
In last year's edition, the Kraken ranked in the bottom half, in 26th place, but with additions like Ryan Lindgren and Frederick Gaudreau at fairly high prices, the Kraken dropped six spots.
Although most players received fairly poor grades, Joey Daccord highlighted some of the good contracts. Daccord received an A+ grade for his five-year, $5 million cap hit. The 28-year-old has recorded consecutive seasons of 50-plus starts, posting a save percentage above .900. In addition to Daccord, Jared McCann received a B+ grade, and Matty Beniers, Mason Marchment and Vince Dunn were handed B- grades.
"The Joey Daccord deal is really nice (by goalie standards, anyway) and if Matty Beniers ever learns how to score he’ll have a nice contract too. But almost the entire rest of the roster is paying so much for mid that the team just ends up bad. The Kraken have a lot of work cut out for them," said Dom Luszczyszyn.
The Kraken have a slew of bad grades, with Philipp Grubauer and Chandler Stephenson leading the way after receiving D- grades. Grubauer has struggled since he stepped foot in Seattle, and Stephenson, although he had respectable numbers, performed poorly at 5-on-5 and was unable to affect the game consistently.
Also receiving D letter grades were Lindgren, Adam Larsson and Brandon Montour. The Kraken have the second-most-expensive defense core at $42.70-million. That's a lot of money to hand to a d-core which struggles to keep the puck out of their net.
"Here’s the best way I can describe how bad Seattle’s cap sheet looks. If you used the remainder of Seattle’s cap space ($7 million) and added another million bucks with careful accounting to add the league’s best contract, Jack Hughes at $8 million, you still wouldn’t have a playoff team. What exactly is this team paying for if it’s not even getting mediocrity?"
"Countless free-agent gaffes have added up over time to the point that the Kraken are spending nearly $35 million on the following core of players: Chandler Stephenson, Jaden Schwartz, Brandon Montour, Adam Larsson, Jamie Oleksiak, Ryan Lindgren and Philipp Grubauer. You’ve heard the old adage that you can’t build a winner through free agency? Well, if you also overpay each free agent, you can’t even build average, apparently. That’s where the Kraken stand."
Following the 2026 trade deadline, the Kraken could look very different, but the contracts they'd want to offload are the ones that are locked into several years beyond this season. There's a lot of work for Jason Boterill to do to get this team back into playoff contention.