Hi there! It’s been a minute. The reason?
Comcast.
Sorry about that.
Let’s get up to speed on what’s happening in the Deep in Free Agency, as well as discuss the big burning topics still kicking around in the NHL-sphere!
William Borgen Re-Signs with Seattle, avoiding arbitration!
Big Billy Borgen and the Kraken didn’t bother with an arbitration date, as the big defenseman agreed to a two year contract worth $2.7-million AAV!
Borgen played a solid, sensible game for the Kraken over the last two years, with this site specifically noting that he was a net-positive to the point that he deserved slightly better minutes in year one than he got, which he managed to get in year two! He finished his season with 20 points in 82 games, and 3 points in the playoffs.
For a defense-first defender, you can’t hate that kind of thing. Maybe it even suggests if he starts shooting more he could be a real threat on the back end?
Either way, welcome back Billy, enjoy your summer!
Tucky’s comin’ to the PNW!
The Kraken’s 4th round selection in the 2022 draft has gone and signed his ELC; Tucker Robertson officially receives money from the Kraken as of the 5th of July. Tragically he is Canadian so I don’t think he could get discounted fireworks to celebrate.
Robertson has sort of blossomed into not just a strong two-way center (a requirement at this point for being a Kraken forward), but the arbiter of his junior team; the Peterborough Petes’ offense. He had the team lead in goals and points, and led them not just to an OHL championship, but all the way to the Memorial Cup. That’s a hell of a year for a guy like him. He’s also, critically, 20 years old; meaning he absolutely can seamlessly transition to the AHL without having to be Shane Wright’d all over the place.
…I hate the CHL/AHL thing so much I just used “Shane Wright” as a verb. God.
Congrats to Tucker, and welcome to THE DEEP
The League Minimum deals and scaring Shane straight with Frenchmen.
So! Some newer faces are in the Kraken’s depth, as they signed Connor Carrick and Pierre Eduard-Bellemare to one year deals, both at under $800,000 AAV.
Carrick, hailing from the Chicago suburbs, has been a journeyman defender for the last decade; having stops in New Jersey, Boston, Toronto, Washington and Dallas; usually on small deals like this one, and generally playing lots of AHL time if nobody’s hurt on the NHL squad. He’s likely to play in Coachella Valley to start next season.
Bellemare meanwhile, is a rare french product for the NHL, having played largely in the depth of a number of teams; Vegas, Tampa, Colorado, and Philadelphia. He has mostly distinguished himself as a penalty killer and defense-first kind of guy…who at 38, might only have defense left in his tank.
Mercifully, I can confidently predict that PEB is probably not going to play that much. I wager Bellemare was brought in to do one thing and one thing only.
Light a fire under the young’s rears.
These are unquestionably “guys who can do solid work for 82 games” choices, but I see guys like Bellemare as more vets who could exist as your 13th forward, mentor the younger players, and fill in as necessary. It is up to guys like Shane Wright to put him in that 13th forward spot in training camp this upcoming September.
Betting big on a one year contract
The fun thing to do right now this free agency is check CapFriendly’s signing page, and look for year lengths that go beyond the number 2 that aren’t ELCs. I counted five at the time of this writing.
This is the summer of betting on yourself; go somewhere for a year or two, play it out, and wait for what is expected to be a significant increase in the salary cap next season; upwards of almost 4 or 5 million; dragging several teams entirely out of cap hell and into the light of doing deals once more thanks to a bunch of business stuff that is beyond my ability to adequately explain beyond “players borrowed money from owners, have nearly paid it back”.
This has led to an incredible number of players moving in and out of certain teams on extremely short deals who are hoping to get either their next big pay day…or their last big pay day, and what a pay day that will be for a good many of them if this bet hits.
Y’know, just don’t blow it. Those disgraceful Lamborghini SUVs hockey players seem distressingly into don’t pay for themselves!
Personally, I’m not sure there’s a dollar amount that could get me into one, but whatever.
Zadina and DeBrincat Trying to make something work
So the Red Wings went ahead and terminated Filip Zadina’s contract. It’s clear both sides were extremely frustrated with each other. The Wings wanted more production from Zadina, and Zadina wanted more minutes. Neither could come to a head, they couldn’t get a trade done, so now he’s out of there.
If I were the Red Wings, I would Have Found A Way To Make That Work because this is a solid dude to keep.
While Zadina’s production hasn’t really shown up, it’s clear there is something that a prospective NHL team could get, but I don’t think he’s getting a deal much longer or for much more money than he got in Detroit now that he’s testing the open market. As much as the analytics community is challenging the notions of points mattering…the people who make the deals still do believe that points matter. It’s gonna be an interesting watch to see where he ends up.
On the other side of the coin of “young guys wanting the hell out of somewhere”, there’s Ottawa and Alex DeBrincat…and whoo boy, this one’s something.
The Sens have been in a bit of a limbo state after the death of their controversial owner and the difficulty that his estate brought towards getting them bought by somebody; nobody knew if they had money to spend nor did anybody know how they were going to improve themselves until the sale went through. In the meantime, they’ve largely trusted their young talent, such as the other Tkachuk brother, to lead them. To say they’ve struggled is a bit of an understatement; they have no defense anywhere in their lineup (arguably in their system) but they play like demons and score lots of goals in bunches. Kind of a rollercoaster of a squad. As a result, Alex DeBrincat…wants out to go play for a more sure thing back in the US. It’s gotten a little messy, and he’s going to arbitration with Ottawa…but now it’s in GM Pierre Dorion’s court.
The real issue is that getting a DeBrincat also means trying to give him his price, which I feel he should consider bringing down somehow if you’re getting him back state-side, because he does the whole goalscoring thing really really well…but he’s not a guy who can drive play, and as the NHL has learned in the past with guys like Patrik Laine…you really can’t give players like that too much without having to build an entire line around negating their inefficiencies and playing up their strengths.
It’s a growing trend in the youth of the league that, even with their extremely small amount of actual power in negotiation to stretch it for all it’s worth in the hope that they can get, what they hope is, a fair shake and a fair amount of money for all the work they’ve put in. Stars are doing it, depth guys are doing it, it’s a real revolution in young guys vying for what they’re due. It’s also good for the league in general, as player movement is generally considered a big draw for many of the other sports leagues.
Thankfully Seattle hasn’t had to deal with anything like that yet. Probably because if you’re an NHLer you get a large amount of money to live comfortably in Seattle, you tend to be very complimentary!
What the line-up projects to look like if this is it
First of all, this is not the end of Seattle’s free agency.
There’s still a month or two before the prospect challenges and preseason, and there are still a lot of people who could get in touch with Ron Francis with the hope of joining the deep. But as it stands, here is where I believe the Kraken stand:
Forwards:
- Line 1: McCann – Beniers – Eberle
No change here. No need, really. You could maybe slot Kartye into Eberle’s spot as well, but this line does exceptional work in pushing play in the right direction as is.
- Line 2: Schwartz – Wennberg – Burakovsky/Kartye
Kartye in this scenario will find a way to get on this roster. I can absolutely feel it. Part of the deal to me is the ongoing recovery of Burakovsky, who is doing well but no return timeline has yet to be established. Given his unreal contributions in the playoffs, I think Tye Kartye is going to be a very familiar face. That said, no need to break what was working in the regular season so far.
- Line 3: Tolvanen – Gourde – Bjorkstrand
You simply cannot break up this line if you had a stick of dynamite. Too many teams look at this line with a gaze of permanent, burning frustration. Very good line love it very much.
- Line 4: Tanev – Wright/Bellemare – Kartye/Yamamoto
This is where the fun begins.
The only real lock in my opinion for this line is Tanev, whose ability to forecheck and defensive responsibility will well-serve anyone whose set to center it. After that? Competition.
As we’ve previously discussed, Bellemare exists almost entirely to either act as a safeguard in case Wright isn’t ready, or as a force of competition in order to get him to finally get back to where he should be. In a similar vein, if Burky is fine to play in preseason; it’s going to be a dogfight for Tye Kartye and Kailer Yamamoto to establish themselves on this team. One provides a killer scoring punch that a faster moving line could really appreciate, and the other has shown real ability to be just as much of a defensive nightmare in spite of what you might think…as well as providing a scoring punch that a faster moving line might appreciate.
Either player is, at least when combined with Tanev, the perfect wings to help any center regain their confidence after a rough season (something Bellemare and Wright can at least say they shared), and continue to positively impact the team in limited minutes. It’s just who manages to win that spot.
I really hope Shane manages to take it. He needs this.
Defense Pairings:
- Top Pairing: Dunn – Larsson
Assuming Ron gets a Vince Dunn deal in place, this should still be your top pairing for the time being. RHD is still a position that could use work, but the funny thing about defensemen is that they usually take longer to develop than forwards, meaning that even the guys who could really be something special like say…Ryker Evans or Ty Nelson, may still need a half-season or two before joining the team full time. Good pairing, keep as is.
- Middle Pairing: Oleksiak – Borgen
Keeping Borgen was huge. This remains a good middle pairing that doesn’t need much changed.
- Bottom Pairing: Dumoulin/Evans – Schultz
If any of that strong Coachella squad wants to get into this defense corps, it’s here where that can happen. Dumoulin is still effective, but I freely admit; he’s getting up there in years. If he has a step behind coming into camp, it will be up to the baby Squids to pick up the slack.
Goaltending:
- Starting Goaltender: Philipp Grubauer
Grubert rebounded in a huge way for Seattle last year, and now it’s time for the Kraken to make it easier for him to do his job. They did a great job of it last year, just gotta keep building on his performance.
- Backup Goaltender: Joey Daccord/Chris Driedger
This is gonna be a dogfight. I think Daccord finally makes the next step, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if Driedger managed to get his act together with the solid foundation in front of him and finally became a solid backup.
Waaaaay too early projection: Probably right where they were last season
The Pacific Division is fun because objectively most of the teams have done something to better themselves. Are the Sharks better than they were? Sure! Did the Canucks address real problems in their lineup? Absolutely! Are the Ducks going to be watchable? Impossible to say but I’d hazard a guess at yes!
Do I think anyone beyond Vegas and LA are going to the playoffs over Seattle?
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh. Probably not.
The Canucks still have a number of things that need to go right at once in order for them to be dangerous, Calgary is still hemorrhaging talent, LA honestly did not improve much by getting Pierre-Luc Dubois, and the non-Kings California teams are still very much rebuilding for 2025-26 than right now. They might be slightly closer victories for the Kraken, that’s definitely possible, but I don’t think the Kraken have seen a significant threat to returning to the post-season yet.
They still need to improve in terms of defenseman speed and probably getting a bit younger overall, but I think this is a good spot to continue improving in little bits and pieces.
And that’s you caught up on what’s been going on in free agency so far, we’re still far from done and so are the Kraken, but we’ll keep you posted with further signings and changes to the Kraken as they come up!
Keep an eye out, and happy late 4th to all our American friends!
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