I predicted that the Seattle Kraken were going to have a hard time repeating the success of their sophomore season in last year’s article, and Seattle regressed as expected. The Kraken’s main point of regression came in goal scoring, as they dropped from 289 to 214, but their defense and goaltending once again improved, posting a franchise low in goal allowed of 232. Ron Francis set out to retool his roster for the 2024-25 campaign with an intent on getting more scoring from the backend, while still being versatile in the forward group.

               Francis handed out two of the largest contracts in this year’s free agency acquiring Brandon Montour and Chandler Stephenson. To make room for these contracts, the team also traded Brian Dumoulin to Anaheim for a 4th round pick. Stephenson was a viable second-line center for most of his career with the Vegas Golden Knights; however, the Kraken are buying high following the worst season of Stephenson’s career. Posting 51 points in 75 games, Stephenson had his lowest PPG since the 2019-2020 campaign, and posted a GAR of -6.6, his worst since 2017-18 in Washington (-6.8). He still possesses the ability to be the second line center the Kraken need behind Matty Beniers, but this could also go sideways very quickly. Montour, fresh off winning the Stanley Cup with the Florida Panthers, will be a good source of leadership for the Kraken first and foremost. As a player, the question in Seattle is which version of Montour they’re going to get. During the 2022-23 campaign, he was an elite offensive defenseman posting a GAR of +15.9 with 73 points in 80 games, but otherwise he’s been a mixed bag of a player. In Florida, his career GAR has hovered between a 5 and 9 (8.5 last season), but outside of Florida it ranged from anywhere between a -7.0 and a +3.2. These could be fantastic signings for the Kraken, but it is entirely in the hands of Dan Bylsma if these are busts of boons for this group moving forward.

               Moving to the draft, the Kraken mainly drafted players with decent defensive profiles, but only one player whose NHLe puts them on the map to be an impactful NHL player in the near future. At 8^th overall, the Kraken selected Berkley Catton of the Spokane Chiefs. We already have a full prospect profile that Liam wrote on him here. From a high-level perspective, Catton had 116 points in 68 games for Spokane during his draft year, and in terms of versatile offensive toolkits, is possibly the most complete player in the class of 2024. Catton can feint, deke, create, and finish in any number of ways at the CHL level, and if he’s able to take all of those skills to the next level, Seattle’s center group of him, Beniers, and Wright may become one of the best in the NHL by the decade’s end.

               Overall, the Kraken’s offseason is very difficult to evaluate at this point due to it being the summer of gambles. At this time, they get a tentative B, but depending on what Bylsma can do in his first year behind the bench, this could range anywhere from an A to an F due to the term and dollars on the Stephenson and Montour contracts. Additionally, a low star potential draft haul is a bit of a blemish on the work that they have done to improve in the near- and long-term future. We’ll definitely get an answer on most of these questions by the 4 Nations Tournament break.