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Joey Daccord

Kraken Extend Joey Daccord

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The Kraken announced they’ve put pen to paper with goaltender Joey Daccord on a contract extension. It’s a five-year deal worth $25MM, adds Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet, keeping him in Seattle through the 2029-30 season. The 28-year-old will earn an average of $5MM per year.

Daccord was slated to hit unrestricted free agency next summer for the first time, but this deal will keep him off the open market until shortly before his 34th birthday. That means he’ll spend most, if not all, of his prime in Seattle, where he broke out as a legitimate tandem option last season after spending the overwhelming majority of his first four professional seasons in the minors.

Daccord entered the 2023-24 season as the Kraken’s backup option behind Philipp Grubauer, set to be promoted to full-time NHL duties for the first time after guiding AHL Coachella Valley to the Calder Cup Final in its first season. It’s hard to imagine a better first year for Daccord, who not only established himself as a legitimate NHL option but pushed himself ahead of Grubauer on the depth chart.

His .916 SV% tied Boston’s Jeremy Swayman for seventh in the league among goalies with at least 20 appearances, and he added three shutouts and stopped 16.8 goals above average while making 46 starts and four relief appearances. He had a .926 SV% at even strength, second in the league among starters behind Vezina Trophy winner Connor Hellebuyck. His strong showing didn’t result in any outside Vezina consideration, but he did earn a couple of third-team All-Star votes at the end of the year.

It’s been a lengthy road to NHL relevancy for Daccord, who was a seventh-round pick of the Senators all the way back in 2015 out of the Massachusetts prep school ranks. Two years later, he was in the NCAA, playing a key role in helping the formerly independent Arizona State to Division I relevancy. He was named to the West region’s Second All-American Team in his junior outing in 2018-19 when he backstopped the Sun Devils with a 21-13-1 record and .926 SV% in 35 appearances. That was enough for the Sens to sign him and bring him to the pros.

Daccord posted decent numbers in minor-league action for the Sens, but injuries and COVID limited his total playing time. After nine NHL appearances in Ottawa, logging a 1-4-1 record and a .894 SV%, he was left unprotected in the 2021 expansion draft and was claimed by Seattle. He was viewed as a high-ceiling option but cleared waivers at the beginning of 2022-23, even after posting a .925 SV% in his first year in the Kraken organization in 34 games with AHL Charlotte.

Now, Daccord’s AHL days are behind him after posting a .918 SV% in 98 appearances at the second-tier level. A $25MM deal is certainly a significant commitment from the Kraken to a netminder with fewer than 70 NHL games under his belt, but his robust workload last year gave them enough confidence to ink the contract.

Unfortunately, it also means Seattle will be carrying an expensive tandem of Daccord and Grubauer totaling $10.9MM against the cap for the next two seasons after this one. Grubauer, who’s struggled heavily with a .893 SV% and -39.0 GSAA in 131 appearances for the Kraken since their inaugural season, still has three years left on his deal at a $5.9MM cap hit. He has a 10-team no-trade list, but the cap-strapped Kraken might be able to unload him next summer with only two seasons left on his contract if they’re willing to attach a sweetener. That would allow them to land a more cost-effective option to partner with or back up Daccord.

The Kraken now have $79.15MM tied up in 15 players for next season, leaving them roughly $13.35MM in flexibility for eight players, assuming the cap rises as expected to $92.5MM. Notable pending UFAs include Yanni Gourde, Brandon Tanev, William Borgen, and Josh Mahura, while notable RFAs include Ryker Evans and Tye Kartye.

ESPN’s Kevin Weekes was the first to report that Daccord and the Kraken were nearing an extension. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet was first to report the terms of the contract.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

What Your Team Is Thankful For: Seattle Kraken

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As the holiday season approaches, PHR will be taking a look at what teams are thankful for in 2023-24. There also might be a few things your team would like down the road. We’ll examine what’s gone well in the early going and what could improve as the season rolls on for the Seattle Kraken.

Who are the Kraken thankful for?

Joey Daccord.

It seems a lot of things are clicking at the right time for the Seattle Kraken, but their season has been underlined by Joey Daccord’s surge into the starting role. The 27-year-old goaltender has appeared in 23 games this season, setting a 9-5-8 record and .919 save percentage – the highest save percentage of any goalie with 20-or-more games in Seattle’s short history. Daccord’s eight extra time losses leads the league, with the goaltender facing an average of 28.5 shots in his overtime outings. His season could easily be leaned in a much more impressive light with a few lucky bounces in extra time, though Daccord doesn’t seemed phased by the poor record – kicking off the new year in style by recording the first shutout in Winter Classic history. The netminder saved all 35 shots that the Vegas Golden Knights sent his way on January 1st, en route to his second shutout of the season and the fifth-most saves he’s had this season.

Seattle has been in need of a true starting goalie after Philipp Grubauer and Chris Driedger failed to confidently hold onto the role in the chances they were given. They turned to Daccord this summer, signing him to a two-year, $2.4MM contract despite him playing in just 19 NHL games prior to the 2023-24 season. But he’s going above-and-beyond to prove Seattle right for taking a chance on him, establishing himself as not only a starter, but maybe one of the best options in the league on the back of the NHL’s fifth-highest save percentage.

What are the Kraken thankful for?

Low-event hockey.

Daccord has provided a great back-end for Seattle this season but that hasn’t exactly inspired the team to new heights. They still remain in the bottom-five of goals-for this season, and middle-of-the-pack in goals-allowed. The Kraken aren’t favorites to go out and out-skill any given team but they’re starting to find the secret to winning – low-event hockey. The Kraken have done best in games where they aren’t recording a ton of shots, going 7-1-2 over their last 10 games while averaging just 26.2 shots-for. This is pitted against an average of 31.6 shots-against, speaking to the ability of Daccord to hold Seattle in games. It’s been a quality-over-quantity approach, with the Kraken going 10-7-3 in games where they record 30-or-fewer shots, and 4-7-5 in games where they record more than 30 shots. This is regardless of how the opponent performs, with the Kraken going 7-4-4 in games where they’ve faced more than 30 shots.

It’s clear Seattle is at their best when they’re able to slow down the game and take time in creating their chances. They rank in the bottom five of both high-dancer chances-for and against this season, showing how strong they can be when chances are forced to the outside and strikes to the net are few-and-far between. It’s a style done to good effect by smooth puck-mover Vince Dunn, shoot-first forwards like Oliver Bjorkstrand, Eeli Tolvanen, and Jordan Eberle, and one capped off nicely by strong net-front presences like Matthew Beniers. But the question will inevitably become whether it’s a style that can maintain Seattle through the postseason, or if the team will need to inevitably lean into high-action hockey.

What would the Kraken be even more thankful for?

A top scorer.

The Kraken got off to a bit of a slow start but have since gotten plenty of production from their top end, with 14 different players boasting 10-or-more points. The group is led by Dunn’s 31 points in 38 games, followed by Bjorkstrand and Tolvanen who have 29 points and 23 points in as many games. And while those numbers are certainly admirable, the lack of a true top-scoring forward is holding Seattle back. Jared McCann was able to fill this role last season, netting a 40-goal, 70-point season that deserved more excitement at the time. But he’s lost that spark this year, managing only 14 goals and 22 points in 37 games. That still leads the Kraken lineup in goals, but it hasn’t been enough to revitalize a team that ranked sixth in goals-for last season. The lack of a true top-scorer has also impacted – or maybe it’s the result of – how Seattle is able to roll out their lineup, with head coach Dave Hakstol preferring a roll-four approach with bottom-line players are averaging between 12 and 14 minutes of ice time, while the top line only sees a slight boost to 16 to 18 minutes. That’s certainly different than how a team like the Toronto Maple Leafs have used their bottom line, with their depth averaging closer to seven-to-nine minutes of ice time. The Kraken will need to find a way to either lift up their past top scorers or fold in new ones if they want their offense to start producing enough to start helping Daccord win in extra time.

What should be on the Kraken holiday wish list?

A quiet Pacific Division.

The Kraken enter the new year combatting with the Arizona Coyotes and the Edmonton Oilers for the last Wild Card in the West. Exactly where everyone expected these teams to be at the start of the year, right? And while Seattle is absolutely heating up, they also sit with the most games in the Western Conference, giving them a disadvantage as other teams begin to catch up and paint a clearer picture in the standings. If the Kraken want to keep trained on the postseason, they will need their division to remain quiet for the rest of the season. That means no phenomenal explosion from Connor McDavid as he tries to pull Edmonton back to where they were expected to rank – it means no resurgence from the Calgary Flames as they look to pull themselves up by their bootstraps under a new coach – and it means no more flashy offense from the likes of Vancouver or Los Angeles, two teams performing well above their preseason expectations. Seattle has made their living on calm, low-event hockey this season and, if they want their playoff chances to stay rich, they’ll need to find a way to project that energy onto the rest of their division.

Pacific Notes: Karlsson, Kraken, Oilers

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Sharks defenseman Erik Karlsson has made it known he’d like to move to a team that has an eye on winning now.  But with four years left on his contract at a cap hit of $11.5MM, a trade is proving to be difficult to do.  In his latest piece for NBC Sports Bay Area, Sheng Peng examines another possibility for both sides, a mutual contract termination.  He’d be walking away from the remaining $39MM in salary but coming off a Norris Trophy-winning season, it stands to reason he could get a big chunk of that back over the next several seasons with a team that’s more of his choosing.  On the flip side, the Sharks wouldn’t get anything in return but would save a significant amount of cash that they’d otherwise be retaining to help facilitate a move.  It’s not the likeliest of options at this point but if a viable trade fails to materialize, perhaps it’s an option that is considered at some point.

More from the Pacific:

  • Seattle is one of the teams where the backup goalie is not yet set in stone for next season with veteran Chris Driedger set to battle the recently re-signed Joey Daccord for the spot. Geoff Baker of The Seattle Times suggests that the Kraken would be better off with Daccord in the second-string position from an organizational depth perspective since there’s much less of a risk of Driedger and his $3.5MM AAV being claimed than it is for Daccord and his $1.2MM price tag.  Daccord was the better of the two goalies with AHL Coachella Valley last season but Driedger’s NHL career numbers (2.45 GAA, .917 SV% in 65 games) are certainly better than Daccord’s (3.64 GAA, .884 SV% in 19 appearances).
  • Even with the salary cap expected to rise faster starting in 2024-25, it will certainly be difficult for the Oilers to keep both Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl in the fold. Postmedia’s David Staples posits that both middlemen – who could conceivably command the maximum 20% of the cap on their next contracts if they looked to get top dollar – might have to settle for something in the 14% range which, depending on how much the cap moves, could put their contracts both in the $12.5MM territory which is what McDavid is currently making.  Can a team with two deals at that price point still have enough depth to seriously contend?  That’s a question Edmonton certainly hopes they’ll have a chance to answer.  Draisaitl is signed for two more years while McDavid is under contract for three more seasons.

Joey Daccord Re-Signs With Kraken

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Seattle won’t be letting Joey Daccord test the open market tomorrow.  Instead, the team announced (Twitter link) that they’ve re-signed the netminder to a two-year contract.  The deal will carry an AAV of $1.2MM.  CapFriendly reports (Twitter link) that the salary is an even $1.2MM per season with no signing bonuses.

The 26-year-old was eligible to reach unrestricted free agency as a Group Six player as he has just 19 career NHL appearances under his belt over parts of five professional campaigns.  Five of those top-level contests came this season with the Kraken where he put up a 3.14 GAA and a .900 SV%, numbers that were an improvement on his career averages of 3.64 and .884, respectively.

Daccord spent most of the season with AHL Coachella Valley, performing quite well for the Firebirds.  He finished fifth in the minors in both GAA (2.38) and SV% (.918), helping to lead his team to the second-best record in the AHL.  He found another gear in the playoffs, posting a 2.22 GAA and a .926 SV% but Coachella Valley fell in the seventh game of the Calder Cup Finals earlier this month to Hershey.

With Martin Jones set to hit the open market tomorrow, there’s an opening between the pipes in Seattle for a partner with incumbent starter Philipp Grubauer.  It’s quite possible that Daccord and veteran Chris Driedger could battle for that number two spot with the loser going on waivers and returning to the Firebirds if he clears.  If that happens with Daccord, all but $50K of his cap hit would be cleared off the books, limiting the risk that the Kraken are taking with this type of commitment for someone who has been a third option for the majority of his career.  But as far as insurance policies go in goal, Daccord has shown himself to be one of the stronger ones.

Seattle Kraken Sign Goaltender Niklas Kokko To ELC

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The Seattle Kraken have announced that they have signed goaltender Niklas Kokko to a three year entry-level contract. Kokko was on the roster of Finland’s 2023 IIHF World Junior team but did not see any game action.

The 19-year-old spent the bulk of this past season with Hermes of the Mestis league where he put up fairly pedestrian numbers. Kokko had a 4-6-4 record with a .901 save percentage and a 2.95 goals-against average. Although Kokko didn’t see any game action in the recent World Juniors tournament he did backstop Finland’s U18 squad to a bronze medal at the 2022 U18 IIHF World Juniors.

Kokko was Seattle’s second round pick in the 2022 NHL entry draft and has good size for a young goaltender standing 6’3” tall and weighing around 185 pounds. He will likely fill out a bit more as he gets older, which should help him improve on his numbers. Given what Seattle is doing they must be happy with his development thus far.

It will be interesting to see where Kokko fits into Seattle’s plans. He is a long way from the NHL, but Seattle will be looking to develop him over the next few years to likely be the heir apparent to Philipp Grubauer. Grubauer is signed for another four seasons while Chris Driedger is signed for just one more. The Kraken still have Joey Daccord in the AHL but may let him walk when he becomes a restricted free agent this summer. The only other goaltender of note in the Kraken system is Ales Stezka. He continues to play in Czechia and at the age of 26 it appears that he will likely not be an NHL option for Seattle. With Grubauer signed long term it appears as though Kokko will have ample time to develop in Seattle’s system and could have a golden opportunity in the very near future.

Seattle Kraken Recall Joey Daccord On Emergency Basis

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The Seattle Kraken have recalled goaltender Joey Daccord from their AHL affiliate, the Coachella Valley Firebirds. The recall is on an emergency basis, and is in advance of the team’s Monday contest against the Arizona Coyotes at Mullett Arena.

The 26-year-old has spent most of this season as Coachella Valley’s number-one netminder, and has had an impressive year. He’s backstopped one of the AHL’s best teams and posted a 26-7-3 record with a .918 save percentage. He last played in the NHL in a March 23rd shootout loss to the Nashville Predators, a game where he saved 23 of 24 shots.

Daccord has played three games total in the NHL this season, and has a 2-0-1 record and a .903 save percentage. Daccord’s .903 mark is quite a bit higher than the save percentages of Seattle’s two main goalies, Martin Jones and Philipp Grubauer, who have posted .887 and .893 marks, respectively.

A 2015 Ottawa Senators seventh-round pick, Daccord played three NCAA seasons at Arizona State University (the program that now shares Mullett Arena with the Coyotes) and he signed his entry-level deal after a strong final season, where he posted a .926 save percentage in 35 games. Daccord split 2019-20 between the AHL and ECHL levels before spending 2020-21 largely as a taxi squad netminder.

The following year Daccord was the Kraken’s selection from Ottawa in the Expansion Draft and spent most of the year with the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers as the organization’s number-three goalie, posting a .925 save percentage in the AHL and earning five NHL games.

Daccord is operating on a one-year, league-minimum deal that affords him the chance of being an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent in the summer. He’s just one year from unrestricted free agency too, meaning any NHL starts he gets will be of major importance for putting himself on the right foot to enter offseason negotiations.

With the Kraken preparing for the franchise’s first-ever foray into the Stanley Cup playoffs, this recall gives head coach Dave Hakstol the chance to rest one of his two main netminders in order to put Seattle in the best position possible for a playoff series where they’ll likely be the underdog.

Kraken Assign Joey Daccord To AHL

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While he fared well in a pair of games on a recall earlier this week, the Kraken announced (Twitter link) that they have returned goaltender Joey Daccord to Coachella Valley of the AHL.  The assignment was needed with Philipp Grubauer returning from an illness to make the start against Nashville today.

The 26-year-old picked up a victory on Tuesday in Dallas while allowing only one goal in a shootout loss to Nashville on Thursday, allowing Seattle to maintain a one-point advantage on Winnipeg for the top Wild Card spot in the Western Conference.  However, to keep Daccord up, they would have had to use one of their two remaining regular recalls and they’ve decided that’s not the best strategy at this time, especially with AHL Coachella Valley being in a close battle for the top spot in the AHL.

Daccord has spent the bulk of the year with the Firebirds and has fared quite well, posting a 2.43 GAA along with a .915 SV% in 34 games so far this season.  He’ll once again partner with backup Chris Driedger who is working his way back after tearing his ACL at the World Championship last season.

Seattle Kraken Recall Joey Daccord Under Emergency Conditions

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The Seattle Kraken have called up netminder Joey Daccord from the minors under emergency conditions, the team announced Monday midday.

Daccord presumably comes up to the Kraken roster to relieve Philipp Grubauer, who left the Kraken’s Saturday loss to the Edmonton Oilers with an undisclosed illness. Grubauer allowed three goals on 10 shots before leaving the game early in the second period.

With Seattle in a battle for playoff positioning, don’t expect Daccord to see much action during his third recall of the season. Considering that Grubauer’s absence appears to be a short one, Martin Jones should see all of the starts until Grubauer is ready to return.

That’s unless Jones falters mightily, which isn’t out of the picture. He’s made just three appearances in the month of March, recording a .807 save percentage and two losses. However, Daccord has only gotten into game action once for the Kraken this year, saving 36 out of 40 shots in a 5-4 win against the Calgary Flames back on November 1, 2022. It will likely take some serious missteps for the more experienced Jones to sit for Daccord at such a critical point in the season.

With that being said, Daccord’s numbers in the AHL have been strong for a second consecutive season. In 34 appearances with the Coachella Valley Firebirds, the 26-year-old Daccord has a 2.43 goals-against average, a .915 save percentage, three shutouts, and a 24-6-3 record.

Kraken Place Jamie Oleksiak On IR, Send Joey Daccord To AHL

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It turns out that bringing goaltender Magnus Hellberg back today wasn’t Seattle’s only roster activity of the day.  Root Sports’ Scott Malone relays (Twitter link) that the Kraken have placed defenseman Jamie Oleksiak on injured reserve while also sending goaltender Joey Daccord back to AHL Coachella Valley as he is no longer listed on the team’s active roster.

Oleksiak suffered a lower-body injury in Tuesday’s game against Nashville and it’s evidently one that will keep him out for at least a week due to the IR placement.  The 29-year-old was off to a nice start to his season with three goals and two assists in his first 14 games while logging 18:33 per night, good for third among Seattle’s blueliners.  Cale Fleury has been up with the team all season as the reserve defender but has been scratched for every game but now will get a chance to see some game action; he played in nine contests with the Kraken last season.  Seattle doesn’t have enough cap space to recall a seventh defender for now although Chris Driedger could easily be moved to LTIR to free up some short-term flexibility on that front.

As for Daccord, he has been up with the big club for the last few weeks with Philipp Grubauer on injured reserve although he only made one appearance during that time.  His demotion could mean that another team placed a claim on Hellberg which means that Seattle wouldn’t be able to loan him to the Firebirds.  Alternatively, management might feel that the 26-year-old is simply better served getting into some game action having been on the bench for the bulk of his time with the Kraken.

Kraken Recall Joey Daccord

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With Philipp Grubauer being injured late in Friday’s victory over Colorado, it was only a matter of time before Seattle needed to call up a second goaltender.  That move has now been made as the team announced (Twitter link) that Joey Daccord has been recalled from Coachella Valley of the AHL.

Grubauer struggled considerably last season, his first with the Kraken after surprisingly turning down an offer from Colorado to ink a six-year, $35.4MM deal with Seattle in 2021.  Things haven’t gone any better in the early going this year as the 30-year-old has a 3.77 GAA along with a save percentage of just .860 through his first four appearances.  Head coach Dave Hakstol didn’t speak with the media today so there is no information on how long Grubauer might be out for.

Daccord, meanwhile, cleared waivers at the end of training camp and made three starts in the minors for the Firebirds in the early going this season.  He has seen NHL action in three of his first four professional seasons but has made just 14 appearances over that stretch, posting a 3.77 GAA and a save percentage of just .878.  He will serve as the backup to Martin Jones who now takes over as the starter with Grubauer injured and Chris Driedger still months away from returning.

Worth noting is that Daccord was the only NHL-contracted goalie that Seattle had in the minors (Magnus Hellberg was scooped off waivers by Ottawa when Seattle tried to send him down) so if another netminder gets hurt before Grubauer is able to return, the Kraken will need to make a quick move to sign another goalie.

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