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Minor Free Agent Signings: Pacific Division

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With over 180 deals signed during the first day of free agency yesterday, some smaller names may have gotten lost in the shuffle. Here’s a list of names that have inked two-way deals with Pacific Division clubs since the market opened yesterday, per CapFriendly. Some of these may have been included in our main coverage yesterday, while others went under the radar. All contracts carry the league-minimum $775K cap hit unless stated otherwise). Those listed here are likely to begin 2024-25 with each team’s AHL affiliate.

Anaheim Ducks

none

Calgary Flames

G Devin Cooley (two years)
F Martin Frk (one year)

Edmonton Oilers

D Connor Carrick (one year)
G Collin Delia (one year)
F James Hamblin (two years)
D Noel Hoefenmayer (one year)
F Noah Philp (one year)

Los Angeles Kings

F Glenn Gawdin (two years)
F Tyler Madden (one year)
F Jack Studnicka (one year)
D Reilly Walsh (one year)

San Jose Sharks

D Lucas Carlsson (two years, $800K cap hit)
D Jimmy Schuldt (one year)

Seattle Kraken

F Brandon Biro (one year)
D Nikolas Brouillard (one year)
D Maxime Lajoie (one year)
F Mitchell Stephens (two years)

Vancouver Canucks

G Jiří Patera (one year)
F Nathan Smith (one year)

Vegas Golden Knights

F Zach Aston-Reese (one year)

Kraken Sign Chandler Stephenson To Seven-Year Deal

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The Kraken are signing free agent center Chandler Stephenson to a seven-year contract, PuckPedia reports. The deal carries a cap hit of around $6.25MM, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman.

This deal moves Stephenson on from the Vegas Golden Knights, where he stamped his mark as a true top-six center in the NHL. Stephenson joined Vegas via trade in 2019, with the Golden Knights sending a 2021 fifth-round pick back to the Washington Capitals. Stephenson quickly took off with Vegas, netting 22 points in 41 games following the trade, and adding five points in 20 playoff games that year, while serving as the team’s third-line center. The hot start earned Stephenson a jump to the second line in 2020-21 – a promotion he vindicated by setting a then-career-high 14 goals and 35 points in 51 games. He followed that year up with a breakout 21 goals and 64 points in 2021-22, and quickly topped it with 65 points in 2022-23.

But it was the 2023 Stanley Cup Playoffs that seemed to truly cement Stephenson’s prowess. He was a focal piece of Vegas’ push to their first Stanley Cup, netting 20 points, split evenly, through 22 postseason games. He held down the team’s second line, controlling the middle lane in both directions and offering a chance for his aggressive wingers to make plays.

Stephenson has responded modestly to lifting the cup, with just 16 goals and 51 points this year, amidst a decrease in minutes in the wake of Tomas Hertl’s acquisition. Still, Stephenson has shown a propensity for making a strong two-way impact and driving the net hard. Now bumped out of his role with Vegas – thanks to Hertl and William Karlsson – Stephenson will take his talents to a Kraken team rife with opportunity.

Seattle struggled to shape their lineup this season, with high-end talents like Jared McCann and Yanni Gourde pushed to fill a long list of responsibilities. Utilityman Stephenson will help carry some of that load, and could even support McCann’s move back to the wing. It was from that spot that McCann managed a career-high 40 goals and 70 points last season. He held on to the strong scoring even in more of a center role this year, suggesting plenty of offensive upside should McCann find an ideal role. Stephenson will also be great company for youngster Matthew Beniers, who’s still building out his dynamic two-way game after scoring 20 fewer points this year than he did last year.

Seattle has had a busy start to free agency, also signing top defender Brandon Montour to a seven-year deal. He and Stephenson are certainly notable additions, though they also bring the Kraken down to just $10MM in remaining cap space. Seattle will need to use that to negotiate with their remaining restricted free agents – Beniers and Eeli Tolvanen. The pair will likely eat up most of Seattle’s remaining budget, though there could be enough room left for one more addition.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Brandon Montour To Sign Seven-Year Deal With Kraken

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The Kraken are landing arguably the top defenseman on the free agent market. Brandon Montour will sign in Seattle on a seven-year deal worth roughly $50MM in total, reports TSN’s Pierre LeBrun. Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman confirms the contract value, which translates to a $7.14MM cap hit.

Montour will remain in Seattle through the 2030-31 season. He’ll be 37 years old when his deal expires, meaning this pact will cover the remainder of his prime – and perhaps his career.

After spending the first few years of his career with up and down results through stops with the Ducks and Sabres, Montour has emerged as a bonafide top-pairing threat in Florida over the past two seasons. He broke out in a big way in 2022-23, putting up a monster offensive season with 16 goals, 57 assists and 73 points in 80 games while posting a +9 rating and 107 PIMs. That earned him 12th place in Norris Trophy voting, as his performance from the blue line was a key reason why the Panthers advanced to the 2023 Stanley Cup Final, only their second in franchise history.

This year was a step back for Montour, who began the season on injured reserve after sustaining a shoulder injury in the playoffs. Upon his return, he was still effective, although the points didn’t come with the same ferocity. He finished the year with 33 points in 66 games, a 41-point pace. It was much more in line with his career average, but the key difference was the minutes he logged. Like last season, he remained above average while shouldering heavy usage, averaging 23:27 per game.

Montour will now form an exceptional one-two punch on the right side of Seattle’s defense along with Adam Larsson. He’s unlikely to see first-pairing minutes at even strength alongside Vince Dunn, their primary power-play man and offensive threat from the blue line. That role will stay with Larsson, but Montour could still see heavy minutes in a second-pairing role alongside Jamie Oleksiak on his left flank.

Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Kraken Sign John Hayden, Others To Extensions

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July 1, 6:03 a.m.: The Kraken also re-upped veteran depth winger Max McCormick on a two-year, two-way deal last night with a $775K cap hit. McCormick, 32, has been in the Seattle organization since its inception. He’s spent his time with the Kraken primarily in the minors, where he’s captained the AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds to back-to-back Calder Cup Final appearances. The feisty, 5’11”, 187-lb forward has continued to be a solid offensive presence on the farm, coming off a strong 2023-24 campaign with 32 goals and 60 points in 68 games. He’s made 11 NHL appearances with Seattle over the past three years, going without a point.

June 30, 4:00 p.m.: The Seattle Kraken have signed forward John Hayden to a one-year, one-way contract extension (Twitter link). The deal will carry an average annual value of $775K, the league minimum. Seattle has also signed the inaugural Kraken, Luke Henman, to a one-year, two-way extension, also carrying league minimum pricing (Twitter link). Continuing the string of signings, Seattle also inked goaltender Ales Stezka to a one-year, two-way, league-minimum contract (Twitter link).

It will mark Hayden’s third straight year in the Kraken organization as he’s begun seeing his time wane at the NHL level. After playing in 55 contests for the Buffalo Sabres during the 2021-22 NHL season, Hayden has only played in nine games in Seattle since the start of the 2022-23 NHL season. Primarily playing for the AHL affiliate, the Coachella Valley Firebirds, Hayden has been a big part of the young team securing back-to-back Western Conference Final Championships.

The now-veteran forward has appeared in 112 regular season games for the Firebirds as he’s collected 32 goals and 59 points in the process. During the 2024 Calder Cup playoffs, Hayden was one of the more effective players on the roster as he scored nine goals and 13 points over 18 games. Due to his efforts both on and off the ice in Coachella Valley, the Kraken made an easy call of re-upping him for another year.

Seattle also extends the first official player of the Kraken organization in Henman. Since signing his entry-level contract with the team on May 12th, 2021, Henman has played 162 games at the AHL level with Coachella Valley and the Charlotte Checkers. As more of a depth piece even in the AHL, Henman has only put up 20 goals and 43 points throughout his three-year tenure in the Kraken organization.

Lastly, Stezka represents a good bit of organizational depth in the goaltender position as he served in a backup role with the Firebirds last year. In 27 games played, Stezka produced a record of 18-6-2 with a 2.48 goals against average and a .914 save percentage in addition to two shutouts. Unfortunately, Stezka would fail to collect any minutes during the 2024 Calder Cup playoffs as the team elected to run with veteran option Chris Driedger through the spring contest.

Studenic Signs In SHL

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  • Kraken free agent winger Marian Studenic has inked a two-year deal with SHL Farjestad, per a team release. The 25-year-old spent most of the year with AHL Coachella Valley, recording 15 goals and 29 assists in 64 games, earning him a two-game recall to Seattle.  Studenic also added 11 points in 18 playoff contests for the Firebirds.  However, rather than stick around in the minors, he’s opting to try his hand overseas.

Kraken Allowing Kailer Yamamoto To Speak With Other Teams

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  • The Kraken have given winger Kailer Yamamoto permission to speak to other teams, GM Ron Francis told team broadcaster Alison Lukan (Twitter link). Yamamoto signed with them as an unrestricted free agent after he was non-tendered by Detroit last summer just after his rights were acquired from Edmonton.  The 25-year-old had a quiet season, notching eight goals and eight assists in 59 games while averaging less than 12 minutes a night after logging at least 16 in each of the last four years.  Yamamoto’s qualifier comes in at $1.5MM but carries arbitration rights where his past production could push the price tag past the $2MM mark.  It appears that’s a price they don’t want to pay as it looks like he’ll be non-tendered once again on Sunday.

Kraken Linked To Patrik Laine

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With Patrik Laine now officially on the trade block, Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet says that the Kraken are a team to watch in talks for the scoring winger (audio link to “32 Thoughts”). It’s not clear how much Seattle general manager Ron Francis has explored a move, but Friedman believes there’s a “real push in that organization to be more aggressive” this summer as the team enters its fourth season of existence.

Few expected scoring to be a major issue for the Kraken this season after their capable death-by-depth offense erupted for 289 goals last year, but their shooting percentage cratered this season en route to finishing 29th in the league in goals. A major hiccup has been the health of top-six winger André Burakovsky, who’s missed nearly half the campaign with injuries in back-to-back years. While he was effective last season when healthy, the same couldn’t be said in 2023-24. His 16 points in 49 games worked out to 0.33 points per game, tied for the lowest of his 10-year NHL career.

Acquiring Laine would add a player with even more exaggerated issues staying healthy over the past couple of years, but he’d immediately become the highest-ceiling scoring option on the roster. The Kraken have been largely comfortable with Jared McCann as their top sniper, averaging 32 goals per season in a Kraken uniform, but Laine’s sparkling career 14.7 shooting percentage is hard to pass up.

It is impossible to ignore Laine’s availability issues over the past three seasons. Injuries limited him to 129 out of 246 games, missing 47.6% of regular-season action during that time. He played just 18 games this season, although he also spent much of the year in the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program after dealing with an upper-body injury in the first few months of the campaign.

However, during the two campaigns that he logged 50+ games in Columbus, he was worth his $8.7MM cap hit when in the lineup. The 2016 second-overall pick arguably had the best offensive showings of his career, pacing out for 38 goals and 82 points in 2021-22 and 33 goals and 78 points in 2022-23. Neither would have eclipsed his career high of 44 goals set with the Jets in 2017-18, but they would have both marked a career-best single-season point total.

There’s also breakout potential for Laine if he can stay healthy in a Kraken system that encourages puck possession. While they will have some different schemes next season under head coach Dan Bylsma, Seattle has consistently been a better even-strength puck possession team than Columbus over the past few years, and there’s little reason to see that not continuing without much roster turnover expected this summer. That means more opportunities for Laine to shoot and gives him a half-decent chance of sniffing the 40-goal plateau once again, especially if reunited with a skilled playmaker like former Blue Jackets teammate Oliver Bjorkstrand.

His power-play impact would also be beneficial. Laine led the league in power-play goals with 20 during his breakout sophomore campaign, and he’d help charge up a Kraken man-advantage unit that’s clicked at 18.4% over the past three seasons, 28th in the league during that time.

The Kraken aren’t a team that loves big cap hits, though. Defenseman Vince Dunn is their most expensive player annually at $7.35MM. Laine’s $8.7MM cap hit is worth it for his goal-scoring ability, but it’s hard for a lot of teams to justify absorbing it for a player who hasn’t played 60-plus games since before the pandemic.

But they do need scoring, and as Friedman articulates, their coaching change is indicative of a clear desire to return to postseason play in 2025. They have the financial flexibility to pull off a move with $23.424MM in projected cap space, although they do still need new deals for notable RFA forwards Matthew Beniers and Eeli Tolvanen.

Kraken Sign Oscar Fisker Mølgaard To Entry-Level Deal

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The Kraken have signed center prospect Oscar Fisker Mølgaard to his three-year, entry-level contract, the team announced Friday. It carries a cap hit of $950K, the maximum for a rookie deal.

Mølgaard, 19, was a second-round pick of Seattle in last year’s draft. Taken 52nd overall, he was the middle of three second-round selections the Kraken owned in the 2023 draft, joining left winger Carson Rehkopf (50th overall) and right-shot defenseman Lukas Dragicevic (57th overall).

The Danish pivot has a good shot to cap off a well-rounded two-way game. Standing at 6’0″ and 168 lbs, he has some room to grow into his frame before he’s ready for NHL action. But he has spent most of the past two seasons in a top-level professional league, suiting up for HV71 of the Swedish Hockey League.

In 50 games with HV71 this season, Mølgaard had nine goals and 21 points with a -4 rating and was extremely disciplined, logging only 6 PIMs. He finished seventh on the team in scoring and added three assists in their seven-game relegation series win over IK Oskarshamn, helping them stay up in the SHL for the third year in a row.

Mølgaard has also been a fixture on the Danish national junior team, appearing at all the IIHF U18 and U20 events he’s been eligible for since 2022. He also made his senior national team debut this year at the World Championship, scoring a goal and three assists in seven games as the Danes finished seventh in Group A and avoided relegation to next year’s Division IA tournament.

Since he played in the SHL during his draft year, he’s subject to the transfer agreement the NHL has with Swedish leagues. As he was not drafted in the first round, the Kraken must offer him back to HV71 next season before assigning him to their AHL affiliate. He’ll likely challenge for a top-six role on HV71 next season, so they’ll likely gladly take him back on loan.

And, since his 20th birthday doesn’t fall until 2025, the first year of his entry-level deal will slide if he plays fewer than 10 NHL games next season. In that likely event, he’ll receive his first-year signing bonuses but nothing else. His contract will then begin in earnest in the 2025-26 season, keeping him under his rookie deal through the 2027-28 campaign. He will be a restricted free agent upon expiry.

Kraken Begin Extension Discussions With Matthew Beniers

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The Kraken have begun preliminary contract discussions with top pending restricted free agent Matthew Beniers, per David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period. Their first draft pick in franchise history just completed the final season of his entry-level contract and is in need of a new deal this summer.

Beniers, still 22, turned pro to end the 2021-22 campaign after returning for his sophomore season with the University of Michigan. After ending the season on a tear with nine points in his first 10 NHL games, he took over first-line center duties entering 2022-23. His 24 goals were second on the team, his 57 points ranked fourth, and his +14 rating and 17:09 average time on ice helped him win the Calder Trophy as the league’s top rookie.

This year, Beniers endured a bit of a sophomore slump. Most of his underlying metrics remained the same, as he actually had more individual shot attempts than last year and maintained a CF% in the 51% range, but his production dropped to 15 goals and 37 points in 77 games. He was one of many affected by a major team-wide swing in shooting percentage, finishing at just a 9.1% rate this season compared to 11.6% in 2022-23.

It’s still unclear if he has the offensive upside to carry a team to a championship as their first-line center, but those concerns have persisted since his draft day. His floor as a high-end, defensively responsible pivot has already been realized, and he’s projected to again hold down first-line minutes next season with the team stating its preference to keep top goal-scorer Jared McCann on the wing.

Notably, Pagnotta says Kraken general manager Ron Francis isn’t yet sure if he wants to ink Beniers to a bridge deal, allowing them to sign him once again as an RFA in a few years, or go long-term immediately in hopes of getting a discount on his market value through his mid-20s. Evolving Hockey projects an eight-year extension for Beniers to cost $7.2MM annually, which could pay dividends if he can be a consistent 60-to-70-point player. If not, though, that’s a bit pricey for a player better served as a matchup second-line center. A three-year bridge deal, however, projects to cost just $5MM annually.

Either way, Pagnotta indicates negotiations are expected to kick into high gear after the scouting combine wraps up next week. There’s no huge sense of urgency to get a deal done before July 1, but it would give Francis a higher degree of cost certainty as he looks to improve his roster in free agency.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports.

Latest On Martin Necas’ Trade Market

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Martin Nečas’ availability in a potential trade has been one of the dominant early storylines of the 2024 offseason. The Hurricanes have been considering moving his signing rights as contract negotiations with the pending restricted free agent remain in a stalemate, and while there was a sense they may make one last pass at re-signing him with interim GM Eric Tulsky now at the helm temporarily, that seems unlikelier with each passing day.

To that end, Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli said on the site’s podcast today that a Nečas trade may come over the wire as soon as this week. Previously, we’ve covered reports that the Canucks, Flames and Canadiens have displayed some level of interest in his services. Recently, David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period confirmed that at least 12 teams have Nečas “on their radar” and added the Flyers, Kraken and Predators to the existing list of teams that have dictated their interest to Carolina.

Notably, no single team has been named a frontrunner throughout the reporting process over the last few weeks. It’s also been quiet about what the Hurricanes might be able to get in return for their 2017 12th-overall pick, who has 52 goals and 124 points in 159 games since the 2022-23 season.

Nečas, 25, still has another offseason of RFA status ahead of him, but it’s clear he wants to ink a long-term deal this summer. Contract projection models indicate his value is likely in the $7.5MM area on a max-term deal, a figure the Hurricanes don’t seem willing to oblige with the younger Seth Jarvis surpassing him on the depth chart and also needing a new deal this summer. They have a multitude of UFAs to try to retain this summer as well, including one of the best forwards available in Jake Guentzel, who Pagnotta also reported Monday will likely test the market next month before deciding whether to return to Carolina.

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