5. Seattle Kraken
Two seasons ago has so far been the high water mark for a Seattle franchise in the infancy of it's existence. It only started play in 2021, and thus it's lack of success in the early going suggests that they are building for the future, and if the projections are right they may be at the midway point of their building blocks for success. The Kraken have some good pieces in place, but as you'd expect with the franchise so far they have a ways to go.
Their first line is their first ever draft pick, Matty Beniers, flanked by Jordan Eberle and Jared McCann. McCann was actually their leading scorer last season with 29 goals and 62 points. Eberle is 34 years old now, and while he missed the mark last year he's discovered a scoring touch that disappeared after the Oilers traded him the New York Islanders. He only had 17 goals last year but has been a 20 goal scorer two of three years in Seattle. As for Beniers, GM Ron Francis surely raised a few eyebrows after he backed the Brinks truck up to Beniers once his ELC was over, despite the fact that he regressed both offensively and defensively. Why you would give a 21 year old over $7,000,000 a year unless he had turned into a superstar fast is beyond me. I mean, I get he's important to the future of the franchise, but......his play regressed. Why didn't you give him a bridge contract? Even at that same price point, a bridge contract would've made a lot more sense. Now all Francis can do is hope that he lives up to it otherwise he'll have a boat anchor contract on his hands sooner rather than later.
Chandler Stephenson was a solid add to up the level of depth on the roster for second line center. He played first line center in Vegas prior to Jack Eichel coming on the scene so he knows what he's doing. Flanking him is Andre Burakovsky and Jaden Schwartz, two solid veteran players for the line. Burakovsky disappointed last season but he is a two time 20 goal scorer. Schwartz regressed last season but scored 21 goals the prior season, so to quote Spaceballs - "never underestimate the power of the schwartz."
As for the bottom six, the third line is centered by Shane Wright, the high pick from 2022. He's been marinating the last couple of years and appears ready for full time NHL work. If they live up to their potential, Beniers and Wright will eventually form a great 1-2 punch at center. His wingers are veterans Andre Burakovsky and Olivier Bjorkstrand. Bjorkstrand was the only other player other than McCann to score 20 goals last season, and just like with Trevor Moore in LA there may be a mismatch in terms of where he plays. It'll be a great battle with Bjorkstrand and Schwartz for playing time, which hopefully should help keep the Kraken fans entertained despite the fact their team is not a competitive one just yet. On the fourth line Yanni Gourde is solid, putting up 11 goals and 33 points in 80 games, albeit with a -11 - he needs to improve on that mark for sure. His wingers are 23 year old Tye Kartye, just entering his second NHL season but had a pretty solid debut putting up 11-9-20 with a -1 in 77 games last season, and 473 game veteran Brandon Tanev, who might be most known for the funniest mugshot of a player I've ever seen, like the grim reaper is behind the camera or something.
On D, the top pairing is a great one. Vince Dunn put up 46 points in 59 games last season, so he's a great piece to build the defense around. His partner on the right side is ex-Oiler Adam Larsson, who as we all know is a stay at home guy with a great physical presence and always willing to block shots. Larsson regressed in points from 33 two seasons ago to 18 last season but I doubt anyone in the organization is worried about that. Any points he puts up are just gravy.
The second pairing was supposed to have Jaime Oleksiak as it's centerpiece but Oleksiak regressed last season from 25 to 15 points season over season. Seeing a need for more offence on this pairing, GM Ron Francis went and signed a pretty good partner for Oleksiak in ex-Florida Panther Brandon Montour. Montour had also regressed by about 40 points season over season from 73 to 33 points, but Francis still saw fit to sign him to a risky contract of $7.142857 a season for the max seven years, with a full NTC to boot for the next three years until it changes to a modified NTC. Francis better hope this signing works out otherwise this'll be a huge problem for the Kraken down the road. The bottom pairing is nice and solid, veteran Will Borgen who at 27 just set a new career high in points with 25, while his partner Ryker Evans played 36 games for the Kraken last season putting up 1-8-9 in those games. Evans is a second round draft pick of the Kraken from 2021, so he's bound to be key to their future success.
The way I see it, there are two things that may hold the Kraken back from future success - and one of them is their goaltending. The cap space is completely backwards as the guy banking on taking the lion's share of the starts is Phillip Grubauer, who underachieved last season and got paid almost $6 million a season to do it. He's signed for two more seasons with a modified NTC in there, but if Grubauer doesn't improve it'll be very tough to trade that contract to begin with, and to get anything of significance back for it for another. His partner is Joey Daccord, who fortunately picked up the ball and ran with it with a .916 sv% and a 2.46 GAA. However, this was Daccord's breakout season, so we need to know if he can do it again or if that was merely a fluke, especially at the age of 28. If he does do it again, the Kraken face the unappealing prospect of having to pay between $7-10 million for their goalie tandem when the guy making most of the $$ is underachieving.
The other thing that will hold the Kraken back is GM Ron Francis's penchant for giving out special clauses like candy to players. The Calgary Flames did this for years and it never translated to success on the ice, and made it much harder to dismantle an underperforming team. Francis is taking the Kraken in the same direction, a scary thought for the NHL's newest franchise. Seriously, there are more players with NT or NM clauses than players without on the Kraken. Take a look - this is not a good thing. I hope Kraken ownership has come down on Francis for this.