New York took a stranglehold of their second-round series with a 3-2 overtime win in Carolina. The Rangers are now up 3-0 in the matchup and have a chance to close things out Saturday night back in Raleigh.

Alexis Lafreniere and Artemi Panarin both had a goal and an assist with the latter tallying the overtime winner. Their line has carried the Rangers for months at a time this season and came up big once again here. It is truly a treat to watch them.

Chris Kreider (SH) scored the other Rangers goal. Andrei Svechnikov and Jake Guentzel replied for the Hurricanes with the former adding an assist on the Guentzel tally.

Igor Shesterkin was once again very solid in net with 45 saves on 47 shots.

Filip Chytil returned to action for the first time since November, and it was great to see him back on the ice after so many serious health scares.

*

The Dallas Stars managed to hold onto a four-goal lead to even their series against Colorado 1-1. The Stars did not make it easy on themselves as they had a four-goal lead heading into the third period but goals from Joel Kiviranta, Brandon Duhaime, and Valeri Nichushkin got the Avalanche within one with nearly four minutes left. Mercifully, the Stars didn't blow this one and Esa Lindell sealed the game with an empty netter.

Miro Heiskanen scored twice on the power play, Roope Hintz managed his second goal of the playoffs, and Tyler Seguin registered a short-handed marker to lift Dallas to their win.

Heiskanen's two goals were accompanied by five total shots, a block, and two hits. He now has eight points in nine playoff games thus far.

Game 3 is Saturday night in Colorado.

*

My offseason review of the 16 non-playoff teams continues today with the Seattle Kraken. We have already gone over the San Jose Sharks, the Chicago Blackhawks, the Anaheim Ducks, the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Montreal Canadiens, the Arizona Coyotes (now in Utah), and the Ottawa Senators. Let's go over what went right, what went wrong, and where they go from here, with all this put through a fantasy hockey lens.

Data from Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, HockeyViz, and Frozen Tools with salary cap data from Cap Friendly. Any tracking data is from AllThreeZones unless otherwise noted.

What Went Wrong

Before digging into any specific performance, the key here is just simple regression. The 2022-23 Seattle Kraken, to that point, had the highest even strength shooting percentage of any team since 2007, excluding the shortened Lockout and Pandemic seasons. That shooting percentage fell from a literal generational-high of 10.56% last year to the third-worst mark this year – a paltry 7.66%. It dropped them from the second-highest scoring team at even strength last season to the 28^th-ranked scoring rate this season. That natural regression hurt everyone.

At the top of the list is Matty Beniers. After a Rookie of the Year effort in 2022-23 that saw 24 goals and 57 points in 80 games, he fell to 15 goals and 37 points in 77 games. He saw large drops in personal shooting percentage, team shooting percentage with him on the ice, involvement in goals scored with him on the ice, individual shot rate, team shot rate with him on the ice, and on and on. To crystallize his issue: his even strength shooting percentage was cut in half (16.8% to 8.3%) while the team's shooting percentage with him on the ice excluding his personal shots and goals fell from 11.3% to 7.5%.

Of course, he wasn't quite that bad. There were some drops in the types of passes he made or individual scoring chances, but his scoring chance assists at 5-on-5 (helpers on teammate chances), zone entries, controlled zone entries, and zone exits with possession looked like this in 2023-24: 

Compared to this in 2022-23:

There are some small drops, but certainly not enough to explain a points rate that was cut nearly in half. With a new coach being hired soon – we'll talk about that more later – and Alex Wennberg traded, Beniers is in a position for a big rebound in 2024-25. His fantasy trade value may never be lower than it is now, and that makes him a buy-low in keeper and dynasty formats.

While most players saw drop-offs, it is worth highlighting Jaden Schwartz. His rate of 0.48 points per game was the lowest for him since the shortened 2013 season, and about 17% lower than his first two seasons in Seattle.

Schwartz landed fewer than 7.0 shots per 60 minutes, the lowest rate for him in any season where he's played at least 50 games. Were it not for his success on the power play – a four-year high shooting rate of 23.3% – that led to seven power play goals (also a four-year high) then the season would have looked much worse for Schwartz. He turns 32 years old this coming June and has a lengthy injury history. The entire team should bounce back, but his 16:22 per game was the lowest for him since his rookie season. If the new coach doesn't give him more ice time, and he's around the 16-minute mark, there just might not be much fantasy utility here in any format that doesn't dig deep into the player pool.

It was now a third straight season of poor performance from goaltender Philipp Grubauer. From Hockey Reference, Grubauer is 1 of 2 goalies to have at least 30 starts in each of the last three seasons, and a save percentage under .900 in each of the last three seasons:

This is a big problem. It isn't as if Seattle has been bad defensively; Grubauer has three years left on his contract at $5.9M per season. Among 50 goalies with at least 1500 minutes played in 2023-24, Grubauer was 14^th by average shot distance faced at 35.91 feet. Comparatively, all of Jeremy Swayman, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, Sam Montembeault, Igor Shesterkin, and Thatcher Demko had closer average shot distances. Seattle has largely been a good defensive team in Grubauer's tenure and he's been arguably the worst regular goalie in the league; like, Elvis Merlizkins-bad. Having a goalie that is indistinguishable from an AHL call-up but signed for three years at nearly $6M a season is a problem for the team. Maybe he turns things around – goalies are weird – but this is a sizable sample of very bad goaltending on a team that has had good goaltending performances elsewhere.

The Kraken power play improved their ranking from 21^st in 2022-23 to 20^th in 2023-24, but it still was largely not much help to fantasy managers. No single forward earned at least 52% of the team's power play time and they had nine regular forwards (at least 41 games played) to earn between 42-52%:

Two forwards – Jared McCann and Oliver Bjorkstrand – surpassed 20 points on the power play, but no one else had more than 13. It really hurt the value not only of Beniers, but ancillary players like Schwartz, Jordan Eberle, and Eeli Tolvanen. There are few franchises that succeed by splitting their PP units and Seattle's didn't do much for the non-McCann/Bjorkstrand fantasy managers.

We will end with Vince Dunn, who had a good year again with 11 goals and 46 points but missed 23 games. Putting him in here due to injury is a bit unfair, but he played just four games from March 1^st through the end of the season. Anyone relying on Dunn in head-to-head playoffs got the short end of the injury stick. He did help drive the offence both at 5-on-5 and on the power play, so there is mostly good work here, but falling under the 60-game threshold is a tough break for fantasy managers.

Overall, a lot went wrong for Seattle, but it was all related to shooting percentage. Their shot map at 5-on-5 looked very similar in 2022-23 and 2023-24, but their finishing did not. On the left is their finishing last season and on the right is their finishing this season (red is above average, blue is below average):

We will have to reserve further judgment until we see who their new coach will be, but it seems likely the percentage pendulum swings back the other way in 2024-25.

What Went Right

Despite the huge goal-scoring drop and missing the playoffs by a comfortable margin, there were good fantasy performances.

Fewer goals (40 to 29) and points (70 to 62) might make it odd to find McCann in the 'success' column, but he was the only Kraken skater with more than 20 goals or 60 points. He also scored a career-high nine power play goals and career-high 14 power play assists for a career-high 23 power play points. Add that to his career-best mark of 216 shots and more than doubling his penalty minute total (31) from the year prior (14) and there was still a lot of good here. He is just a victim of the effects felt by the rest of the team. That he still had a good fantasy season besides that should be commended.

The only other Kraken skater to reach the 20-goal mark was Bjorkstrand, who managed exactly 20. That total is exactly the same as the year prior but he had 59 points – a career-high mark – and 25 power play points, also a career-high. He saw small jumps in ice time and hit totals and a small decline in shot volume, so it's nearly a push. Regardless, considering how rough the rest of the team mostly was, it was a good year from him.

Dunn could find himself here if the season ended in late February, but one defenceman who absolutely should be mentioned is Will Borgen. His 25 points in 82 games was a career-high total after posting 28 points in his first 118 games in a Kraken uniform. He earned the most ice time per game of his career and that led to career marks in penalty minutes (65), shots (97), blocks (111), and 195 hits, or just eight fewer than the year before. He was a very good multi-category fantasy option and with Justin Schultz potentially leaving the franchise, Borgen could see more ice time as he and Adam Larsson remain as the only right-handed shots on the blue line.

Aside from his personal fantasy production, Borgen had a good season on the penalty kill. The Kraken finished in the bottom-half of the league by power play goals allowed per 60 minutes, but Borgen had the lowest goals against rate of their four penalty-killing defencemen and he did that by helping keep the net-front clean:

It doesn't seem likely that Borgen is some 40-point puck-moving defenceman in the making – like Dunn was years ago in St. Louis – but if Borgen can earn 19-20 minutes a game, it'd really boost his peripherals and put 30 points on the table. That is a very useful multi-category option, especially in cap formats as his cap hit is $2.7M in 2024-25.

Finally, there is Joey Daccord. After a very brief tenure in Ottawa and some time spent in the AHL, Daccord had a great season in goal for the Kraken with 19 wins in 46 starts, a .916 save percentage, and a 2.46 goals against average. The wins were a problem as the team couldn't score; Daccord allowed two-or-fewer goals in 25/46 starts and went 14-8-3 in those games. For reference, Jacob Markstrom allowed two-or-fewer goals in 19 starts and went 14-4-1. Even an average scoring team would have had Daccord pushing for 25 wins, so it's a case where the defence helped but the offence hurt.

Just beware buying in on Daccord next year. It all depends on his ADP, of course, and he should be given the first crack at the starting job out of the gate – though with a new coach, who knows – but his average shot distance faced was 37.82 feet. That was the furthest average shot distance of any regular goalie, and over 1.5 feet further than the goalies from Dallas and over 1.3 feet further than the goalies from Vegas. At 5-on-5, the team did a great job keeping his net clear and forcing shots to the outside:

Vegas and Dallas were very good defensive teams, so any kind of pullback from the Seattle defence could really hurt Daccord in 2024-25.

That concern doubles when looking at high-danger save percentage. His mark of .779 was actually the same as Grubauer and tied for 45^th out of the 50 regular goalies. Daccord was excellent, and maybe he can put up some more wins when the team improves offensively, but there are concerns about whether he'll repeat a top-5 save percentage in the league. If he is closer to a .900 goalie than a .920 goalie, that could adversely impact his start totals, too.

Where They Go From Here

It is an interesting summer from Seattle because this team took a big step back offensively but aren't really losing (m)any key players. They traded Wennberg, and Tomas Tatar, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Justin Schultz, and Chris Driedger are their unrestricted free agents. They could bring any of them back, and the likeliest may be Schultz, but they have Ryker Evans ready for a full-season role so just replacing Schultz with Evans would likely get them a similar (or better) performance for less money.

As for restricted free agents, Kailer Yamamoto could be brought back for cheap but it's a wonder how much they really need him. He didn't show many signs of life offensively and while he was above average defensively by expected goals against impact, the need to extend a player whose only real value is being good (not great) defensively on a team that is very good defensively otherwise seems very low. It seems likely they extend Eeli Tolvanen but he's two years away from unrestricted free agency. That changes the value of the contract depending on the length, so there will be some negotiations to be done.

The big RFA is Beniers. His 10-game appearance at the end of 2021-22 burned his first year of his entry-level deal so he's now due for a contract extension. The Kraken front office is very smart, so they probably know how good Beniers is and will be moving forward, and his value is also a lot lower now than it was 12 months ago. That could make a long-term extension reasonably cheap, but that is something that Beniers's agent should also know, and locking him in for a contract now will probably cost Beniers millions, so maybe they opt for a two-year bridge followed by a 5- or 6-year deal rather than a 7- or 8-year deal right now. We will have to see what happens.

It seems like Seattle is in for a bit of a reset year. They have $23M in cap space but extending Tolvanen and Beniers could chew up nearly half of that space depending on what kind of contracts they sign. At seems very plausible those two take up $8-10M AAV even on short-term bridge deals and the team still has a few roster spots to fill out beyond them. Even with cheap rookies like Shane Wright and Jagger Firkus, plus Evans, they may have just $10M in cap space to work with once their key RFAs are re-signed. It seems likely they make some depth signings, see what they have in young players like Wright, Beniers, Evans, Tye Kartye, Logan Morrison, and even Daccord, and then reevaluate a year from now.

That waiting game is a function of two things.

First, the team is clearly not in the tier with franchises like Dallas, Colorado, Edmonton, Vancouver, or Vegas. A big offensive improvement could have them fighting in that Los Angeles-Nashville-St. Louis tier of teams, so they could find themselves back in a playoff race right to the end of the 2024-25 season without any significant offseason additions.

The second is that the team is a year away from several players reaching free agency. This time next year will see Yanni Gourde, Brandon Tanev, Adam Larsson, Brian Dumoulin, Borgen, and Daccord as unrestricted free agents. At that point, they'll be a year away from the contracts of Eberle, Schwartz, Bjorkstrand, and Jamie Oleksiak also running out. What this team looks like in September of 2024 will be radically different from September of 2026, and the team needs to find out which of their young players can step up into the top roles that will be opening in the next 24 months, which will fill out the depth, and which they'll need to move on from.

Fantasy-wise, there should be some valuable pieces once again. Dunn should be just fine as long as he can play a full season, McCann is a 30-goal, 70-point threat again, players like Tolvanen, Oleksiak, and Borgen will be multi-category assets, and Daccord stands a chance of being a competent #2 fantasy goalie. There is also a very good chance of a significant rebound from Beniers, and any sort of production from Kartye would complement his sky-high hit rates very well in banger formats.

The big key here is which coach will be brought in to steer this team in the near-term? It is a big problem for fantasy value to have no forwards skate 18 minutes a game – which they didn't, excluding the now-traded Wennberg – and to have split usage on the power play. Beniers did skate 18:44 per game over the team's final 20 games post-Wennberg trade, so there are positive signs here, and though this team may not have a superstar fantasy skater, a down year should have several solid options as good values come draft time in September.