Seattle Kraken

What the Quant Says

216 goals, 29th in the league, off the 30th-ranked expected-goal rate at even strength (2.306 per 60). The scoring matched the chances almost exactly and both were near the bottom.

Jared McCann scored twenty-seven, a career high by eight, off the 9th-hardest shot of 365 forwards. Jordan Eberle twenty-one at 32 and Yanni Gourde twenty-one off 127 shots.

Alexander Wennberg took thirty-seven points off the 7th-fewest shots per 60 of all 393 forwards.

The power play finished 26th at 5.770 expected goals per 60, over the 12th-largest workload in the league — a genuine mismatch in the wrong direction.

Andre Burakovsky arrives off sixty-one points in Colorado and Oliver Bjorkstrand off twenty-eight goals in Columbus. Marcus Johansson has gone to Washington, Calle Jarnkrok to Toronto and Mason Appleton to Winnipeg.

What the Scout Says

Alexander Wennberg took 3.99 shots per 60 — the 7th-fewest of all 393 qualified forwards — while playing 17:51 a night and producing thirty-seven points. Twenty-six of them were assists. A top-six centre who essentially does not shoot is a rare object and this is the purest example in the edition.

Jared McCann's shot is 99.5 mph, the 9th-hardest of 365 forwards, and thirty-eight per cent of his attempts came from the slot — the 9th-lowest of 393. He fires very hard from thirty-two feet and twenty-seven goals came out of it. Morgan Geekie is 8th-hardest on the same list at 99.7 and scored seven.

Andre Burakovsky's median shot travelled 33.8 feet, the 9th-longest of 393, and his slot share of 29.4 per cent is the 7th-lowest. Sixty-one points arrived anyway — on the club that won the Stanley Cup.

Daniel Sprong fired 11.22 shots per 60, the 16th-most of 393, off the 23rd-percentile workload.

Yanni Gourde shot 16.5 per cent off the 19th-percentile volume, at 5-9 and 173 pounds with the 93rd-percentile shot speed.

What the Quant Says

285 goals against, 24th in the league, off the 3rd-ranked expected-goals-against rate at even strength (2.381 per 60). Twenty-one places of gap between the structure and the result.

Adam Larsson played 22:17 a night across all eighty-two games and every one of his six recorded team-mates took a better share of the expected goals apart from him. Vince Dunn 51.0 apart and 44.8 together; Yanni Gourde 53.0 and 44.9; Alexander Wennberg 52.4 and 43.8.

Jamie Oleksiak put twenty-three per cent of his attempts in the slot, the 2nd-highest of 202 qualified defencemen at 6-7 and 252 pounds — and scored once on ninety-five.

Carson Soucy shot 10.3 per cent, the 5th-best at the position, off the 17th-slowest top speed of 192 and the 10th-fewest sprints.

Justin Schultz arrives from Washington; Mark Giordano, Jeremy Lauzon and Haydn Fleury have all gone.

What the Scout Says

Adam Larsson is the most striking pair file in this batch. Six team-mates appear beside him in the with-and-without record and all six took a better share of the expected goals apart from him — Wennberg by 8.6 points, Gourde by 8.1, Eberle by 7.5, Donskoi by 9.4, Dunn by 6.2, McCann by 2.8.

And his own shares split in a specific way: 50.4 per cent of the attempts at the 57th percentile, against 46.1 per cent of the expected goals, the 40th-lowest of 202. He holds territory and gives up the wrong shots.

He is also the 19th-fastest defenceman of the 192 the tracking measures, which makes none of the above easier to explain.

Jamie Oleksiak is the opposite file. The 2nd-highest slot share of 202 defencemen at 6-7 and 252 pounds, 8.88 miles per 60 at the 92nd percentile, the hardest chair on the blue line and its second-best chance share — and one goal from ninety-five attempts.

Vince Dunn took a career-equalling thirty-five points, the softest chair on the blue line and the 88th-percentile rate of penalties taken. His six-point gain away from Larsson is the strongest number in his file.

What the Quant Says

31st in the league at minus-36.0 goals saved above expectation. Only New Jersey was worse, and this is the entire explanation of Seattle's season.

Philipp Grubauer posted .8891 across 55 games and 1,479 shots — 53rd of the 53 goaltenders who played twenty-five, dead last in hockey.

Across the nine seasons before it he had faced 5,745 shots at .9205, with every single year between .9153 and .9265. A hundred and twelve points of spread across nine seasons, and then a drop of three hundred and fourteen in one.

Chris Driedger took twenty-seven games at .8989 and is off the roster.

Martin Jones arrives at .9001 across thirty-five games, 40th of the same 53 — and his last four seasons read .8964, .8964, .8959 and .9001. A club with the 3rd-best chance suppression in the league has two goaltenders who have not been league-average since 2018.

What the Scout Says

This is the whole chapter and it deserves the space.

Philipp Grubauer faced 5,745 NHL shots across nine seasons and stopped 92.05 per cent of them. Every individual season in that stretch fell between .9153 and .9265 — a hundred and twelve points of range across nine years, which is about as stable as a goaltending record gets.

Then he faced 1,479 shots in Seattle and stopped 88.91 per cent. Three hundred and fourteen points of decline, on a sample large enough to be a season in its own right. It is the worst figure of the 53 goaltenders who played twenty-five games.

Chris Driedger's .8989 across twenty-seven games did not help and he is gone.

The replacement is Martin Jones, whose last four seasons read .8964, .8964, .8959 and .9001 across 4,959 shots — a hundred and fifty points below the three full seasons that preceded them, and sustained long enough that it is no longer a slump.

So the club's answer to the worst goaltending in the league bar one is a goaltender who has not been league-average since 2018.

What makes it maddening is the structure. The 3rd-best expected-goals-against rate in hockey, the 6th-smallest penalty-killing workload, and a five-on-five expectation of 152.0 goals against. They gave up 188. Thirty-six goals is not sixty points of standings, and it is the largest single correction available to any club in this batch.

What the Quant Says

28th in the league at 5.770 expected goals per 60, over 4:56 a night — the 12th-largest workload. More time than twenty others and a worse rate than twenty-seven.

Oliver Bjorkstrand arrives having taken 3:07 a night in Columbus, the 89th percentile among forwards, with a third of his points on it.

Jordan Eberle took 2:45, Jared McCann 2:36 with thirty-four per cent of his points there, Vince Dunn 2:13 at the point — the 82nd percentile among defencemen.

Alexander Wennberg 2:04 and Andre Burakovsky 2:01, and Burakovsky took only eighteen per cent of his points on it.

A unit that finished 28th is about to add a sixty-one-point winger and a twenty-eight-goal one. It is the most obviously fixable thing on the roster and it is not the thing that cost sixty points.

What the Scout Says

Twenty-eighth in the league on the 12th-largest workload. More ice than most and less to show for it than nearly everyone.

The unit had no shooter and no point man. Vince Dunn ran it at 2:13 a night off a 50-foot median with thirteen per cent from the slot, and thirty-one per cent of his points came there — real production from a defenceman who had never done it before.

Jared McCann took thirty-four per cent of his points on it, the largest share of any Seattle forward, off 2:36 a night.

Jordan Eberle at 2:45 took twenty per cent of his points there and Yanni Gourde fifteen per cent off 1:58.

Oliver Bjorkstrand arrives with the 89th-percentile power-play workload and a third of his points from it; Andre Burakovsky with sixty-one points of which only eighteen per cent came a man up. The first of those two is the more useful addition here.

What the Quant Says

16th in the league at 6.593 expected goals against per 60, over 4:25 a night — the 6th-smallest workload in hockey. Middling rate, very little exposure, and no complaint.

Adam Larsson killed 2:32 a night, the 82nd percentile among defencemen, and Jamie Oleksiak 1:46. Justin Schultz, arriving, killed four seconds a night — the 1st percentile at the position.

Yanni Gourde 1:34 at the 75th percentile among forwards and one short-handed goal; Karson Kuhlman 0:51; Alexander Wennberg 0:47.

The discipline is the reason the workload is small. Jordan Eberle took fourteen penalty minutes in seventy-nine games, Daniel Sprong eight in sixty-three, Justin Schultz sixteen in seventy-four.

And the club has just signed John Hayden, whose 2.11 penalties taken per 60 is the 98th percentile among forwards and who took eighty-four penalty minutes in fifty-five games.

What the Scout Says

Sixteenth in the league over the 6th-smallest workload in hockey, and neither half is a problem.

Adam Larsson carries it at 2:32 a night, the 82nd percentile among defencemen, on a club whose expected-goals-against rate at even strength was 3rd-best in the league. Whatever the pair file says about him at five-on-five, the short-handed workload is real and it is his.

Yanni Gourde kills 1:34 at the 75th percentile among forwards and scored one of his twenty-one goals a man short.

The club stays out of the box. Jordan Eberle's 0.30 penalties drawn per 60 is the 18th-fewest of 393 forwards and his 0.30 taken the 10th percentile — an exactly neutral ledger. Daniel Sprong took eight penalty minutes in sixty-three games.

The two exceptions are worth naming. Carson Soucy's minus-0.80 penalty differential is the 3rd-lowest of 202 defencemen, and John Hayden arrives at the 98th percentile for penalties taken with eighty-four minutes in fifty-five games.