Je dirais que c’est une analyse très intelligente des ajouts de joueurs sans contrat. Le Kraken cherche à regagner du terrain sur le marché sportif encombré de Seattle, en attendant que ses prospects arrivent.
Le contrat de Stephenson ne peut donc pas être analysé de manière isolée. Je dirais que le retour imminent des Sonics est un autre facteur qui explique l’urgence du Kraken.
—
First-Radish727
4 Comments
Nah, that’s an old trope. NBA and NHL don’t have much in the way of fan overlap. It’s way more simple than that: The Kraken’s honeymoon period is ending and losing teams lose fans. Doesn’t matter if a new basketball team is on the way or not.
Pro sports is all about « what have you done for me lately » and it doesn’t take a whole lot of losing before people start losing jobs (see: Hakstol). Ron knows that if last season becomes a trend, then he’s next. So he’s trying to rebuild what they had in 2022-23, and doing that required an overpay on a few key pieces.
🚩
s.u.s.
If you want to establish values you can do so way more cheaply obv, why not sign ryan suter for 900k$ for instance
Very respected player
Can pair him with Mahura the youngest most inexperienced d on the team, or if a rookie surprisingly makes the team
>So the Stephenson contract can’t be analyzed in isolation. I’d argue the pending return of the Sonics is another factor in the Kraken’s urgency
Think this conflates « I understand why you did something » a bit with « I think the thing you did was good. » I get that a GM is probably going to make some desperation moves instead of going out with a whimper. Doesn’t mean those moves are going to work, are smart moves to make in general, or that anyone should just let them fly.
I don’t like the Stephenson contract because it looks like he was a product of his environment in VGK rather than moving the needle much on his own. I’m not really sure we’re going to get the same results out of him here, even in year 1, as a result. We basically need him to repeat his career highs a couple times in those first few years for that contract to look reasonable even at the beginning of it. I think there’s a pretty real chance he regresses further though, and if that happens the contract will look horrible.
So I’d say most of the consternation about the Steph contract is more like, « this move probably doesn’t make you much better next year or the one after, and it DEFINITELY hurts you in the long term. » People don’t criticize the Montour signing as much because the short-term value is much more clear there, confidence his pretty high he’ll help drive some more offense.
Both of these things can be, and I’d argue are, true:
1) Chandler Stephenson makes this team better next season and reduces the workload on Matty Beniers and Shane Wright, improving their development paths and helping them reach their full potential.
2) Chandler Stephenson is earning too much money for too long based on what he did on-ice last year and what he projects to do over the coming seasons. His contract will constrain the ability of the team to make future moves to improve the roster in other ways as Wright and Beniers enter their prime.
From a purely business perspective, it might be necessary for the Kraken’s long term health to maximize their chances to make the playoffs now. But that means you’re not making decisions with the #1 goal being winning the Stanley Cup and that’s my issue with the line of thinking Baker is articulating.
Baker wrote an entire column about all the reasons why Stephenson makes sense. He makes some great points I can’t dispute. But what he didn’t say once were the words « Stanley », « Cup », or « Championship ». I find that problematic. I assume Baker does not. Time will tell which approach is correct.