July 1, 2024 • 13 mins
Seattle Kraken Radio Play-By-Play Voice Everett Fitzhugh joins Dave Softy Mahler and Dick Fain to talk about the team’s two new signings earlier today and contract details for both players, factoring in their age, and the outlook of the roster after other big changes.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I was gonna say, is Betnot available? You know, yeah,
he's actually not. He's been.He's been on the station twice already.
So we turned to you. Butnow you know, you know you're our
guy. Man, I'm just messingwith you. Let's just start at the
top. Man. A couple ofbig signings, nothing I think official official,
but Chandler Stevenson, who spent lastyear, the last four years or
(00:21):
five years with Vegas. His fiftyone points last year would have been third
on this cracking team. He's intown, he's locked in on a seven
year deal. And then Manni BrandonMontour, defenseman from Florida, another seven
year deal. Put these in contextand give us an idea of how big
these signings are. Well, Ithink they're huge. I mean, these
might possibly be as far as freeagent signings go, this has to be
(00:46):
probably two of the bigger incoming freeagency signings that Ron France has ever made
here for Seattle. These are definitelythe longest contracts he's ever given out seven
years for both and the thing forMontour and a little over six and a
half for Stevenson. So I mean, look, I think they're great moves.
(01:07):
Right off the top everyone new cominginto the summer. You needed to
upgrade the offense. Rather that beupfront, forward wise or even on defense.
You needed to find a way toscore more goals. Your twenty eighth
in offense last season two point threejust over two point three goals for per
game. That's not gonna get itdone. So now you bring in players
who are coming off of pretty goodoffensive years. Montour thirty plus points each
(01:30):
of his last three seasons, acareer high seventy nine a couple of years
ago. Chandler Stevenson is a routineforty to fifty sixty point guy. These
are the type of players that youneed, that you need to go in
to the summer. So I lovethe moves I think with Chandler Stevenson,
not only do you have that legitimatetop line center that takes some pressure off
(01:55):
of Matt Evaniers. Now you canslide madd Eveniers down to the number two
position. He's not drawing all thetough matchups, he's not getting all of
the big assignments on a nightly basis. Shane Wright probably gonna make the lineup
this year, so you put himat third. You can put Yanni Gordon
now as your fourth line center,and he plays a really good grinding type
(02:15):
of game. And with Dan Bileswere coming in as head coach, there
really is no one through four lines. I mean, you're expected to contribute
all up and down the lineup.So I don't think seeing Yanni go down
to four Maddie go down to two, I don't see that as a quote
unquote demotion. But you now getthat bona fide tops line center that you
can pencil in every night, andit takes some pressure off of Maddie.
(02:38):
And then with Brandon Montour defensively,you're bringing in a second, I think
a second version of Vince Donn who'sgot a little bit more snarl maybe than
don does, but the offense isthere, so now you're gonna have that
left right, left, right,left right combination. Defensively, I think
these are two home run moves forRon Francis today. Are you surprised that
(02:59):
the length of contract because I'm lookingat the top nine free agents in the
NHL have all signed someplace. Onlythree of the nine signed seven or longer
contracts, and two of them werecracking guys, and both of them are
thirty years old. Yeah, youknow, I think every year, that's
the crazy thing about the NHL.Every single year, the market changes.
(03:21):
You know, there are some yearswhere term is usually rains king. There
are some years where dollars reign king. All guys want term, all guys
want that long term security. Ithink there you can ask most any guy
in the NHL. They'll leave afew million on the table over the course
of a deal if you can givethem two or three more years on the
back end. So I don't knowif I'm surprised at either the term or
(03:45):
the length. I know a lotof people were kind of saying that the
cracking overpaid for these players. Idon't know if it's an overpay, but
even if it is, given thenature of the business, given the nature
of how new the cracking are,sometimes you might have to spend a few
extra bucks than your plant. Butwe all do it, right, Every
team at some point in their historyhas had to overpay for a couple of
(04:06):
guys. I'm not buying that.I do think you now have some longevity
because you're looking at I think atthe second generation of the kracket, the
three years are up. You madethe playoffs. I think some of that,
you know, expansion team shine isstarting to fade off a little bit.
So now you're you know, you'rea real team. You know you
are an NHL team. You're nolonger the new toy, You're no longer
(04:29):
the sexy new thing on the block. So now it's time to see results,
and you can see a Chandler Stevenson. You can see Brandon Montour being
a part of a future core withMaddie, with Shane, with Raker Evans,
with all the young kids that arecoming up in the system over the
next three to four or five years. Now you have two bonafide Stanley Cup
(04:51):
champion winning players in Stevenson and Montourwho can help lead this next generation of
Kracket players, which I think generationtwo starts this season. Yeah. Well,
he's always going to be our sexything ever fits you on the radio
with Weinberg going to the Rangers,was there any thought of him coming back?
(05:12):
And how big of a pickup isthat for San Jose? You think,
man, you know, listen,I think with Weinberg having gone to
New York, you know at thetrade deadline, you did lose a lot
in the face off department. Youlost a lot of as far as puck
moving, puck control. But Ithink for him, I mean, that's
a great opportunity in San Jose Mikecareer, the GM Bear, he is
(05:36):
trying to He tore that whole thingdown to the studs and he had to.
I mean, this is a SanJose Sharks organization that is five years,
I believe, five six years removedfrom going to the Cup Final and
losing the Pittsburgh back in sixteen seventeen, seventeen eighteen. So I think for
for Weinberg, it's a good movefor him. He's going to be playing
(05:58):
in a lot of situations. He'sgoing to be given pretty much the freedom
to play his type of game.I like that move by San Jose.
I think he enjoyed being out hereon the West Coast, So going to
San Jose, I think with whatthey're building down there, that's gonna be
a really good fit for him.Talk about this year's free agent pickups versus
(06:21):
last year where they were very quiet. Do you think they look back on
last year and kind of regret howquiet they were in free agency and that's
one of the reasons why they spentall this money this year. You know,
I don't think that'll ever be saidpublicly, but I mean, if
you read between the lines, Imaybe I can see there being a little
bit of yeah, maybe maybe weshould have taken another swing or two last
(06:46):
summer. But listen, this year'sfor agency signings I think were hands down
more impactful. And that's taking nothingaway from Brian Dumelin from what he was
able to do. I mean,he was the big signing last sight for
Seattle. But you address the needsthis year. You knew going into the
summer you needed offense. Two pointthree goals a game that was not going
(07:09):
to cut it. What do youdo. You go out there and you
find offense. So I think rightthere, addressing the immediate needs that that
this Kraken team was searching for automatically, I think gives this year's free agency
win class a win over last year. And listen. Ron Francis said today
that Montor and Stevenson are probably goingto be the only two major moves.
(07:32):
There will probably still be some depthsignings there. And don't forget you now
have roughly ten million dollars to fitboth Matt e Veniers and Ellie Tolbinen in
your lineup. Under the cap asthere are fa so it wouldn't surprise me,
and I don't I don't want tobe quoted as saying so and so
(07:53):
is getting moved, But it wouldn'tsurprise me to see Ron Francis explore the
trademark it with a few other playerson the roster or in the organization to
try and free up some more capspace. I know that was being talked
about a little bit today, justall throughout Twitter and social media. But
I know Ron said he's done withthe big moves, but there could be
(08:16):
some minor moves on the way betweennow and the startup training camp, and
I wouldn't I would not be surprised, if you know, a late late
hour trade for a player on theroster, not necessarily a Venier's or a
big name, but a name onthe roster. Would not surprise me to
see a little bit more movement thissummer, although not as big as what
(08:37):
we just saw today. Well,I'm glad that you gave us that disclaimer
there, Everett, because I wasjust going to tweet out Everett fits you
saying that Francis is about to tradeJared mccad and Gorge. I'm glad that
you gave us that disclaimer there.But you mentioned the two RFAs and Veers
and tol I mean, really,that's it, right. Everybody else is
(08:58):
locked in. You got Maddy Benirsand Tolvenen are both restricted free agents next
year. There's a bunch of expiringcontracts Yanni, Gord, Brandon, tannev
is up there, Adam Larson,for example. But this roster for the
most part kind of pretty much seemsset, doesn't it. It does,
And I think that also helps thatthat helped Ron Francis. I think make
(09:18):
er I should say that probably madehis decision a little bit easier this summer
to go out spend some money onChandler Stevens and spend some money on Brandon
Montour. Because you've got your lineupset, you don't really need a whole
lot, right. I know,Yamamoto was a U RFA, didn't qualify
him, so he's now unrestricted.Pierre Edward Delmar is unrestricted. We'll see
(09:41):
what happens with him, but hewas a very low money target as well.
You're gonna have Shane Wright coming in. I think that Ryan Winterton,
who played some time here in Seattle. This season. I think he could
be this season's Ty Cartier, Soit wouldn't surprise me to see him maybe
starting up with the Crack. Andso right there, between Shane Wright and
(10:03):
potentially Ryan Winterton, you maybe onlyneed one or two more guys, and
you can go out and find alow money guy seven to seventy five,
eight hundred thousand dollars. You canfind a low money depth piece for next
to nothing in this league and stillhave them be an impactful player. So
I think this summer it was alittle bit easier for Ron Francis to take
(10:26):
the twenty two million in cap spaceand say, hey, you know what,
We're gonna hit two home runs here. Now, you're right. Next
summer is gonna be a very interestingsummer with Larsen, with Yanni Gord.
I think Jared McCann, I'm sorryAtoby the Cord rather is up next summer,
and then a handful of others.I know Jayden Schwartz, I think
(10:46):
his contract was coming up here ina bit, so there are definitely gonna
be a lot more difficult decisions tomake next summer. And I think,
you know, you might see asthis organization gets older, it starts to
to see more guys cycle through.A few more of the fan favorites may
may opt to go other places.So next summer is gonna be interesting to
(11:07):
see what happens. But I thinkthis year you did all you needed to
do. You made your two moves, you added a bunch of offense,
and now you can add a coupleof depth pieces and hopefully get back to
the playoffs. Is Larson the mostlikely to be traded with one year and
four million dollars left? And whomeverthey trade, is it player for player
(11:28):
or is it just clearance cap roomand you're just trading for draft picks?
Well, yeah, I mean that'sbeen Ron's mo. Ron loves to get
picks back, he loves the assets, and as we've seen in the past,
he's been able to turn some ofthose assets into pretty good players.
Look at last year you go ortwo years ago, rather you go out
and get Oliver georg Strand for athird and a fifth. I mean that's
(11:50):
a pretty good haul for two midround picks. So I think in the
NHL, if you look at acon tracks like Larsen, the role that
he plays, that type of contractis a little bit palpable, a little
more palpable for teams to take onanother contract that I could see maybe being
(12:11):
explored. And again my disclaimer,I'm just throwing it out there. It's
not word of law. I couldsee. I could see a contract like
Brandon tannem the role that he plays. He's got one year left, unbelievable
on the PK. He has aton of energy. He's at about three
(12:33):
point two million dollars. So thereare a couple of teams out there that
could swallow that type of catphit.So those types of contracts low money for
players who who fit specific roles,especially come trade deadline time, depending on
where the Kraken are in the playoffrace, depending on what happens to other
teams, those types of contracts definitelyare are more are better candidates to get
(12:58):
moved. I love it, heyman, great stuff, And if anything
ever breaks and Benton's not available,we'll call you, I promise. All
right, Oh sounds good, guys, There he goes the reigning Washington State
broadcaster of the Year. Put somerespect on that man's name. Great stuff.
Recapping everything happening today with the Crackand we'll continue next from the Emerald
(13:20):
Queen Casino Sportsbook right here on ninetythree to three KJRFM,
I was gonna say, is Betnot available? You know, yeah,
he's actually not. He's been.He's been on the station twice already.
So we turned to you. Butnow you know, you know you're our
guy. Man, I'm just messingwith you. Let's just start at the
top. Man. A couple ofbig signings, nothing I think official official,
but Chandler Stevenson, who spent lastyear, the last four years or
(00:21):
five years with Vegas. His fiftyone points last year would have been third
on this cracking team. He's intown, he's locked in on a seven
year deal. And then Manni BrandonMontour, defenseman from Florida, another seven
year deal. Put these in contextand give us an idea of how big
these signings are. Well, Ithink they're huge. I mean, these
might possibly be as far as freeagent signings go, this has to be
(00:46):
probably two of the bigger incoming freeagency signings that Ron France has ever made
here for Seattle. These are definitelythe longest contracts he's ever given out seven
years for both and the thing forMontour and a little over six and a
half for Stevenson. So I mean, look, I think they're great moves.
(01:07):
Right off the top everyone new cominginto the summer. You needed to
upgrade the offense. Rather that beupfront, forward wise or even on defense.
You needed to find a way toscore more goals. Your twenty eighth
in offense last season two point threejust over two point three goals for per
game. That's not gonna get itdone. So now you bring in players
who are coming off of pretty goodoffensive years. Montour thirty plus points each
(01:30):
of his last three seasons, acareer high seventy nine a couple of years
ago. Chandler Stevenson is a routineforty to fifty sixty point guy. These
are the type of players that youneed, that you need to go in
to the summer. So I lovethe moves I think with Chandler Stevenson,
not only do you have that legitimatetop line center that takes some pressure off
(01:55):
of Matt Evaniers. Now you canslide madd Eveniers down to the number two
position. He's not drawing all thetough matchups, he's not getting all of
the big assignments on a nightly basis. Shane Wright probably gonna make the lineup
this year, so you put himat third. You can put Yanni Gordon
now as your fourth line center,and he plays a really good grinding type
(02:15):
of game. And with Dan Bileswere coming in as head coach, there
really is no one through four lines. I mean, you're expected to contribute
all up and down the lineup.So I don't think seeing Yanni go down
to four Maddie go down to two, I don't see that as a quote
unquote demotion. But you now getthat bona fide tops line center that you
can pencil in every night, andit takes some pressure off of Maddie.
(02:38):
And then with Brandon Montour defensively,you're bringing in a second, I think
a second version of Vince Donn who'sgot a little bit more snarl maybe than
don does, but the offense isthere, so now you're gonna have that
left right, left, right,left right combination. Defensively, I think
these are two home run moves forRon Francis today. Are you surprised that
(02:59):
the length of contract because I'm lookingat the top nine free agents in the
NHL have all signed someplace. Onlythree of the nine signed seven or longer
contracts, and two of them werecracking guys, and both of them are
thirty years old. Yeah, youknow, I think every year, that's
the crazy thing about the NHL.Every single year, the market changes.
(03:21):
You know, there are some yearswhere term is usually rains king. There
are some years where dollars reign king. All guys want term, all guys
want that long term security. Ithink there you can ask most any guy
in the NHL. They'll leave afew million on the table over the course
of a deal if you can givethem two or three more years on the
back end. So I don't knowif I'm surprised at either the term or
(03:45):
the length. I know a lotof people were kind of saying that the
cracking overpaid for these players. Idon't know if it's an overpay, but
even if it is, given thenature of the business, given the nature
of how new the cracking are,sometimes you might have to spend a few
extra bucks than your plant. Butwe all do it, right, Every
team at some point in their historyhas had to overpay for a couple of
(04:06):
guys. I'm not buying that.I do think you now have some longevity
because you're looking at I think atthe second generation of the kracket, the
three years are up. You madethe playoffs. I think some of that,
you know, expansion team shine isstarting to fade off a little bit.
So now you're you know, you'rea real team. You know you
are an NHL team. You're nolonger the new toy, You're no longer
(04:29):
the sexy new thing on the block. So now it's time to see results,
and you can see a Chandler Stevenson. You can see Brandon Montour being
a part of a future core withMaddie, with Shane, with Raker Evans,
with all the young kids that arecoming up in the system over the
next three to four or five years. Now you have two bonafide Stanley Cup
(04:51):
champion winning players in Stevenson and Montourwho can help lead this next generation of
Kracket players, which I think generationtwo starts this season. Yeah. Well,
he's always going to be our sexything ever fits you on the radio
with Weinberg going to the Rangers,was there any thought of him coming back?
(05:12):
And how big of a pickup isthat for San Jose? You think,
man, you know, listen,I think with Weinberg having gone to
New York, you know at thetrade deadline, you did lose a lot
in the face off department. Youlost a lot of as far as puck
moving, puck control. But Ithink for him, I mean, that's
a great opportunity in San Jose Mikecareer, the GM Bear, he is
(05:36):
trying to He tore that whole thingdown to the studs and he had to.
I mean, this is a SanJose Sharks organization that is five years,
I believe, five six years removedfrom going to the Cup Final and
losing the Pittsburgh back in sixteen seventeen, seventeen eighteen. So I think for
for Weinberg, it's a good movefor him. He's going to be playing
(05:58):
in a lot of situations. He'sgoing to be given pretty much the freedom
to play his type of game.I like that move by San Jose.
I think he enjoyed being out hereon the West Coast, So going to
San Jose, I think with whatthey're building down there, that's gonna be
a really good fit for him.Talk about this year's free agent pickups versus
(06:21):
last year where they were very quiet. Do you think they look back on
last year and kind of regret howquiet they were in free agency and that's
one of the reasons why they spentall this money this year. You know,
I don't think that'll ever be saidpublicly, but I mean, if
you read between the lines, Imaybe I can see there being a little
bit of yeah, maybe maybe weshould have taken another swing or two last
(06:46):
summer. But listen, this year'sfor agency signings I think were hands down
more impactful. And that's taking nothingaway from Brian Dumelin from what he was
able to do. I mean,he was the big signing last sight for
Seattle. But you address the needsthis year. You knew going into the
summer you needed offense. Two pointthree goals a game that was not going
(07:09):
to cut it. What do youdo. You go out there and you
find offense. So I think rightthere, addressing the immediate needs that that
this Kraken team was searching for automatically, I think gives this year's free agency
win class a win over last year. And listen. Ron Francis said today
that Montor and Stevenson are probably goingto be the only two major moves.
(07:32):
There will probably still be some depthsignings there. And don't forget you now
have roughly ten million dollars to fitboth Matt e Veniers and Ellie Tolbinen in
your lineup. Under the cap asthere are fa so it wouldn't surprise me,
and I don't I don't want tobe quoted as saying so and so
(07:53):
is getting moved, But it wouldn'tsurprise me to see Ron Francis explore the
trademark it with a few other playerson the roster or in the organization to
try and free up some more capspace. I know that was being talked
about a little bit today, justall throughout Twitter and social media. But
I know Ron said he's done withthe big moves, but there could be
(08:16):
some minor moves on the way betweennow and the startup training camp, and
I wouldn't I would not be surprised, if you know, a late late
hour trade for a player on theroster, not necessarily a Venier's or a
big name, but a name onthe roster. Would not surprise me to
see a little bit more movement thissummer, although not as big as what
(08:37):
we just saw today. Well,I'm glad that you gave us that disclaimer
there, Everett, because I wasjust going to tweet out Everett fits you
saying that Francis is about to tradeJared mccad and Gorge. I'm glad that
you gave us that disclaimer there.But you mentioned the two RFAs and Veers
and tol I mean, really,that's it, right. Everybody else is
(08:58):
locked in. You got Maddy Benirsand Tolvenen are both restricted free agents next
year. There's a bunch of expiringcontracts Yanni, Gord, Brandon, tannev
is up there, Adam Larson,for example. But this roster for the
most part kind of pretty much seemsset, doesn't it. It does,
And I think that also helps thatthat helped Ron Francis. I think make
(09:18):
er I should say that probably madehis decision a little bit easier this summer
to go out spend some money onChandler Stevens and spend some money on Brandon
Montour. Because you've got your lineupset, you don't really need a whole
lot, right. I know,Yamamoto was a U RFA, didn't qualify
him, so he's now unrestricted.Pierre Edward Delmar is unrestricted. We'll see
(09:41):
what happens with him, but hewas a very low money target as well.
You're gonna have Shane Wright coming in. I think that Ryan Winterton,
who played some time here in Seattle. This season. I think he could
be this season's Ty Cartier, Soit wouldn't surprise me to see him maybe
starting up with the Crack. Andso right there, between Shane Wright and
(10:03):
potentially Ryan Winterton, you maybe onlyneed one or two more guys, and
you can go out and find alow money guy seven to seventy five,
eight hundred thousand dollars. You canfind a low money depth piece for next
to nothing in this league and stillhave them be an impactful player. So
I think this summer it was alittle bit easier for Ron Francis to take
(10:26):
the twenty two million in cap spaceand say, hey, you know what,
We're gonna hit two home runs here. Now, you're right. Next
summer is gonna be a very interestingsummer with Larsen, with Yanni Gord.
I think Jared McCann, I'm sorryAtoby the Cord rather is up next summer,
and then a handful of others.I know Jayden Schwartz, I think
(10:46):
his contract was coming up here ina bit, so there are definitely gonna
be a lot more difficult decisions tomake next summer. And I think,
you know, you might see asthis organization gets older, it starts to
to see more guys cycle through.A few more of the fan favorites may
may opt to go other places.So next summer is gonna be interesting to
(11:07):
see what happens. But I thinkthis year you did all you needed to
do. You made your two moves, you added a bunch of offense,
and now you can add a coupleof depth pieces and hopefully get back to
the playoffs. Is Larson the mostlikely to be traded with one year and
four million dollars left? And whomeverthey trade, is it player for player
(11:28):
or is it just clearance cap roomand you're just trading for draft picks?
Well, yeah, I mean that'sbeen Ron's mo. Ron loves to get
picks back, he loves the assets, and as we've seen in the past,
he's been able to turn some ofthose assets into pretty good players.
Look at last year you go ortwo years ago, rather you go out
and get Oliver georg Strand for athird and a fifth. I mean that's
(11:50):
a pretty good haul for two midround picks. So I think in the
NHL, if you look at acon tracks like Larsen, the role that
he plays, that type of contractis a little bit palpable, a little
more palpable for teams to take onanother contract that I could see maybe being
(12:11):
explored. And again my disclaimer,I'm just throwing it out there. It's
not word of law. I couldsee. I could see a contract like
Brandon tannem the role that he plays. He's got one year left, unbelievable
on the PK. He has aton of energy. He's at about three
(12:33):
point two million dollars. So thereare a couple of teams out there that
could swallow that type of catphit.So those types of contracts low money for
players who who fit specific roles,especially come trade deadline time, depending on
where the Kraken are in the playoffrace, depending on what happens to other
teams, those types of contracts definitelyare are more are better candidates to get
(12:58):
moved. I love it, heyman, great stuff, And if anything
ever breaks and Benton's not available,we'll call you, I promise. All
right, Oh sounds good, guys, There he goes the reigning Washington State
broadcaster of the Year. Put somerespect on that man's name. Great stuff.
Recapping everything happening today with the Crackand we'll continue next from the Emerald
(13:20):
Queen Casino Sportsbook right here on ninetythree to three KJRFM,
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