Toronto Maple LeafsThe Seattle Kraken had the worst even-strength offence in the NHL last season, and it was not close. At 5-on-5 they generated 2.13 expected goals per 60 minutes, last of 32 teams, nearly a tenth of a goal per hour behind Vancouver in 31st and nearly a goal per hour behind Colorado at the top. They missed the playoffs with 79 points, and the only reason it was not worse is that the goaltending and the shooting ran 19 goals hot. Strip that out and Seattle was a bottom-three team on merit.
General manager Jason Botterill's summer had two big moves in it, and they pull in opposite directions. On June 21 he sent the 25th pick and a conditional 2027 second-round pick to Florida for Mackie Samoskevich, a 23-year-old winger coming off 12 goals, and signed him for three years at $3.85 million. Then he gave Bobby McMann, who arrived from Toronto in-season and scored 29 goals, six years at $5.75 million a year through his age-35 season. The trade is the best piece of business Seattle has done in years. The contract is a mistake the numbers were shouting about in advance.
The chance problem
Start with how bad the Kraken were at creating chances, because it frames both decisions. Of the ten forwards who played 700 minutes at 5-on-5, not one was on the ice for 2.55 expected goals for per 60; the best was Shane Wright at 2.53. Matty Beniers, the first-line centre, was at 2.12. Jordan Eberle 2.16. Chandler Stephenson, signed through 2030-31 at $6.25 million, was on the ice for 1.72 expected goals for and 3.05 against, a 36 percent share that is the worst on the roster and among the worst in the league for a player of his salary. Eeli Tolvanen, 40 percent. Frederick Gaudreau, 40 percent.
The team was not built to generate offence and did not, and it was carried to 79 points by a goaltending tandem that saved 14 goals above expected at 5-on-5 and a shooting percentage that added five more. Botterill's job was to buy chance creation, and Samoskevich is exactly that.
Samoskevich: the trade
The box score is why he was available. Twelve goals and 32 points in 77 games, a 7.5 percent shooting rate, and a general manager in Florida who needed the cap space and the pick. It reads like a prospect who stalled.
Underneath it he was one of the unluckiest finishers in the league and one of the best play-drivers on his own team. Across all situations Samoskevich generated 21.3 expected goals on his own shots and scored 12; at 5-on-5 he generated 14.1 and scored eight. His shooting percentage the year before was 11.6, on fewer shots, and 161 shots at anything close to a normal rate is 18 to 20 goals. The on-ice numbers are better still. His line generated 2.86 expected goals for per 60 at 5-on-5 and allowed 2.42, a 54 percent share on a Florida team that was 49 percent overall, and across all situations his share was 59 percent. Ten primary assists at 5-on-5 in 930 minutes is respectable playmaking volume for a winger.
Put Samoskevich's 2.86 expected goals for per 60 on Seattle's roster and it is the best mark on the team by a distance, above Jared McCann's 2.69 in 661 minutes and 0.7 goals per hour above the first line. He is 23. He cost a late first and a second, and the contract runs three years at a number that will look cheap if the shooting percentage does what shooting percentages do. Botterill said the numbers are going to take off, and for once that is what the numbers say too.
McMann: the contract
McMann's 2025-26 was the best of his career by a distance: 29 goals and 46 points across Toronto and Seattle, on a 15.8 percent shooting rate that was three and four points above his previous two seasons. MoneyPuck credited his shots with 19 expected goals. He scored ten more than that, and at 5-on-5 he scored 18 on 12.5. That is the kind of finishing season a team pays for once and regrets for five years, and Seattle paid for it six times.
The finishing is not the worst part. McMann was a 45 percent player at 5-on-5, on the ice for 2.18 expected goals for per 60 and 2.63 against, on a Seattle team that was already the worst chance-creating roster in the league. He does not drive play, he does not suppress it, and his goals came from shooting hot on a line that was being outchanced. He turned 30 in June. The contract runs to 2032, through ages 30 to 35, at a cap hit that is $1.9 million a year more than Samoskevich's, for a player who is worse now and will decline sooner.
There is a defence of it, and it is the one every front office makes: he scored 29, wingers who score 29 cost $5.75 million, and the cap is rising. The problem is that the number Seattle was buying was the one thing about McMann that was not real.
The rest of the summer
Jaden Schwartz, a 43 percent player, went to Colorado. Jamie Oleksiak went to Vancouver. Tolvanen, unsigned and a 40 percent player, is gone. None of that hurts. Curtis Douglas on two years at $1.25 million is a depth signing. The goaltending is Joey Daccord, who was six goals below expected in 47 games, and Philipp Grubauer, who was six above in 32, which is a tandem that added up to roughly average with the backup doing the carrying. And Stephenson, at 36 percent and $6.25 million for five more seasons, is still here, which is the contract Botterill should be spending his summers trying to move.
The case for the summer, stated fairly
Seattle needed a play-driving winger under 25 and got the best one on the market for a pick that will become an NHL player in 2029 at the earliest. That alone makes it a good summer for a team in the Kraken's position. McMann's extension is an overpay, but it is an overpay for a player who scored 29 goals and can play up and down the lineup, on a team with cap room and nobody to spend it on, and six years at $5.75 million will be a middle-six number by 2029. The forward group with Samoskevich, Beniers, Eberle, McCann and Shane Wright is young enough to improve, and Berkly Catton and Ryan Winterton are both a year away from mattering.
Where this lands
Samoskevich is a 59 percent play-driver who ran cold, bought for a late first and signed cheap. The worst chance-creating team in the league added its best chance creator at 23. McMann's deal is a rising-cap overpay, not a disaster.
Seattle gave six years to a 45 percent, 30-year-old winger on the strength of a shooting percentage that was three points above his career rate, and did it in the same summer it correctly bought the opposite profile at two-thirds the price. Stephenson's contract is still on the books and the crease was carried by the backup.
What it means
Watch Samoskevich's shooting percentage first. If it sits anywhere near 11, on the shot volume he generates, he is an 18-goal, 45-point winger on a $3.85 million contract, and the pick was a bargain. Watch McMann's second. At his two-year rate before the contract, 183 shots is 22 goals, and 22 goals on a 45 percent line is a $4 million player, not a $5.75 million one. And watch the team's expected goals for per 60 at 5-on-5, which was 2.13 last season. If it does not clear 2.40 by Christmas, the problem is not the wingers. It is that the middle of the roster, Stephenson included, cannot get the puck to them.