Seattle Kraken Cap Space: Examining the Kraken's salary in the off-season

The Seattle Kraken surprised many this past season, as they made the playoffs and eliminated the Colorado Avalanche in the first round.

Not only were they a surprise team, but Seattle entered the off-season with a ton of cap space and they planned on using it the right way. After the first wave of free agency, the Kraken still has just over $14 million in cap space to make additional moves.

Currently, Seattle has just 10 forwards under contract, so they will need to sign some bottom-six forwards while a couple of defensemen are RFAs.

Although the Kraken wasn't as active in the big-name free agents as many expected, Seattle did sign forward Kailer Yamamoto and defensemen Brian Dumoulin to contracts as free agents.

"Brian is a two-time Stanley Cup champion and is coming off of his most productive season offensively," said Seattle GM Ron Francis (via NHL.com). "He has been a consistent, reliable defenseman throughout his career. We are happy to welcome him to Seattle."

"Kailer is a speedy, hard-working playmaker with good hockey sense," GM Francis added. "We're happy to welcome him to the Kraken."

Seattle Kraken's pending free agents

Currently, Seattle has 10 forwards on one-way deals, but they did sign some forwards to a two-way deal who can push for a roster spot. As well, they have Philipp Grubauer and Joey Daccord as their goalies for the upcoming season.

Yet, on defense is where the Kraken has some tough decisions to make. Currently, Seattle has five defensemen under contract in Adam Larsson, Jamie Oleksiak, Dumoulin, Justin Schultz, and Jaycob Megna. Outside of that, the Kraken has Cale Fleury, Vince Dunn, and William Borgen as pending RFAs. Also, they did not qualify Daniel Sprong or Morgan Geekie which was a surprise to some.

Ultimately, Seattle doesn't seem like they will make another big move and instead will just sign the RFAs and look at their prospects to fill the last roster spots.

"We've got other pieces that we look at like Tye Kartye, American Hockey League rookie of the year last year, he played well for us," Ron Francis said. We think he can step in and take an (NHL) spot. Shane Wright is still knocking on the door as well, too

"We've got some pieces and we think that we've got more to add with our guys... we're still a young team up front, a lot of guys are still developing so (we hope) to get more production there and this camp we're having this week is really important with development because if we're going to be a really good team for year after year, we have to have that internal push...

"We'll sit tight here and see what happens," Francis said. "We are sitting in a good position with cap space and the ability to do things as things happen moving forward… we are in a position we can take advantage of something if it if it shapes up."

If Seattle does stay pat, after signing the RFAs they still will have a couple million which can be used at the trade deadline if needed.