Kailer Yamamoto has signed a new contract with the Seattle Kraken.

good depth foward for seattle

I like the fit here, plus Yamo is a Washington guy

Good stuff

Voting yes. This is good price/volume contract.

Yamamoto in Seattle is a great fit. He'll be good in the bottom 6 playing for his hometown team.

What a steal for SEA

Great contract, dudes going to cash out next year

Where's he even gonna play on that team there's no room

Really surprised CHI or ANA didnt go get him

Great move for Seattle

Great move for both sides. Has a lot of potential to be the steal of the offseason

If someone was willing to take Yamamoto for 1.5 million, why did the Wings buy him out of his last year instead of retain 50%?

I remember there were a lot of Yamamoto to Seattle trades proposed on ACGM, and I didn’t understand them as Seattle didn’t have space in the forward corps and his cap hit of $3.1M was rich for a guy who would be a fourth liner with the Kraken. But with Sprong’s departure from Seattle and Yamamoto being bought out of his previous contract, he now makes sense as a low risk, high reward addition to the team. He’ll still be a fourth liner here, but the fit might be better with Yamamoto in that role as opposed to Sprong since Yamamoto’s a much more sound defender. Hopefully he can recapture the scoring promise he showed in years past and become an impactful contributor on both ends for the Kraken.

This seems like a perfect fit. I smell a 20 goal season

If I had to guess, no one was willing to pay assets for Yamamoto, even at a 50% retained cap hit, so Detroit bought him out to spread the reduced cap over two years instead of one.

There's no guarantees the Kraken keep their lines together but they had some good chemistry last season. Burakovsky back healthy and some turnover in the bottom 6, I think this is what we'll see:

Burakovsky-Beniers-Eberle
Schwartz-Wennberg-McCann
Tolvanen-Gourde-Bjorkstrand
Tanev-Wright-Yamamoto
Kartye

Really thought he was heading to Europe

Happy for Kailer. He's a good young player, just didn't fit in Edmonton's cap plan. Bonus that his second chance is in his home state.

Seriously? He's 100% an NHL player.

Could have done it for FC and then there wouldn't have been any cap hit next season and the same for this season.

Because Yzerman didn't think it through. He traded for Yamamoto then decided within 24 hours that he didn't want him. Did he explore trades at that point? I don't think there was time.

If the Wings retained 50% of Yamamoto’s salary and traded him for future considerations, $1,550,000 of his cap would have been on their books for this season and nothing next season. By buying him out, he only costs $433,334 against the cap this season, at an opportunity cost of $533,334 next season. I’m guessing Detroit valued the extra $1,116,666 in cap space for this season and were willing to eat a bit of dead cap next season to get that flexibility. Overall though it does raise the question of why Detroit traded for Yamamoto at all if they were just going to buy him out.

Another interesting fact: Sprong and Yamamoto essentially traded places. I actually like the fit for both players on their new teams: Sprong will get the opportunity to hold down a top nine role, a job his play style is better suited for but one he wouldn’t have gotten in Seattle owing to their forward depth. Yamamoto gives the Kraken a more defensively capable winger to slot into their bottom line, and someone who has the potential to rebound into an impact scorer in a lower pressure role than he had in Edmonton.

Stevey Y was high on the guy who came with Yams.

I guess that makes sense. Perhaps buying out Yamamoto was the cost for the Wings to get Kostin.

Detroit is probably less budget conscious than most teams, but they also only have to pay $1.06M over two years (half a million each year) rather than $1.6 million real dollars to whoever the trade partner at 50% would be next summer.
Detroit looked at the bigger picture and decided the money and cap was better spent elsewhere since they could shed 2/3's of it in a under-26 buyout. Clearly no-one was offering anything up for him. That was the price they paid to get to talk to Klim and show they wanted him.

And from Seattle's perspective, taking a $1.5M cap and cash gamble is more attractive than paying a late pick or whatever else for $1.55M cap and $1.6M cash to add him at 50%.

He's a likeable enough player, and I hope he bounces back for his sake, but taking a risk on a free agent is different than giving up something to take the risk even if the numbers were all equal (and they weren't).

Yamamoto at $3.1 million wasn't a terrible contract. It certainly wasn't bad enough to justify being boughtout.

Yamamoto at $1.5 million is an absolute steal.