The Seattle Kraken officially announced yesterday that they extended right shot defenseman Adam Larsson to a four year extension with an annual AAV of 5.25 million.

Adam Larsson has been a top pairing shutdown defender for the Kraken since their inaugural season. I have great respect for Larsson from his prior years with the Edmonton Oilers and everything that he brought to both franchises. That being said, this has the makings of a pretty ugly deal for the Seattle Kraken.

Larsson is 31 right now and turns 32 in November. He will be 36 years old by the time this deal is expiring. Larsson has been a top pairing defender but his game has slowed down a bit from previous years and now is looking more like a second pairing player. The addition of Montour and the emergence of Borgen will certainly help to take some of the load off of Larsson but this feels like a bit of an overpay.

Perhaps part of the reason the Kraken were so keen to get Larsson locked up were comments today from Ron Francis who stated that Larsson was "in the mix" for the captaincy of the Seattle Kraken. The Kraken have only had one captain in their short history and that was Mark Giordano, who didn't even finish the year with Seattle. Larsson has been around since the beginning for the Kraken, is clearly respected in that room and a workhorse for that team. He would be an excellent captain for that team until the likes of Shane Wright, Matty Beniers or others are ready to take the helm. Jared McCann remains my choice for the captaincy but Larsson would be another good pick.

I'll have more Kraken updates as training camp gets underway.

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