Nine years after being drafted by the Ottawa Senators, goalie Joey Daccord has finally landed his “set for life” NHL contract. On Wednesday, Daccord signed a five-year deal with the Seattle Kraken worth $5 million per season.
“Joey stepped up last season and proved his ability to handle an increased workload,” general manager Ron Francis said in a Kraken press release. “We’re confident he can take his game to another level, and we’re excited to have him under contract long-term.”
It’s an astonishingly large deal, considering that Daccord has only played in 69 career NHL games. However, he settled in nicely as the Kraken’s starter last season, playing 50 games and posting a 2.46 goals-against average and a .916 save percentage.
Before that, Daccord spent two years as coach Dan Bylsma’s starter with Charlotte and Coachella Valley, leading the Firebirds to the AHL Finals in 2022-23. So today’s deal likely had the full endorsement of Bylsma, the Kraken’s new head coach.
While Daccord was Ottawa’s seventh-round pick in 2015, he was one of the best puck-handling goalies anyone had ever seen, making him a compelling prospect as he began his collegiate career at Arizona.
But the Senators left him unprotected in the Seattle expansion draft, choosing to protect Filip Gustavsson instead, and the Kraken got their tentacles on him.
In 2021, Daccord famously endeared himself to Sens fans with an emotional interview after his first NHL victory. Matt Murray, as he so often did, got injured during warm-ups, and Daccord came in and played extremely well.
As a footnote, Ottawa Senator fans tend to experience more than their fair share of “The One That Got Away” stories like these.
But after the Senators signed Linus Ullmark to a long-term deal on Wednesday, the news of a former Sens goalie succeeding somewhere else isn’t breaking anyone’s stride in Ottawa today.
