Where do the Kraken go from here after Jason Robertson’s reported snub?
SEATTLE – Artemi Panarin reportedly turned down a longer, richer contract with the Kraken before the 2026 Olympic break, leaving the New York Rangers for a two-year deal with the L.A. Kings instead.
That could be dismissed as one man’s opinion. Jason Robertson made it a trend.
The Kraken were reportedly given permission to negotiate with Robertson, 26, in a bid to complete a trade with Dallas. But Robertson turned down a monster, eight-year contract worth “approximately $15 million per year,” according to NHL insider Elliotte Friedman.
“Right now I don’t feel comfortable talking about another team’s player,” Kraken general manager Jason Botterill said Friday. “But I’ll just say, hey, we are going to continue to look at a lot of different avenues to try and improve our team.”
The Kraken are being aggressive in their pursuit of a marquee player, which they need to be. The No. 7 overall pick in Friday’s NHL draft was reportedly in play. Seattle held on to it and drafted defenseman Chase Reid.
They threw it all out there and pending restricted free agent Robertson still spurned them. They not only met but surpassed Robertson’s rumored asking price, which seemingly reflects the state of things in Seattle.
Robertson is coming off a 45-goal season. He has reached 40 goals three times in six tries. He and perennial playoff contender Dallas are at an impasse, because he reportedly wants Mikko Rantanen money and the Stars have limited cap space.
Rantanen, the Stars’ top-paid player, is making $12M. The Kraken reportedly blew by that figure. They would have made Robertson one of the top-paid players in the NHL. Only the Minnesota Wild’s Kirill Kaprizov ($17M average annual value) has an AAV higher than $14M.
Friedman, who isn’t often wrong about such things, broke the news. It dominated conversation on the social media platform X for a few hours during a busy week in NHL news. The report fueled a suspected truth – big names don’t want to go to Seattle, but Seattle needs big names to improve.
What do you do with that?
They hopefully find more guys like 29-goal-scorer Bobby McMann, who cheerily reinforced he was satisfied with the team’s direction Wednesday. Before re-signing with the Kraken on a six-year deal, he insinuated he grilled Botterill and coach Lane Lambert about their plans to build a winner.
Botterill said he and Lambert talked to McMann “a lot about some of our young prospects that he didn’t see.”
“It was the first time that Bobby’s ever sort of viewed himself in a leadership role,” Botterill continued. “So these different things, I think, just allowed him to feel more comfortable about signing with us.”
That feel-good story lasted roughly one day before Robertson’s gut punch. But hey, he turned down the St. Louis Blues too, according to Daily Faceoff’s Jeff Marek. Rebuilding St. Louis apparently offered several of its four first-round picks, but Robertson wasn’t interested.
Seattle’s high cost of living and the state’s new “millionaires tax” could play into some of these decisions, but they haven’t been cited in reports on Robinson. The forward’s motivations are clearly complex. He’s spent his entire career so far in Dallas, and in an ideal world, he’d reportedly stay there and nearly double his $7.75M AAV salary next season.
The Kraken have missed the postseason convincingly three straight seasons, and four times in five years. That one run – ended by Dallas – was a perfect storm and clearly hard to replicate. Yet those at the top insist they can succeed with this core that keeps struggling. That with a few small tweaks, they can win now.
If they want to make that happen, they need to take runs at guys like Robertson. There aren’t a lot of big-ticket free-agent options out there.