The clickbait headlines about Seattle Kraken winger Jared McCann are Out. Of. Control.
Okay, the two above headlines about trading McCann are fake. Adorable, but fake. More to the point, these are about the only two media outlets that haven’t attempted – yet – to manipulate clicks concerning the popular Kraken winger. Threadbare stories that have multiplied faster than spam email are all too real.
See if you can hack through the underbrush of these 100% actually published online – though not necessarily factual – headlines from the current NHL off-season.
Did you catch all the teams mentioned in the above headlines? Rangers, Devils, Blues, Canadiens, Canucks, Leafs, Oilers and Jets. This list isn’t nearly comprehensive; a smaller collection might be the number of teams not linked in any offseason story to the Kraken winger.
What bit of chum, you may wonder, was cast upon the waters to cause this feeding frenzy of speculation?
David Pagnotta of TheFourthPeriod.com, on a Vancouver sports podcast, said, “Jared McCann is another name to look at, out in Seattle. His name started to pop up around the trade deadline; he’s still available. He’s somebody that we’ve been hearing that Seattle is also open to moving.”
Could McCann get traded? Sure, because anyone can get traded, general managers consider trading just about everybody, and some offers can’t be refused. Should the 29-year-old winger play out the final two years of his $5 million AAV contract in Seattle? Also, sure. At that attractive price, he’s a valuable, durable, veteran leader who sticks up for teammates, on a club that doesn’t boast an overabundance of scorers.
Does anyone outside of Seattle GM Jason Botterill’s office know for sure? No. But these are the lean months of the hockey calendar, when even an offhand remark can be twisted into 500 words. Yeah, I’m doing a version of it right now.
I ignored the rumor mill as long as I could, because the smoke was being generated by furious fingers on multiple keyboards – or, for all I know, A.I. – not actual fire. However, when the sheer volume of headlines produced genuine concern among Kraken faithful, I felt obligated to weigh in.
Full disclosure about someone else who once advocated for trading Jared McCann: me. The difference is, I suggested it in March, 2024.
At the time, McCann was coming off a 40-goal campaign in the Kraken’s playoff season, and was well on his way to scoring 29 goals in ’23-’24. However, Seattle had faded from contention, and it didn’t seem in the cards for 2024-25, either.
As it turned out, it wasn’t. McCann’s output dipped to 22 goals, though still third best on the team. My reasoning 16 months ago was that McCann’s value would never be higher. If the Kraken were at least a couple of seasons removed from a playoff berth anyway, that was the perfect time to obtain assets from a contender.
It didn’t happen, and the good return McCann would still fetch isn’t the same as it would have been before last season. So the guess here is that he stays put, because as enumerated above, he’s more important on the Kraken roster than his likely trade value.
My pantry is well stocked with condiments in case I need to eat this column. But I did get it right about Kaapo Kakko, writing on July 10, “The Kraken and their fans may have 99 problems to worry about. But seeing Kaapo Kakko wearing the blue ‘S’ sweater for at least the next few years shouldn’t be one of them.”