Our first 2025-26 season contender for most hysterical the-sky-is-falling! headline involving a Seattle Kraken player comes courtesy of a New York Rangers blog.
As a restricted free agent, Kraken winger Kaapo Kakko was eligible for, and elected, salary arbitration. The facts of the process aren’t nearly as hyperbolic, and should be far less worrisome, to Kraken fans. It resembles the contract version of carefully choreographed dance steps.
Contract Dance Steps – And One To Avoid
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Step One: To retain negotiating rights, Seattle tendered Kakko what’s known as a qualifying offer. Such a qualifying offer only has to equal Kakko’s last year salary, $2.4 million.
Step Two: Almost no players accept qualifying offers, which in Kakko’s case can cover only one season, and usually provide at best very modest raises. Naturally, Kakko instead filed for arbitration.
NOT Step Three: Actual arbitration, an adversarial process which compels the player to exaggerate his worth, and the team to diminish it by equal exaggerated measure. On the rare occasions it’s been employed, the process leaves hurt feelings on both sides, no matter how the arbitrator rules.
It’s the potential for a contentious arbitration which leads to overblown headlines like the example above. And why both sides seek to avoid it at all costs. But – and this is a crucial point – the act of a player merely filing for arbitration is pro forma – not an acrimonious move.
Likely Step Three: The club and player representatives are almost certainly conducting quiet negotiations on a new contract. For players, it’s a lot like the Let’s Make A Deal game show. They can take the bird-in-the-hand prize, or gamble that a bigger reward is behind Door Number Two.
Specifically, the longer the term of a contract, the generally lower the average annual value. The lure for a player is the guaranteed payday, regardless of injury or unexpected declining performance. Or, a player may believe his best days are ahead – what’s sometimes referred to as “betting on yourself.” Door Number Two is taking a shorter deal, with the potential of signing a more lucrative future contract under an expanded salary cap.
Reverse these calculations, or educated guesses if you prefer, and you’ll understand the management side of the negotiations. Of course, the other half of the equation is equally complex, carrying an equal amount of guesswork: determining the dollar amount to attach to both short and long-term contract proposals.
Often, what each side determines is right, and even what’s possible, may start miles apart. This is why hammering out a deal can take so much time – and leaves the news vacuum into which fan & media anxiety, unfounded rumors and wild speculation grow like kudzu.
Kraken GM Sounds Confident On Kakko Contract
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The Seattle Kraken have no intention of letting Kaapo Kakko get away – or having him play one arbitrator-awarded season with a sour taste in his mouth. And the Finnish winger would be nuts to leave, having flourished after a long-overdue escape from burdensome expectations in New York and a dysfunctional Rangers dressing room.
Following Kakko’s December trade for Will Borgen, 2019’s 2nd overall draft pick put up 10 goals and 20 assists in 49 games.
At a season ticket Q&A, Kraken general manager Jason Botterill predicted an even better 2025-26 season from Kakko – something he wouldn’t have done without certainty about the outcome of contract talks. “He knows (now) what to expect here in Seattle, he has familiarity with our players.” Center Matty Beniers is one linemate Kakko already knows. “He showed really good chemistry with Matty (Beniers), them reading off each other.”
Botterill freely admits Kakko exceeded expectations. “Once you get a player, it’s always a little different from what you see evaluating him up in the pressbox. We knew he had the size, we knew he was strong on pucks. But some of the little plays he made in the neutral zone, or finding teammates in the offensive zone, that vision and playmaking skill was even higher than we originally thought.
“I was shocked at how good of a playmaker he was. He’s so strong on pucks in the offensive zone. He has a net-front presence, but he also has the ability to pop out in the slot and utilize his shot.”
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.