Is Robertson rejection the final sign the Kraken should commit to rebuild?

Ever since their inception in the 2021-22 season, the Seattle Kraken have been in desperate need of a star player. Their franchise leaderboard in points is topped by good-but-not-great players like Jared McCann and Jordan Eberle. You might say the Kraken can’t buy a star these days, and you’d be more right than you think.

Dallas Stars forward Jason Robertson, coming off a 45-goal, 96-point season and scheduled to become a restricted free agent on July 1st, reportedly turned down a massive eight-year contract offer from Seattle. Now that their latest attempt to nab a superstar has been thwarted, it might be time for the Kraken to bottom out and find a star at the top of the draft.

On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, hosts Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed which direction Seattle should take following Robertson’s rejection.

Tyler Yaremchuk: What do you do if you’re Seattle now? You’ve been trying, man. You took that swing on Artemi Panarin, he said no to you. You offered Jason Robertson an amount of money that would’ve made him, what, the second-highest paid player in the NHL? And he turns you down, even with the eight-year term. Everyone in the hockey world, every pundit points to Seattle and says “Do the right thing and rebuild.” Now players are almost looking at you and being like “Hey, just do the right thing and rebuild, don’t sign me to this contract.” And yet Seattle is stubborn, and they’re signing the Bobby McManns and I’m sure they’ll find a way to spend some amount of money this year, but they just can’t get themselves that true superstar. Again, I’ll beat the drum on this, there’s really usually only one way to guarantee you get one, and it’s to go through the draft.

Carter Hutton: It feels like that’s the case. And now you look at the UFA board and guys that are available, you see Anthony Mantha, (Viktor) Arvidsson, (Mats) Zuccarello, there’s no one there that really moves the needle when you’re talking about a game-changing player that’s going to come into your lineup and be a difference maker. It has to be drafted, it has to be homegrown.

You can catch the full discussion and the rest of Friday’s episode here…