How Murky Is The Future For Kraken's Jared McCann

It’s been a strange couple of years for the Kraken’s all-time leading scorer, winger and part-time center Jared McCann.

The first question: Just how healthy is he?

“I haven’t gone through the season I’ve gone through, especially this year with injuries … sometimes (in the past) it would be little things,” he told us this past April 17th. “I had a procedure done yesterday in Utah to just kind of fix some things up. I’m definitely on the path to getting better now, which is good.”

In what has become an NHL tradition, especially in the playoffs and even in the regular season, the nature of the injury and its location on the body remained highly classified. For it to be so top secret in the off-season might just mean the malady is vulnerable to targeting by future opponents.

It was originally recognized as a “lower body injury”.

McCann added that he believed he’d be 100-percent to start next season.

“I will,” he added, “I’m going to stick around here in Seattle for awhile and work with our rehab guys and medical team and make sure I’m good to go.”

The recently turned 30-year-old (May 31st) is entering the final year of a five-year contract that paid him $5-million per season. All things considered, that’s been a bargain for the Kraken, until now, with the mysterious injury potentially looming over what’s left of his deal.

Obviously McCann’s impact has been enormous. He led the franchise in scoring for its first four seasons, with 50, 70, 62, and then 61 points. If not impressive enough from the team perspective, notice that the totals remained somewhat consistent, although his health issue first popped up late in the 2024-’25 campaign, impacting his late season efforts. While silently hobbled, he still managed to appear in all 82 games for the first time in his career.

It was at the post-season media scrum in 2025 that we learned the seriousness of the issue.

“Um, I got a little, I’ve gotta clean the body up a little bit,” he stated. “I’ve got a procedure I’ve gotta do this summer, try to figure out where it came from, obviously I did a lot of weight lifting last summer, I don’t think that was the best thing for my body. This summer I’m going to spend a lot more time on the ice, more skill sessions, and focus more on the on-ice stuff this year.”

Um, none of that would happen until after he’d be limited to doing nothing for a six-week recovery period. Then the problem carried over.

Last season the games-played dropped to 52 and the points to 40, fifth most on a low scoring team. It’s become cliché to blame Lane Lambert’s defensive-minded systems — McCann and the Kraken have had three different head coaches over the last three seasons — but it’s obvious the winger’s health was factor number one.

Which means the start of the 2026-’27 season could be murky for the Stratford, Ontario native.

(Kraken assistant coach Chris Taylor hails from the same hamlet, which is an amazing pun for those who want to try and figure it out).

It’s definitely not the ideal situation for a player entering his contract year. There’s already been some minor trade rumors percolating. The club is not expected to make the playoffs in the Western Conference, which could make the NHL trade deadline interesting, particularly when considering McCann’s health.

Then again, before we put the cart before the horse, let’s see how things look at Kraken training camp. All eyes will be on number-19.