The Seattle Kraken continued their perplexing ways Tuesday with an uninspiring 3-0 loss to the Ottawa Senators to close out a four-game homestand at 1-2-1. What I can’t explain about this team is how the players collectively seemed to have found—and then very quickly forgotten—their identity as a group that is stout defensively and opportunistic offensively.
On their recent 3-1-0 East Coast road trip and in two strong home performances against Florida and Boston, Seattle did a lot of good things at the defensive end of the ice and got mostly solid goaltending from both Philipp Grubauer and Joey Daccord. They also generated those crucial timely opportunistic looks offensively—enough to earn points on most nights.
In the last two games, however, the Kraken just… haven’t looked the same. The middle of the defensive zone seems more accessible now, and at the other end, they’ve struggled to create anything on the inside against the Lightning and Senators.
Plus, once Ottawa got a squeaker of a goal in the second period on Tuesday, the team looked more deflated than it has in a while, and the pushback was—as coach Dan Bylsma said—“Not enough.”
Here are Three Takeaways from an uninspiring 3-0 Kraken loss to the Senators.
Takeaway #1: Not enough of… anything
The Kraken were on their toes to start the game and fired 15 shots at a dominant Linus Ullmark in the first 20 minutes, but they got beaten at their own game. Much like how Seattle didn’t allow much inside from Boston in a 5-1 win on Thursday, it was the Kraken who were held almost entirely to the perimeter against Ottawa.
“We threw pucks [to the net], we had the shot on our mind, I think you saw that,” Bylsma said. “But I think Ullmark saw all of them. He’s a big goalie, he’s playing well. I think we probably had to get a little more dirty than we gave him.”
When pucks started going in Seattle’s net, the Kraken gave in in a way that we haven’t seen very often, fading quietly into the night. A group that has—at times—shown resiliency this season failed to produce anything for large swaths of the game. They didn’t get a single puck through to Ullmark for about 15 minutes—from five minutes left in the second period until 10 minutes left in the third.
It just… wasn’t good enough.
Takeaway #2: Not Joey’s night
In the post-game presser, I made the rookie mistake of giving my own analysis of Joey Daccord’s game in my question to Bylsma about the goalie’s performance.
Here’s what I said: “How do you assess Joey’s game today? From playing the puck to… he has some sharp saves early on, maybe a couple [goals] that were a little uncharacteristic for him. What did you think of his game tonight?”
Here’s what Bylsma said: “I think you just described it.”
I deserved that response.
Daccord wasn’t tested often in the first period, but he did have some tricky saves through traffic and redirected pucks that made me think he was very much on his game. He even created one of Seattle’s best offensive chances of the night, sending a perfect 120-foot aerial pass to the far blue line and onto Tye Kartye’s tape for a breakaway. Of course, Ullmark shut that down, but the signs were good early on that Daccord was dialed in.
Joey Daccord hits the alley-oop pass to Tye Kartye to create a breakaway, but Ullmark shuts it down.
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) December 18, 2024
Insane pass by Joey. #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/0rjha5DOBM
But in the second period, things went sideways for him. Shane Pinto scored with an unscreened shot that went through Joey’s five-hole, and Noah Gregor followed that up with another unscreened wrist shot that went over Daccord’s shoulder to make it 2-0.
Even Tim Stützle’s breakaway goal at 4:18 of the third (it’s a breakaway goal, so it’s hard to fault the goalie for that) hit Daccord’s stick and oddly popped up and over him. Aside from the goals, Joey had a few misplays with the puck that we haven’t seen in several weeks and generally didn’t look like himself from the second period on.
With Daccord having something of an off night, he sure could have used some goal support at the other end. But Ullmark wasn’t letting anything in on this night.
Takeaway #3: Give Ottawa credit
It’s easy to watch a game like this and just think Seattle looks downright bad, and at times, I think that was fair to say. But the Senators really played a good road game. They weathered the early pressure from Seattle by protecting the dangerous areas, got more excellent goaltending from Ullmark (who is now 7-0-1 in his last eight games), and took advantage of their chances.
The Senators are becoming a pretty good team. They happen to be hot right now and are playing excellent hockey.
Meanwhile, the Kraken have gone cold and are now playing bad hockey… again… which is still perplexing.
Bonus Takeaway: Other odds and ends
Just a few bullet points to close out this Three Takeaways:
- The Kraken looked like they really could have used Yanni Gourde’s energy on Tuesday. He is getting closer and was a full participant at an optional morning skate but still did not play. Hopefully, he will be back Thursday in Chicago.
- Jordan Eberle was spotted leaving the arena on crutches after the game. He has a long way to go in his recovery from pelvis surgery, but it was good to see him up and about.
- Brandon Montour made an incredible street hockey goalie save with Seattle’s net empty that perhaps got the biggest cheer of the night.
Brandon Montour with the WaFd Save of the Night! pic.twitter.com/5Aim1A4LzO
— SasquatchNHL (@SasquatchNHL) December 18, 2024
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
This game was plain uninspiring. I stopped watching after the Sens went up 2-0 because the Kraken played without any fight or urgency.
My explanation would be the boys are tired of chasing so many games. They’re so rarely in the driver:s seat that it would wear on anybody. Bylsma will need to keep scratching underperforming vets and raising his voice a lot more to inspire urgency in this team.
Francis needs to keep searching to add a Vezina-capable keeper. This thing remains a work in progress for a few more years. They’ll need to play harder and more aggressively to have any success.
The fourth line was absolutely disaster – under 7 minutes and on the ice for all 3 goals. Well, Stephens was only on the ice for 2 because Wright seemed to miss the message about a shift change and stayed out after Bjorkstrand and Tolvanen had already gone back to the bench. He was clearly out of gas when the first goal went in.
Winterton needs to go back to CV, particularly if he’s going to be fourth-line. He doesn’t have enough on defense for that part of the lineup.
Finally, if Stephenson and Burakovsky are going to spend so much time on the ice together, at least one of them needs to start shooting. Pretty easy for the opposing team to defend when they know two of the forwards aren’t going to shoot. Someone in our section got tired of yelling “shoot” and started sarcastically yelling “pass it again” while the calls for shoot turned towards boos as Seattle cycled the puck for the gazillionth time.
The team needs the holiday break. I suspect McCann, Evans, Daccord and possibly Kartye are all nursing illness and/or injury. Beniers needs to get out of his head. And Stephenson and Burakovsky need to shoot. the. damn. puck.
Winterton back to CV… Kraken trade Borgen for Kakko.
“Not enough of… anything”
I think what the writers here and many posters seem to miss is that hockey looks like a team sport but in reality almost every team relies upon their stars to make the difference. And Seattle has none. So what results would you expect? How many stars did the Sens roll out last night?
Five hard-working skaters playing against five other hard-working skaters is likely to result in a draw, if I recall my statistics. That is the Kraken baseline. Working just a little bit harder really does not get you much of a result because the other team can match your increased effort.
An 82-game season is long and teams without any stars that try to rely on effort instead run out of energy, as they realize that trying hard and following the coaches’ plan does not equate to victory. That is why we keep seeing the yo-yo’ing up and down by this team.
Until this team has a bona fide star or two, they are not going anywhere. This essentially is the error that Francis has made in his roster building. A few really good players but no stars.
My advice sometime this season was just pull the plug, sell the soon-to-be UFAs, tank, and try to draft another potential star. If Catton also becomes one, there might be a chance for a breakout, years down the road. Can’t see it happening soon.
I won’t be one to purchase season tickets to watch a bunch of kids struggle for the next 8 years, like San Jose, Anaheim and Chicago. Not remotely interested. I would rather watch a middling team of men playing NHL hockey, and gradually bring young players into the fold. There’s no guarantee you are going to get a star if you tank, anyway. There are plenty of good players available at multiple rounds within any draft, and good, competitive teams without a Matthews or McDavid (neither of whom, by the way, are guaranteed to win a Cup). We have three prospects playing for Team Canada in the World Junior tournament.
Ottawa has a solid team and they are well coached. They have been working on it for some time. They didn’t get all their players through the entry draft.
“They didn’t get all their players through the entry draft”
Tim Stutzle Round 1 Pick 3 Year 2020
Brady Tkachuk Round 1 Pick 4 Year 2018
Joshua Norris Round 1 Pick 19 Year 2017
Drake Batherson Round 4 Pick 121 Year 2017
Jake Sanderson Round 1 Pick 5 Year 2020
Thomas Chabot Round 1 Pick 18 Year 2015
Their stars are on this list, with players like Giroux and perhaps Ullmark complimentary pieces.
It took this long for the Sens to look like a decent team, which included earlier this season when many were decrying the Ullmark signing as a mistake and the team was still continuing their mediocre play. It is only the last 10 games or so that they have turned it around. If you use that as a model, looking when their top picks were taken, we are talking 4-7 seasons before they broke through as a team, after selecting their future stars. If Catton is the first potential star the team has selected, you are talking the 2028 or 29 season before things start to pop. Unfortunately, Beniers does not look like a future star and Wright maybe. Sale? Catton the most likely but need another. So tanking is better than the mush middle forever. Look what Celebrini and Bedard have done for those franchises.
just for the record, Norris was a San jose pick, came to Ottawa in the Karlsson trade.
Agree 100%. The “middle mush” is just a long-term, drip-torture version of tanking. It can be sustained for a few years, but the glide path lands you in the same place as tanking – a terrible team that needs to be rebuilt. Even if it doesn’t, you end up with mid-1st round draft picks and (most likely) middling prospects and ultimately average-ish players – thus ensuring the mush in perpetuity – with no way of breaking the “cycle of mush” (take a look at the Seahawks). Better to tear off the band-aid now. The Kraken could then build a core of young, exciting prospects/players the fans would enjoy seeing.
The objection to this is of course (as you stated) the time it takes to rebuild. The best approach is for the Kraken to trade some of their best players (do we actually have any?) and trade to teams only needing a key player or two that would ensure a deep playoff run. Any prospects we get in return (as I’ve stated previously) absolutely need to be for bona fide prospects that project to be first line/first D pairing players (i.e. way better than anything we have currently at CV). Players that would be on the Kraken roster no later than the 26/27 season.
Most likely the Kraken couldn’t be rebuild their entire roster using the strategy above, so several 1st and 2nd round draft picks should be acquired. If possible, draft college players with a quicker path to the NHL.
I was shocked when you stated in an earlier post that the Kraken didn’t have another senior-level hockey person other than GMRF. I find their (presumed) reliance on quant types discomfiting. Any rebuild will require more senior “hockey people” – most likely a new GM and another senior exec – to engage in the rebuild.
The Kraken are not “perplexing” – they’re simply bad. Time to make plans for the future.
Last season at the trade deadline the Kraken retained half and got a very late second and a fourth for Wennberg in a thin center market.
I just don’t see Seattle having the players available for the type of returns you’re proposing. I’m terrible at pricing trade assets, but I think the two most valuable pieces that could actually be moved would be Borgen and Tolvanen and I’m not sure a third pair rental or a middle-six winger gets you a first or a top prospect.
Is Kakko a “top prospect”?
Maybe… first thought is I like the deal.
100%
Just to clarify…
Should the Kraken be doing Vegas or Ottawa?
Should the Kraken shoot for lighting in a bottle, or a decade long rebuild?
I know Ron Francis is the problem, but I feel like I’m getting mixed messages on the solution.
One things for sure, the solution to this organization’s problems will almost CERTAINLY come from within the learned confines of the Sound of Hockey Comments Section.
First Star comment! ⭐
A decade-long rebuild? Ottawa has been building since 1992. If you want to see a depressing list, check out the list of good players that the Sens traded away because they were in a “rebuilding phase.” God, imagine if Zdeno Chara, Marion Hossa, Pavol Demitra, Nick Foligno, and probably others that I am forgetting hadn’t been moved just as they were entering the prime of their careers because the team was rebuilding. And because the skinflint owner just didn’t want to spend to the cap. Come to think of it, the only players that the Sens drafted who they didn’t trade away just as they were getting good were Daniel Alfredsson and Jason Spezza. Don’t do Ottawa. Never do Ottawa.
The soft Daccord goal totally deflated the team. It looked like only a couple of players were actually trying after that.
Beniers looks broken. His wonky skating seems to get worse as the game goes on, which leads me to believe he doesn’t have the strength or stamina to be an NHL skater at this point. What happened to him bulking up? He looks weaker and less confident than ever. He’s playing like a fringe 3C, which is a disaster for this franchise.
Stephenson seems to rack up points, but he totally mails it in half the time. It looks like he can’t be bothered to skate hard or battle for the puck most shifts. He just kind of floats around. Having him and Burakovsky on the same line is brutal to watch.
This is a mediocre, fake .500 team. It’s like one of those rickety, boring, overpriced roller coasters at the county fair — doesn’t get too high, or too low, and just kinda sucks.
The last practice I went to, Beniers was working with Coach Campbell on his skating technique. It was interesting to watch and it might remake the phrase, you can’t teach a young dog new tricks either. Seems like that sort of training should have been more focused during off season. I dunno
I will quibble with your metaphor, this roller coaster can actually get really high and very low, it just has a nasty tendency to completely break down at very inopportune moments and then you’re stuck on it with no idea when it will get running again.
Ha that works too!
Thanks for calling out Stephenson. I’ve been waiting for someone to address his laziness. I do believe he’s got some great skills, which is why watching him just glide around and seemingly barely trying, is all the more frustrating. How is he at the top for points and at the almost bottom for +\-??The coaches need to get on his case about stepping it up.
Looking at Ullmark from the start of the game I was thinking there’s a good chance this is going to be a shutout. The guy is huge and has been playing lights out for a while now.
Maybe there is someone in the farm system that will blossom into a scoring machine star, but that possibility is still a few years down the road. Till then us fans will occasionally be teased with bright stretches then quickly once again let down. Mediocre is frustrating!
Last night looked a lot like last season. Too much so.
I turned it off after the 3rd goal. What a hot mess. It’s like Coach is handing out lollipops for every shot on goal, no matter the quality. Sens were good, once Kraken had a breakdown they pounced! I think they made a mistake by letting Gru play back to back – Joey might have been off too long. They need to figure that stuff out. Kraken are back to being hard to watch. Montour is the only thing that keeps me going.
I turned it off after the 2nd goal. I also noticed many empty seats tonight. No fire in the furnace lately and especially last night.. I think the Kraken did Kartye a disservice by bringing him up so early. He never got a chance to be a shooter and you cannot learn playing in the NHL and the Kraken do not have a coach that teaches shooting but other teams do. Jessica is not a shooting answer. We have one consistanct goal scorer and even with injured players returning, we do not have a team that can score, period. I told myself before the gasme that if the Kracken let in one goal, they would lose. I am tired of being right.
Chandler Stephenson had 24:52 of ice time! He was on the top PK and PP units — and completely sucked in every facet. There was one moment when the Kraken had a PP in the 3rd, and (miracle of miracles) they were actually in the O zone. Stephenson had the puck, Ottawa was giving him plenty of space, and he just… stood there. The crowd started booing. It was pathetic. It’s not only that Stephenson is bad… he looks LAZY so much of the time. And Bylsma is giving him minutes like he is McDavid. This forward group is entirely devoid of stars, so there is no reason any forward should be getting that kind of ice time. He needs to spread it out to have any chance of staying fresh over the course of the game. I know the 4th line somehow gave up 3 goals in 6 minutes, but it doesn’t matter. Their only sliver of a chance to be halfway decent is to roll 4 lines.
I was always ambivalent about Hakstol. Maybe he needed to go, maybe not. He at least seemed dogged in his approach and tried to stay even keel. But this coaching staff has proven themselves to be a complete, unmitigated disaster. They just have no idea what they are doing. The things that really needed fixing — special teams and Beniers — have gotten way worse. And any coach who thinks the answer is to bench the younger players and lean on Chandler Stephenson for 25 minutes, and then watch a younger, more skilled team skate circles around them, just does not have the faintest clue.
The GM needs to be the next to go, if the new FM wants new coaches then they will. I don’t think we can be pointing our fingers at the coaches anymore with the roster we have that has a lot of middle level players signed to long and big contracts. It’s not fun looking at our teams future when you look at our cap space.
Oh seattle G, I’ll be going to games because I’m a hockey fan and a kraken fan. Thick and thin buddy.
I would still go to some games. I just won’t commit to season tickets to watch a rebuild.
Bandwagon awaits your return.
“It’s not fun looking at our teams future when you look at our cap space.”
Especially if you don’t look past this year.
Kraken have 10 million to work with this offseason and 20 mil + the following offseason, and that’s with modest cap increases.
The myth that the Kraken have put themselves in a long term cap crunch needs to die. Look at the cap sheet people. They’re fine.
Borgen plus a 3rd and a 5th for Kaako! I love it!