Last week I posted a deep dive on the Seattle Kraken’s goal scoring over the 2024–25 season. Several of you asked to see the other side of the equation, so this week I’m doing another deep dive, this time into goals against. The publicly available data and tools are limited, so this breakdown will be a bit basic and theoretically incomplete, bur it gives us an idea of how the Kraken have trended.
Establishing a baseline
If there’s a broad area you can point to as the reason for the disappointing 2024–25 season, it’s the goals against. Without any high-end talent, the Kraken have had to lean heavily on team defense to be competitive. But this past season saw the Kraken allow the most goals per game since their inaugural year.
They finished 22nd in the league, giving up 3.20 goals per game. Compared to last year’s 2.83, that’s an increase of +0.37 goals per game.
Goals against by situation
Just like we approached Kraken goals for last week, let’s break down how teams scored against the Kraken.
Maybe a little surprising: the Kraken’s goals against while shorthanded were relatively low, just 0.54 per game. Here’s how the goals against by scenario compares across the league in 2024–25.
Clearly, the Kraken need to improve their defense on their 5-on-5 play which is a large percentage of their even-strength time on ice.
Penalty kill performance
From a goals-against-on-the-penalty-kill perspective, the Kraken look… alright. They allowed the 10th-fewest total power-play goals against, despite ranking 27th in the league on penalty kill percentage. It turns out that encouraging total is propped up by the fact Seattle was one of the most disciplined teams in the league.
Seattle was fifth in the NHL for fewest times shorthanded. So while the raw total looks fine, the percentage was below average, and we’ve already talked about how offseason additions should help improve that. Here’s how the Kraken’s PK volume and efficiency stack up league-wide.
Shots against volume
Now let’s look at the Kraken’s shots against per game.
Seattle ranked 17th in the league in shots against, which is again a little surprising, given their 27th-place finish in the standings. But as we all know, not all shots are created equal. So let’s dig into the quality of shots against: high, medium, and low danger.
Like the overall shot volume, the Kraken were right around the league average in high- and medium-danger shots allowed. That’s not bad at all, especially considering several 2025 playoff teams allowed more dangerous chances per game. The Kraken did allow more low-danger shots than most, but that’s not terribly concerning.
Team goaltending
Of course, the other critical element of team defense is goaltending. So let’s check in on team save percentage, broken out by strength.
As you might expect, Seattle’s team save percentage was on the low side, but still (somehow) above two playoff teams: Montreal and Carolina. Still, there’s a lot of room for improvement.
Here’s a look at the Kraken’s save percentages by shot danger level, per NaturalStatTrick.com:
Interestingly, the Kraken’s save percentage got worse relative to the rest of the league as the shots got easier. Spot-checking other teams reveals a lack of consistency. For example, Anaheim was 22nd in high-danger save percentage, fourth in medium-danger, and first in low-danger save percentage.
We can theorize that there’s something systemic at play here, maybe Anaheim’s defensive structure prevents cross-ice passes in medium- and low-danger areas but leaves low-danger shooters more open for cross-seam chances. The inverse might be true for the Kraken’s 2024-25 system implemented by Dan Bylsma.
Individual goalie save percentage
We all know Philipp Grubauer struggled this past season, and the numbers back that up. But let’s put it in context by looking at save percentages for all goalies who played 25+ games.
Yeah… no sugarcoating that one.
Just for good measure, let’s look at Grubauer’s save percentage by shot quality.
It’s a pretty poor performance across the board.
Outlook for 2025-26
Aside from the obvious need for improvement from Grubauer, the Kraken are actually middle of the pack in a lot of defensive categories. As mentioned before, the additions of Ryan Lindgren and Fredrick Gaudreau should help the penalty kill.
There’s also hope that Lane Lambert can implement systems that reduce both the volume and quality of shots the Kraken face, which, in theory, should cut down on goals against.
Final thoughts
All in all, the Kraken’s goals against story in 2024–25 is a mixed bag. Some areas, like overall shot volume and penalty kill goals allowed, aren’t as dire as the standings might suggest, while other areas, like 5-on-5 goals allowed and backup goaltending, clearly have room for improvement. With some key roster tweaks already in place and a new coaching staff behind the bench, there’s at least some reason for cautious optimism heading into 2025–26 that things will get better. The defense doesn’t need to become elite overnight, but if the Kraken can bring the goals against down even a little, they’ll give themselves a much better shot at turning things around.
“Seattle ranked 17th in the league in shots against, which is again a little surprising, given their 27th-place finish in the standings.”
They were also 27th in even strength defensive zone time. I maintain, the biggest problem with the defense was the inability of the team to maintain the offensive zone. They got decent scoring off Bylsma’s commitment to the rush, but they gave a lot of it back spending all day in their own end. Add in Grubauer’s -16.3 GSAx and it seems to me the problem with the defense isn’t the blueline.
Following the last Data Dump, Matt pointed to Florida. They scored just five more goals than the Kraken, but they surrendered an astounding 42 less. They were also second only to Carolina in time in the defensive zone.
Go Kraken!!!
Excellent comments Daryl. Where did you get the defensive zone time metric? I didn’t think zone time was publicly available.
I had to go through each teams individual NHL Edge numbers.
Thanks for the breakdown, John, always a ton of great info. I think the defensive adds will definitely improve things and being more consistent there should help the entire squad. However, this data also highlights the most confounding part of the offseason, the decision to not buyout Grubauer. I hope it all works out and we get a fringe playoff team that sees a lot of growth from our younger prospects, but I feel like we’re going to be looking back at keeping Grubauer and wondering what could have been with a decent backup.
It’s not confounding at all. If you’re not going to use the cap, why pay the penalty for 2 extra years? There were also no decent backups available and we did mitigate risk by getting a solid 3rd option.
I would like to see a comparison on shot blocking. I know I did not see to many forwards going down to block shots. I know shot blocking is a must during the playoffs but You gotta make the playoffs first. One way to make the playoffs is to block lots of shots from forwards . I say forwards because blocking by D-men can make for disastorous results when blocking the goaltenders view. I wonder if D-mens deflections of shots plays into this as well.
Seattle was second in the league (after San Jose) in shot blocks by forwards. Tanev, Beniers, Tolvanen, and Wright were all in the top 50. The rest of the top 5 was Columbus, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.
Many bad to mediocre teams. Would be nice to have forwards who, you know, apply pressure on the other team and score. Having forwards forced to play D and block shots is the formula to be a top 10 drafting team
Yep. In the words of Eddie O, the best defense is playing 200 feet from your goaltender.
Nice article! Stats can often surprise. The Kraken were pretty bad defensively but the shot metrics were better than i would have thought. Daccord’s numbers were worse than I would have thought. Grubaur is terrible and he is hurting the team considerably.
I really appreciate the comment on zone time! My eyes told me they could not control the puck last year and really struggled to exit the defensive zone. It just seemed consistently easy for the opposing offenses. Really hoping the new system improves this.
Daccord got overplayed and burned out by the end of the season. Grubauer’s numbers are godawful, but I wonder how much they are affected by those three disastrous games he played before he was sent to Coachella Valley. Before those games he hadn’t had a good season, but it hadn’t seemed to be anywhere near the bottom of the league either. I recall him not getting any goal support in his starts, as is mysteriously always the case. Still, for some reason it looked like Bylsma was afraid to give Grubauer regular starts. That can’t happen again. Whether it’s Grubaurer, Murray, or Kokko, somebody has to let Daccord take regular breaks.
I am surprised at how much better the shots-against numbers look than I had expected. Do we know how the team fared at blocking shots relative to the rest of the league? Did Larsson and Oleksiak put on another shot-blocking clinic last season? Because I do seem to recall a lot of good blocks.
Would be interesting to see a graph of Joey and Gru’s save percentage over the course of the season. I recall Joey having a stellar season until they lost trust in Gru and started overplaying Joey…then his numbers started to suffer. Also curious if Gru’s stance that he played better then he was used more regularly was supported by data.
After the first 32 games last season…
GP 20, GAA 2.42, GSAA 7.78, SV% .916
GP 12, GAA 3.50, GSAA -7.78, SV% .879
Take a guess which line belongs to which goalie. Run support, not getting enough starts, he started off good, the team in front of him… there are no excuses. He is what his numbers say he is.
I posted the following on November 12, 2021… one month into season one:
Grubauer gives up five goals but somehow is still doing a good job?
Before last night’s .853… 34th out of 35 goalies with six starts.
Expected Goals Against is around 15 depending on the site – he’s given up 23.
SV% against medium-danger shots is .811. 10 goals on 53 shots.
I expect he’ll turn it around. He’s not an .882 goalie – but can we please stop pretending he’s playing fine.
I was wrong, he never did turn it around.
I have said it multiple times but they can’t afford to give Gru as long of a leash this year. At least with Murray we may have a viable alternative. He was stellar in the AHL last year and said he is feeling the best he has in years. If Joey plays like a #1 borderline superstar again I am desperately hoping g Murray signing proves to be one of the most team changing UFA acquisitions.
Plus they could easily waive Grubauer and send him to CV to make room for Murray.
Daryl you are very knowledgeable with the statistics and information you contribute on a regular basis.
It was easy to be optimistic back in season one that Grubauer would have turned it around.
Looking forward to the new season to see if Lambert can shock the doubters and get this team all to play to their potential.
Go Kraken!!!
Unrelated to this article but just noted Steve Ellis’ DFO rating of Kraken prospects. His top 10 is Catton, O’Brien, Firkus, Rehkopf, Fiddler, OFM, Nyman, Sale, Winterton, and Nelson. He likes the team’s winger depth but seems unconvinced about the G prospects. He sees O’Brien as nothing less than a 2C, which with Wright and Beniers, will make it interesting how that shakes out. He is highest on Firkus of all the wingers. He sees Catton making the NHL this season, “easily one of the top prospects in hockey and has the skill and the hockey sense to play pro hockey immediately.”
I don’t know if you read the comments following the article, but I noted the take on Firkus vs Nyman…
‘Not sure why Nyman is 7th while Firkus is 3rd? He’s three months younger, five inches taller, 50 pounds heavier and outscored him handily in Coachella this past season. If he hadn’t been called up, his goals were on pace to be the most by a twenty or younger player in 15 years. He did the same in Finland winning the Liiga Red Bull helmet scoring the most goals by a U20. His skating isn’t “premium”, but his first dozen games in the NHL didn’t find him out of place.’
It’s hard to see how Nyman is 7th in the prospect rankings… and Firkus is 3rd? My opinion – which isn’t worth beans – folks are sleeping on Nyman… mostly because of the skating. There’s a whole book on wingers being knocked for their skating as if they were centers.
Also, as Seattle G noted… the goalie takes on Daily Faceoff ranking don’t seem to even realize Vyazovoy even exists. This isn’t the first time they’ve ignored him. Honestly, I appreciate the job these folks do, but it’s obvious – and understandable – they don’t actually know what they’re talking about when it comes to the Kraken.
I don’t think one can make a blanket statement about all writers who happen to currently work at a certain publication. Steve Ellis is pretty decent.
Regarding goalies, he said, ” Semyon Vyazovoi has looked good in Russia, especially later in the year. But is he a future NHLer? I’m not convinced.”
He seems to have faith that Firkus is a future NHLer with his varied skills. Like most of the Kraken winger prospects, it is kind of a crap shoot and we will just have to see how it sorts out. This coming season in CV will tell a lot about the franchise’s future.
The bigger question mark for me is whether we have any top-4 D in the prospect pool beyond Fiddler. Because they will be playing 6 young D this year in CV, that team’s games will be an interesting watch.
Excuse me… no blanket statements!?!?!
Oh…okay.