Well, how about that? The Seattle Kraken can win on Opening Night! And they did so for the first time in their relatively short history Thursday, beating the Anaheim Ducks 3-1.
Seattle overcame a painfully sluggish first period, one in which Vince Dunn opened the scoring at just 2:21 before the team went heavily on its heels for the rest of the frame.
“Besides yell at each other a little bit?” Jared McCann joked when asked what the group did to change the momentum after the first. “Honestly, I think we just kind of dumbed it down a bit. Obviously, getting used to the ice again, and all that stuff. We just tried to keep it simple.”
Eventually, the Kraken found something resembling the type of game they want to play this season—tight structure, relentless forechecking, and a commitment to details. It took a while, but they started to show it in the later stages.
Lane Lambert earned his first win as Kraken head coach, Joey Daccord saved Seattle’s bacon 31 times, and Dunn, McCann, and Mason Marchment each potted goals.
Here are Three Takeaways from a slow-starting but ultimately solid 3-1 Kraken win over the Ducks.
Takeaway #1: Ugly first period
If not for Daccord being razor-sharp early, the Kraken would have been staring at a steep uphill climb heading into the second period. Instead, while they fumbled practically every puck they touched in their end—where they spent almost the entire period—Daccord kept bailing them out and got them to the break tied 1-1.
“I think we played well, even though, I mean, the shot counter was a little lopsided at first,” Daccord said. “But I thought we played well. I thought we just found a way to battle through it as a group, and then eventually, as we started to get our legs there in the second period and then eventually dominate the third was great to see from my end.”
I may respectfully disagree with Daccord’s assessment that the team played “well” in the first 20, but things were noticeably different in the second—especially after Brandon Montour’s hustle play that we’ll get to in Takeaway No. 2.
Credit the Ducks, too, who came out… flying… under new head coach Joel Quenneville. Their jump and structure made me wonder if Anaheim might be significantly improved this season, while Seattle initially looked like it was carrying over many of the same issues from the past two years.
But give Lambert’s bunch credit as well. They stuck with it, got out of the muck, and slowly tilted the ice back in their favor as the night went on.
Takeaway #2: Montour willed the Kraken into the lead
Marchment’s goal in his first game as a Kraken was nice, but the play Montour made to set it up was even better. He chased Troy Terry from the defensive goal line to the blue line, stripped him of the puck, then blew past him and gained control again deep in the offensive zone.
Meanwhile, Marchment quietly slid into the slot, which Jacob Trouba had vacated chasing Montour. Montour put the pass right on the money, and Marchment buried it.
THE MUSH PUSH! 🚨
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 10, 2025
Mason Marchment is the beneficiary of an outstanding 200-foot play by Brandon Montour, and he pots his first as a #SeaKraken.
Somehow, it's 2-1 Seattle. pic.twitter.com/OJ0BltOEob
“That was great,” Marchment said. “Great play [by Montour]. He broke up a play, made a great play to me in the slot. I just tried to find a hole for him, and he put it right on my tape.”
Lambert has often talked about turning strong defensive plays into offense, and this was as good an example as you’ll find.
“He did exactly what, I guess, we wanted him to do,” Lambert said of Montour. “Of course, he made an elite play, so it certainly was well done from that standpoint. But the whole sequence was pretty well defended, and then you’ve got an elite player making an elite play, and that’s always nice to see.”
After Montour’s determined sequence four minutes into the second, the Kraken suddenly looked like a different team—and never really looked back.
Takeaway #3: Is Jared McCann back?
McCann’s goal may have been even prettier than Marchment’s. What looked like an innocuous play turned into a perfect sequence of execution by the top line of McCann, Jordan Eberle, and Matty Beniers, who set McCann up at the top of the crease. The puck was on and off McCann’s stick and under the bar in an instant.
The play started in the neutral zone, with Jamie Oleksiak and Josh Mahura forcing a turnover and quickly transitioning back to offense. Eberle sent a perfectly weighted cross-ice dump-in to the far corner, where Beniers had a step on Drew Helleson. He got one touch on the puck—a chop to the slot—where McCann one-timed it into the top shelf.
MCCANN CAN! 🚨
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 10, 2025
What a beautiful goal! Perfectly weighted dump-in by Eberle, Beniers one-touches it to McCann, and he roofs it.
3-1 #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/UlExxxWNfX
“Beautiful,” McCann said. “I’m a very lucky guy to play with two players like that who have skill and are obviously great leaders.”
I still don’t know exactly what injury led to McCann’s procedure after last season, which caused him to barely skate during the summer and even training camp. But based on Thursday’s evidence, his shot looks as wicked as ever.
His goal totals have dipped from 40 in 2022-23 to 29 and 22 in the two seasons since. But if this performance is any indication, maybe McCann’s back on track for the higher end of his production capabilities.
It was far from a perfect night for the Kraken, who still have a lot to work on. But getting the season off on the right foot with a win felt important.
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.
It was a disappointedly sluggish start that tested Daccord far too much. If coach is building off defense, it may take him a while to be happy with this club.
You take a win any way you can get it but far more will be required of the team to.match Vegas’ talent on Saturday.
I still don’t know what to think of that game. Outside of goal tending, the first period was beyond terrible. It was almost impossible to even tell what they were trying to do.
The second was a little better but we scored twice on only 6 shots. Neither goal had any real set offense. Nothing looked like it was consistently repeatable.
The third period was totally different team. Awesome on both ends!!
My hope is the third period is what they really are. My fear is that they are equal parts terrible, meh, and awesome.
Agreed. The player who most encapsulates that is Dunn. He had some flashes and the goal of course, but he also had a horrible turnover that led to the Ducks goal, plus another forced pass or 2 through the neutral zone that led to rushes the other way. One of the keys to this team’s success will be whether Lambert’s “culture of accountability” can make Dunn more consistent defensively. If the Kraken are going to be anything but a bottom 10 team, Dunn will have to revert to his year 2 form.
Joey Rules!!
Good point! Dunno tried several risky passes to breakout and I can’t remember any that worked.
Good point, Boist. This was something that I thought was a big issue for the team last season. Far too often, when an egregious turnover would happen, it seemed like Dunn was the culprit. I do believe Lambert will get his hooks into him, though, and nip those types of plays in the bud.
My takeaways:
1. Despite what looked like erratic poor play by the Kraken for stretches, I didn’t see any Anaheim odd-man rushes.
2. Even though the Kraken didn’t look like the better team, we still managed to win the game, and in the end it wasn’t close. Good teams win bad games.
3. Winterton is starting to look like he has the potential to be an NHL player. He looked stronger, faster and smarter. He stood out as the best Kraken in the whole 1st period.
Bonus takeaway…it’s great to see what solid goaltending can do for you. Daccord didn’t have to stand on his head. He just had to hold his ground between the pipes and make basic saves.
McCann is a class act.
McCann took a hit in the 3rd period and went gingerly to the bench. He stayed in the game, but any concern there?
At the end of the first period, the 2 players I was most concerned about were Marchment – who passed to the Ducks more than the Kraken, and McCann – who looked so exhausted at the end of his first three shifts that I wasn’t sure he’d make it to the end of the period, let alone the full game. So very pleasant surprise to see them score the goals in the second and third period and earn stars.
The Stephenson/Marchment/Winterton line appeared to gel more as the game went on. After some pretty lackluster play and horrible defense on his previous callups, it looks like those 2 goals in the preseason may have unlocked Winterton’s confidence and we might finally get to see what the team has seen from him in CV.
I liked the effort to maintain presence down the middle, even if there were struggles. The last 2 seasons the team spent way too much time pushed to the outside. I also liked the continuation that I saw in the final preseason game of the forwards in particular keeping their feet moving when defending and getting power through stroking and actual skating versus the two-foot-backwards-butt-wiggle. Also, particularly as the game progressed, it felt like there was significantly more overall awareness of where the rest of the team was on the ice versus last year and less like players on individual islands. There were some strong cross-ice and long passes that actually connected and some nice drop and backwards passes with someone actually there to receive. Though, admittedly, this was so bad last year, it would have been difficult to get worse.
All of that said, I did not like how easy it is to close in on the offense and shut them down by playing tight. I think that’s where Kakko and his willingness and ability to muscle his way in is going to be missed the most. As much as I like the fluidity of McCann/Beniers/Eberle when they can get space, I think they need a more physical presence on that line. I’d consider either swapping Eberle and Tolvanen and have McCann/Beniers/Tolvanen and Schwartz/Wright/Eberle or switch Beniers and Wright (McCann/Wright/Eberle and Schwartz/Beniers/Tolvanen).
Finally, given another early night and Lambert’s postgame comments, I’m not sure he’s decided on where/how/how much to use Nyman. It’s still not clear to me what the PK units are expected to be, but if Kartye and Gaudreau stay paired on the PK, that’s going to cut into 4th line shifts on the 5-on-5 and less playing time for Nyman, which begs the question of whether Nyman will benefit more from spending time in Seattle with limited minutes, or getting more TOI and development opportunity in CV.