The Kraken won’t make any excuses for losing on back-to-back nights—Monday in Philadelphia and Tuesday in Washington, D.C.—but if there were ever a time to make them, this might be it. Just when it seemed like the injury situation couldn’t get any worse, a team already missing Kaapo Kakko, Ryker Evans, Freddy Gaudreau, Brandon Montour (personal), and Jared McCann also announced that Mason Marchment would be out day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
“We’re definitely being tested,” Jordan Eberle said. “We have some adversity, some big guys out, but ultimately, you’re going to go through a season, and every team there’s injuries that happen, guys need to step up, play more minutes. Right now, that’s the case for us… Adversity happens, and that’s right now.”
Marchment’s sudden absence makes it six regulars out of the lineup at once.
Meanwhile, because Seattle continues to carry three goalies on its roster, there are no extra skaters available. The team has maxed out its roster while resisting placing McCann and Marchment on injured reserve, moves that would require either player to miss at least seven days. (The fact Seattle hasn’t done so suggests the organization doesn’t expect either player to be out for long.)
Still, we were hoping for a little more from the Kraken on Tuesday against the Capitals, who jumped out to a 3-0 lead and fended off a late push.
Here are Three Takeaways from a 4-1 Kraken loss to the Capitals.
Takeaway #1: Slow start dooms undermanned Kraken
When you consider the depleted roster and the tired legs from playing the night before, it’s easy to imagine a team looking sluggish and ineffective—and then packing it in once it falls behind. The Kraken did fall behind, but to their credit, they put together a strong third period and even started to generate a bit of belief that maybe… just maybe… they could come back.
That didn’t happen, but it was still an impressive final frame in which they turned the momentum and controlled large portions of play.
Matt Murray made his official Kraken debut, and although it would have been nice to get a save on the third goal—a power-play tally by Jacob Chychrun from the top of the right circle—he played a relatively solid game, stopping 30 shots in all.
Seattle, however, looked understandably flat for most of the first two periods. Before Murray could truly settle in, Nic Dowd scored an easy tap-in off a sharp passing play, Ryan Leonard beat Murray after an Adam Larsson turnover, and Chychrun added the power-play goal.
“I felt a little bit off, and really, if I make a save there early in the second period, maybe there’s a different flow to the game,” Murray said. “But I love the way that our guys battled out there. We defended hard, and for a team going through a lot of adversity right now, I loved our compete level. So, there’s some positives to build on.”
Seattle battled hard in the third, but it was too little, too late.
“I thought we made more plays in the third period,” head coach Lane Lambert said. “We inflicted pain on ourselves by turning pucks over, not making plays quick enough, certainly early on in the game. And you can’t do that. We have to be better than that… You can’t put yourself in a position where you’re down 3-0 in this league.”
Takeaway #2: Berkly Catton is an NHLer
Although Berkly Catton had an assist and a few good looks in the Philadelphia game, he looked tentative—similar to what we’ve seen from other young Kraken players in their debuts. He’d get the puck and quickly dish it off even when he had time, a sign of a 19-year-old trying to avoid mistakes.
On Tuesday, he looked like a different player… an NHL player, in fact. He held onto pucks, distributed confidently, and showed real creativity and poise.
Catton could have had several points, both goals and assists, but a few big saves by Logan Thompson and some near misses kept him off the scoresheet. Case in point: This perfect pass by Catton to Eberle that should have gotten Seattle within one goal.
Here's Schwartz getting hurt and Eberle getting robbed off a great setup by Catton. #SeaKraken https://t.co/sLcJZkoy7P pic.twitter.com/wc8PscYl76
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 22, 2025
While the Kraken came out losers again, it was an impressive showing for Catton. He made the most of his opportunity, earning 18:13 of ice time—including power-play minutes and a late shift during the 6-on-5 push when Lambert was trying to spark a comeback. He finished with three shots on goal and a plus-one rating.
When you think back to how Shane Wright looked in his first few NHL games—when he frankly seemed in over his head—as a 19-year-old, it’s encouraging and exciting to see Catton driving play and earning the coaching staff’s trust in just his second game.
Of course, it’s only two games, but I’m now feeling more sold than I did a week ago that Catton can stick with this team and be an impactful player.
Takeaway #3: Injuries killing the vibes
Seattle started the day Tuesday by sending defenseman Ville Ottavainen back to Coachella Valley of the AHL and recalling forward Ben Meyers. Then, just before puck drop, it became clear Meyers would be playing. For a moment, that raised the question of whether Catton might be coming back out of the lineup.
Not so. Instead, the team announced minutes before the game that Meyers had actually been summoned to replace Marchment, who had joined the ever-growing injured list.
This rash of injuries is both shocking and, somehow, predictable. When Seattle saw players dropping during training camp, it felt concerning—not because of the immediate absences, but because when injuries pile up early, they often have a way of snowballing once the season starts.
Sure enough, three weeks into the season, Seattle is desperate for healthy bodies.
And while the roster has taken a massive hit, the vibes on this six-game road trip have also tanked. For a while, it looked like Seattle might cruise through this stretch and bring home eight or more points out of 12. Now, after two regulation losses, the Kraken need a win against a good Winnipeg Jets team on Thursday just to salvage six of 12.
“We have an opportunity here,” Lambert said. “We can lament in the last couple games, but we have an opportunity in Winnipeg to go .500 on this road trip. That’s our focus.”
The vibes have gone from immaculate to pretty stinky in just two days. Let’s see if the Kraken can turn it back around and come home from this long road trip feeling good about themselves, despite this massive adversity.
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.
1. Wonder how much longer they can afford the roster space for three goalies? Just on their one full game each, you would say MM deserves to stay up with a SV% over .900 and PG deserves to go down with a SV% under .900. Add that to the fact MM might get claimed and PG won’t, seems done.
2. Agree on Catton. I will replay a recent posting of mine. Four people liked Koist’s reply. I guess that is five people who don’t know hockey much.
Chuck Holmes on October 17, 2025 at 1:01 am
WTF: No show again by Catton. Hope he is practicing well.
Koist on October 17, 2025 at 7:14 am
No WTF at all. Catton showed he wasn’t ready in the preseason. Has a lot to work on.
3. On Catton, I also recently pondered if he was getting the “Ron” treatment in the pressbox awaiting his first game like Shane Wright did. Turns out he was. Given all the injured Fs, when they come back and if Catton stays, the roster choices will be interesting.
It’s not looking like this team will have a full roster at any point this season, so I’m pretty sure Catton should pretty safely have a spot.
Agree.
Release the Catton!!!
You keep brining up this goalie thing and it’s a non issue. It’s only an issue if we need to call someone up and can’t. That has yet to happen. We’ve put a full roster every game.
Having three goalies helped us here. When Joey played awful and Gru had to sub in,, we had a fresh goalie for the second night of the back to back.
While carrying three goalies isn’t ideal there seems to be a lot of hand wringing over it due to the injuries. There was a long discussion on the broadcast as well. It seems to me the only impact to the roster right now is it doesn’t allow them to sit either Ottavainen or Melanson in the press box. It’s not as if they’ve been forced to ice 11 forwards or a player they wouldn’t have otherwise because of the third goalie. Ideally – to me – Murray would “win” the job but it’s difficult to say he’s done that so far.
Murray saved 30 of 33 (.909) against the Capitals with 6 regular skaters out for the second of a back to back. Gru saved 20 of 23 (.870) against the Sens – also with a bunch of regulars out. Lambert did say he thought Murray played well in the post game.
Despite two loses, still room for optimism if the team can get healthy and we can get a backup who can stay above .900 save %.
I’m really pulling for Murray to be solid, I think it’s an actual possibility and so far so good. I haven’t seen anything to convince me Gru is the same goalie I’ve been complaining about for four seasons. Yes Chuck, back to three weeks into season one I’ve been complaining about Grubauer.
I can see, however, the team may want to see more.
I thought Murray looked pretty solid despite not getting much playing time the last couple years. Really, the score was 3-1 (if we don’t include the empty netter, obviously) with the Kraken still applying heavy pressure in the 3rd period despite the “diluted” lineup. We actually had multiple chances to even things up (like the aforementioned Catton pass to Eberle, etc.) We were playing a seasoned Washington lineup in their own barn, and things could have been a lot worse. I’ve seen plenty of scores like 9-1 in my many years of following NHL hockey. I’m proud of this team and what the coaching staff has been able to accomplish in pretty short order.
What happened to the genius who wants to start doing “trades” because we have too many players? They are funny.
A good chunk of the first period and the first 13 minutes of the second looked way, way too much like last season’s team and the one from the first period on opening night, but from there on they looked really good, especially considering they’re down six bodies.
Hopefully these injuries are all getting out of the way early because the depth of the organization is, I think, going to be a real benefit with this year’s compressed schedule.
I wasn’t able to watch but I saw that it was 3-0 in the middle of the 2nd and SOG were like 17-6, and I thought welp, looks like Lambert hasn’t fixed the back-to-back issue from last season yet. I appreciate that they fought back in the third despite 2 lines worth of injuries, but they cannot dig that big of a hole and expect any different result from last year.
It seemed to me, and I’m no analyst, but a lot of those comebacks last season I thought were driven by effort, but also some good fortune. Last night and in the season opener they couldn’t pass the puck and couldn’t establish any control in the offensive zone. Just like last season, they were spending all night in their own end.. until late in the second. That’s when they started making entries and passes and were able to set up in the offensive zone. The entire first half plus they seemed to me to be trying to react rather than able to control play at all. The fact that they were able to carry 77% of the 5v5 expected goals in the third (I know, xG, ugh) is probably a bit of score effect, but they certainly looked a lot sharper closing out the game. At least to me, with six guys out, that feels like something to build on.
I think saying that Lambert hasn’t “fixed the back to back issue” is completely ridiculous. In what, 10 games? 1 of which has been a back to back scenario. I feel like your expectations are about 10 levels above what really matters at this point.
Over $30m – almost a third of the cap – was not on the roster last night.
Or another way to put it…
The cap hit for last night’s lineup was $63.868m. The cap floor is $70.6m.
I obviously wasn’t being serious, but there’s a kernel of truth. People were saying for the first 5 games that this was an entirely different team, very defensively responsible, and that better structure (and better goaltending) would lead to better results in back-to-backs. Welp, not yet at least. And yes having half the roster injured already certainly doesn’t help.
After such a promising start, this season got so ugly so fast. I hope they can regain some mojo — and some injured players — during all these November home games coming up. It would be nice if at least the home games are fun to go to. As John Barr says, just be competitive, please. This back-to-back did not qualify. We have tickets to 6 of the 7 November home games (plus October 28)… yikes. Yay for 25% off beer, I guess.
Just a simple question for the “sky is falling” contingent.
At this point in the season given the record established thus far, would you rather have this loss with what amounts to a preseasonesque Kraken roster with a backup goalie on a back-to-back 5th game of a 6 game road trip, or the same loss with a healthy lineup and Daccord in net?
Kraken are going to lose a lot more games. This is not a bad loss.
Yep. And this is what things look like when you get rid of all the “old guys” and have a roster of players under age 25.
That said, Mahura has shown he is a very solid defensive defenseman his entire time in Seattle (I think he may have been the only defenseman other than Larsson either a positive +/- last year). And Fleury seems to be making the most of his time in the lineup. So I would be totally fine if they trade Oleksiak once Montour and Evans are back.
Oleksiak was looking better playing with Monty, but he has been a turnover machine again in the short sample of this season’s games. Providing the perfect (and only screen) on the long shot goal against Grubauer in one of the games was also classic Big Rig. I have to agree with you.
The team just needs to tread water until they get the original lineup of injured players plus Montour back.
When they do I believe they will take off under Lamberts system.
Hopefully they are back soon!