The Seattle Kraken came up just short on Monday, dropping a 3-2 decision in a shootout to the Vancouver Canucks. Seattle was—without a doubt—the better team in this one, but while the Kraken generated oodles of offensive chances despite playing on tired legs, they only got two pucks behind goalie Kevin Lankinen.
Lankinen was outstanding with 37 saves through regulation and overtime and then stopped Freddy Gaudreau, Eeli Tolvanen, and Jordan Eberle in the shootout.
“We played a good hockey game,” coach Lane Lambert said. “We had some real good looks, real good chances to score in regulation, for that matter. Their goaltender played well, and if we keep playing that way, we’ll have success more often than not.”
Win Streak Caroline, we hardly knew ye.
Here are Three Takeaways from a 3-2 Kraken shootout loss to the Canucks.
Takeaway 1: Did a fight turn the tide?
In his two games since returning from his second injury hiatus of the season, Jared McCann has been firing the puck (almost) every chance he gets. In this one, he got an opportunity on a 4-on-3 power play and showed why the Kraken want him shooting.
Just four seconds after the face-off to start the rare numerical advantage, Vince Dunn and McCann played catch at the top of the zone, and the second time Dunn passed it to McCann, he one-timed a missile past Lankinen to open the scoring at 8:50 of the first.
MCCANN CAN! 🚨
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) December 30, 2025
4 seconds into a 4-on-3 for the #SeaKraken, Vince Dunn tees it up, and Jared McCann blasts it home.
He's back!
1-0 pic.twitter.com/lnTPCQ63F2
But McCann was also involved in some extracurricular activity that may have ultimately cost the Kraken more than it helped them. After Conor Garland elbowed McCann in the face with a total cheap shot, McCann was seen barking at Garland on the bench and asking him to “go.” Indeed, the two dropped the gloves on their next time out and had a spirited bout.
Here's where Garland elbowed McCann in the face, which led to the fight. #SeaKraken https://t.co/5y7bT2W24l pic.twitter.com/2XOgwp5KOF
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) December 30, 2025
“He kind of elbowed me on the one play there beforehand, so I asked him to go,” McCann said. “He said yeah, and that was the end of that.”
Said Lambert: “I think it just shows a lot about the character of Jared McCann. And Garland accepted. I thought it was hockey, and sometimes things happen, and I’ve got a lot of respect for Jared, again… He took care of it on his own, and sometimes you’ve got to do that.”
For a lot of reasons, I personally would prefer McCann never drop the gloves with anybody, but it is commendable that he’s willing to stand up for himself.
In the other team’s dressing room after the game, though, the Canucks players were raving about what the fight did for their morale, seeing the diminutive Garland hang in there with the bigger McCann. They had a terrible first period, but the fight seemed to spark some jump for them, and they scored to tie the game 1-1 just three seconds after the bout.
“Maybe we were a little slow in the start, but Garland definitely got us going,” said Elias Petterson (the forward, not the defenseman… having two players with the exact same name on one team should be illegal). “And obviously, we scored five or so seconds after, so yeah, really good on him.”
Takeaway 2: Fourth-line magic
I’ve absolutely loved Jacob Melanson’s game since he was recalled from the Coachella Valley Firebirds on Dec. 13. He fits like a glove on the NHL fourth line, bringing energy and physicality and backing down from nobody.
Against Vancouver, he bowled over public enemy Tyler Myers to the delight of Climate Pledge Arena and also set up Ryan Winterton’s goal that gave Seattle a 2-1 lead late in the first period.
Here's Jacob Melanson flattening Tyler Myers for your viewing pleasure. #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/tPbM04zZNN
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) December 30, 2025
After Elias Pettersson (the defenseman this time, not the forward) and Myers ran into each other, Melanson flew up the left flank and sent a cross-crease pass to a crashing Winterton, who redirected it over Lankinen’s skate. That gave Melanson his first NHL point and Joey Daccord his third assist of the season.
“I had a feeling it was coming across,” Winterton said. “Just some good speed by ‘Mel’ and great vision to see me. I kind of saw their D get tangled up there, so I thought we had a break, and I was lucky enough to get it.”
“It’s awesome to be able to have ‘Winnie’ score that goal,” Melanson said. “We got drafted together and also played in CV together for a few years, so I mean that’s a pretty cool memory to have.”
It’s worth noting, Winterton was a healthy scratch Sunday against the Flyers but drew back in Monday in place of Tye Kartye.
“They impact the game lately,” Lambert said of the fourth line. “They’re responsible, they’re quick, they’re physical. Obviously, a huge goal for us by Winterton. Melanson made a nice play on that. But they create energy for our hockey team, and they do it responsibly.”
Takeaway 3: A golden opportunity missed
After the Kraken swept a back-to-back last week for the first time since the 2022-23 season, they had a golden opportunity to do it again on Monday. They had plenty of great looks in the third period, all of which were thwarted by Lankinen, and they even had a second 4-on-3 power play at the end of overtime.
After scoring on the previous 4-on-3 in just six seconds, they were more measured in their approach the second time and, in the end, didn’t get Lankinen moving laterally enough to beat him on the late advantage.
“We probably could have created a couple of more [opportunities],” Lambert said. “They were able to clear the puck a couple of times, which takes some time off it, there’s no question about that. But certainly, there were a couple of passes that we felt like we had some empty-net opportunities.”
Alas, the Kraken failed to convert, and the Canucks goalie then stopped all three Seattle shooters in the shootout to improve to an astounding 17 for 17 on the season in that situation.
San Jose won on this night, so the Kraken dropped to two points out of the final wild card spot, though they still have two games in hand and a better points percentage than the Sharks.
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.
Wow the parity in the league is unreal this year. We were talking about lottery odds a mere 2 weeks ago, and now it’s “x points out of a playoff spot.”
“Parity” sure looks like an euphemism for “crap”. From the first Wild Card in the Western Conference (LAK) down to last place (CHI) it’s ten bad teams with a 6 point difference in the standings.
The Kings were hardly spectacular when we won against them recently. The Kraken were not meaningfully better than a clearly troubled Vancouver team last night.
WhIle I obviously don’t think of the Kraken as a “Cup contender” at this point, I don’t look at them – and nine other teams in the West – and think they’re “crap”.
“If you’re not first, you’re last”
– Reese Bobby
“Oh hell, Son, I was high that day. That doesn’t make any sense at all, you can be second, third, fourth… hell you can even be fifth.”
– also Reese Bobby
But if they kept winning and made it to the playoffs? Then what would we think of them? It just seems like everyone wants things to be so black or white. Half the people in this forum have whiplash after these last few games.
So, are we tanking or not?
No, nor should we. Next question!
Thanks for helping me make my point.
The curse of those 3rd jerseys just continues….
Sarcasm
LOL. I kept thinking about that last night. Just win so the curse is broken. Baby steps.
The hard part is that they look so good.
Would have been nice… but picked up a point on the Kings and Ducks who both lost in regulation and are the teams directly ahead of Seattle in the playoff standings by points percentage.
Go Kraken!!!
Yes! Several teams can be caught. Each point really matters.
We outplayed them, got goalie’d, and still snagged a point, hard to complain about that result on the second leg of a back-to-back. Personally I love McCann’s fire, you can’t take an elbow like that and not respond. On to the next one!
Though I understand why he did it, I would prefer McCann not fight there, especially after all the games he missed due to injury. He needs to get his revenge by digging in and scoring. We also seemed more in control of things up until then. VAN definitely benefitted from that whole situation.
Tolvi almost had a similar moment after Sherwood buried the empty netter on the delayed penalty, when we were about to get an advantage. Luckily a ref intervened and seemed to explain things to him.
Schwartz and Monty could probably tilt the ice a little more in our favor in these games. Then I would hope to see Tolvanen with Meyers and Melanson. I don’t think Melanson should come out again. He’s good for this team, and he’s going to improve with time.
The forward group is suddenly getting crowded. Nyman just rightfully got sent down to CV, hopefully he’ll get some playing time and get into a scoring groove. When Schwartz comes back, 2 of Winterton/Meyers/Kartye will be sitting. Melanson has to keep playing at this point. He has some decent skill to go along with his much needed wrecking ball tendencies.
Should have got 2 but take the point and move on. McCann fight was justified, but like Darron, I prefer Jared filling the back of the net rather than dropping the gloves. Great to have Jared back.
Regarding some earlier discussion of parity or crap in the Western Conference, consider the top 3 West teams (Avalanche, Stars, and Wild) have a combined record of 28-4-5 against the Pacific Division, 21-5-7 against Central Division, and 29-10-8 against Eastern Conference. This season has 3 teams, or 4 if you include the Hurricane playing very, very well and there’s everyone else. The Eastern Conference leader to last place (Columbus) point spread is 11. The Pacific Division leader (Edmonton) to last place in West (Chicago) point spread is 12. Through 37 to 40 games, 3 or 4 teams have separated, but ALL of the other teams are within a 5-win streak or less from a wildcard spot. Parity, it is.
We rarely talk about Season Three anymore, but the subject is appropriate here. When Jared McCann started fighting, he did so because when a guy would throw a cheap shot at him none of his teammates would ever come to his defense. Now there are guys on the team now who are perfectly willing to throw down for a teammate, but McCann, after his experience in Season Three, knows that he can look after himself. Thus, when he takes a dirty hit, he looks to remedy the situation himself. In this particular case, I am fine with that, because he and Garland did it the right way–as right as fighting in a professional sport can be anyway. They agreed to the bout beforehand and made it a personal issue and not something that had to be dealt with by bottom-six guys doing dangerous things for the rest of the night. That is as good as hockey fighting gets. For that reason I was fine with McCann fighting, even though he is arguably the team’s best forward.
At practice this morning and Berkeley Catton appears to be wearing #27 (his Spokane number). I know players can change numbers during the off season but can they change during the season?