Just two weeks ago, many Seattle Kraken fans had undoubtedly jumped ship on the 2025-26 team’s hopes of making a playoff run. After a 1-9-1 stretch, Seattle had nose-dived to the basement of the Pacific Division standings and was losing, losing, losing toward throwing in the towel and scuttling another campaign.
But oh, what a difference two weeks can make. Since a 4-2 loss to the Calgary Flames on Dec. 18, the Kraken have completely reversed course, going 5-0-1 in their six games since, racking up 11 points and jumping all the way back into the final Wild Card spot in the Western Conference, with games in hand on almost everyone.
While their grip on that playoff position is extremely tenuous—with four teams within one point of Seattle—the Kraken are also just five points back of the first-place Edmonton Oilers and have played three fewer games.
Seattle arrived in this surprising position thanks to its latest win, an impressive 4-1 victory over a surging Nashville Predators squad at Climate Pledge Arena on New Year’s Day.
Here are Three Takeaways from that Kraken win over the Predators.
Takeaway 1: Philipp Grubauer does it again
I’m running out of ways to write about how awesome Philipp Grubauer has been, but he was outstanding again on Thursday, earning second-star honors with 24 saves and improving to 7-3-1 with a 2.32 goals-against average and .920 save percentage. The shot volume wasn’t especially high, but the number of acrobatic, shouldn’t-be-bending-that-way stops was elevated, particularly in the third period.
“Grubi’s been an absolute rock in net,” Matty Beniers said. “No easy goals, and even their one goal [tonight] is an absolute rip top shelf from walking down the slot. And he made a couple saves that he’s [maybe] not supposed to be making out there tonight. Every time he’s been in, he’s been awesome.”
The Kraken came roaring out of the gates and built a rare three-goal lead in the first period, but unsurprisingly allowed momentum to shift in the second when Nashville woke up and began dictating play. The one Nashville goal Beniers referenced was scored by Roman Josi at 17:34 of the second period, cutting the lead to 3-1.
Then, with one minute left in the frame, a Nashville 3-on-2 rush turned into a 3-on-1 when Vince Dunn tripped over the blue line. Michael Bunting coasted down to the bottom of the right circle uncontested and fired a shot that Grubauer calmly kicked aside.
It certainly wasn’t his most spectacular save of the night—those came later during multiple net-front scrambles in the third—but it may have been the most important. Had that gone in, the Predators would have entered the third period brimming with belief. Instead, Grubauer sent his team to the room with a two-goal cushion, then dazzled again in the final frame.
“That was really one of the only great chances I think they had. It’s not like they had that much,” Grubauer said, deflecting credit to Seattle’s defensive play. “I think we controlled them really well, but yeah, for sure, if that goes back in, it’s 3-2, it’s a completely different game.”
Takeaway 2: A fun first period
Based on what I heard from Nashville coach Andrew Brunette, starts have been an issue for the Predators—an affliction that has also plagued the Kraken at various stretches in their history. Brunette definitely did not like his team’s start on Thursday, as Seattle came out flying and took advantage of a heavy-legged team playing the second night of a back-to-back with travel after a 4-2 win in Vegas on Wednesday.
While Nashville searched for its footing, the Kraken pounced, scoring three goals in the first 11 minutes and providing all the offense Grubauer would ultimately need.
The first and third goals came from Matty Beniers, whom the Kraken badly need to start filling the net. The second goal was scored by Jamie Oleksiak following a dominant shift from the fourth line (more on them in Takeaway 3). Kraken games have been so tight this season, the three-goal first period felt downright foreign.
The second and third periods were far from perfect, but Seattle did what it needed to do to protect the lead and secure the two points.
“We’re usually in the tight, one-goal kind of games,” coach Lane Lambert said. “To build a bit of a lead was fine. What I felt like is—and you see it throughout the league—is when teams get two- and three-goal leads, the other teams come and there isn’t anything to lose at that point for them. And so this is why two- and three-goal leads are disappearing again.
“But I thought our commitment level was high, and we did a lot of the things that we needed to do. There was probably a couple of moments in that game that are really good teaching moments for us when we do get in the lead. You can’t change the way you play just because you’re in the lead.”
Takeaway 3: That fourth line, though
Has Jacob Melanson’s arrival on the fourth line helped turn things around for this team? It sounds like hyperbole, but he and his fellow former Coachella Valley Firebirds—Ben Meyers and Ryan Winterton—have been relentless every time they’ve hit the ice.
“They’ve been awesome,” Beniers said. “Every night, honestly, they’ve been creating chances, O-zone shift after O-zone shift, setting up the next line for good O-zone shifts. So they’ve been awesome, bringing energy, physicality, kind of everything you want in your fourth line. So, yeah, I can’t say enough great things about them.”
The Dirty Birds™️, as I’ve begun calling them, even earned additional ice time in this game, with all three skating north of 11 minutes, and they generated a goal for the second straight contest.
The Oleksiak goal itself won’t make highlight reels, but the shift that led to the eventual game-winner was fourth-line bliss in its purest form. Here it is in all its glory.
The speed, the hitting, the forechecking, the shooting, the cycling, the grinding… it’s just… [begins shedding tears]… it’s so beautiful.
Huge kudos also to Oleksiak, who was an absolute warrior, scoring the big goal and later painfully blocking a Nic Hague slap shot in the third period that sent him to the locker room briefly before returning for his final three shifts.
“I think that’s one of the things that I enjoyed most about the game was just our commitment level to paying the price and working for each other,” Lambert said. “And definitely, Oleksiak did a great job of that, and so did [Ryan] Lindgren [Eeli] Tolvanen, and the list goes on and on in terms of the blocks.”
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.