The Seattle Kraken continued their torrid play on Monday, riding another ho-hum 41-save performance by Philipp Grubauer and pulling away from the Calgary Flames in the third period for a 5-1 win. The victory came with some memorable moments and extended Seattle’s point streak to eight games (7-0-1) since the end of their 1-9-1 skid that spanned nearly a month.
Ironically, the last game of that painful stretch was a 4-2 loss to these same Calgary Flames on Dec. 18. But the Kraken won their next game against the San Jose Sharks two days later, and they haven’t looked back since.
Including that previous loss at Calgary, the Kraken had scored first in their last nine games before conceding the icebreaker to Adam Klapka on Monday. Still, the fourth line once again got things on track in the second period, and it was all uphill from there with five straight goals.
“We used everybody tonight, everybody contributed, and I thought our third period was outstanding,” coach Lane Lambert said. “We limited their scoring chances, and we capitalized on ours.”
Here are Three Takeaways from a convincing 5-1 Kraken win over the Flames.
Takeaway 1: Jacob Melanson gets his first NHL goal
With the way that fourth line has been cooking, it was only a matter of time before Jacob Melanson got his first NHL goal. It came Monday in his fourth straight game with a point, following a great play by Ryan Winterton to get his own rebound off Dustin Wolf and—instead of shoveling it right back into the Calgary netminder—one-touching a cross-crease pass to Melanson at the backdoor.
MELLY CELLY! 🚨
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) January 6, 2026
The fourth line does it AGAIN, and this time, it's Jacob Melanson getting his FIRST NHL GOAL!
Nice play by Winterton to get his own rebound and send it across.
1-1 #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/DJmg7QhQFs
“Getting that first goal is unreal, and it’s cool that it came from ‘Wints,’ so it means a lot,” Melanson said. “We’re on the hunt, on the forecheck, and we reloaded well, and good things are going to come from us doing the right thing. So, I mean, we had a good reload, and ‘Winnie’ found me backdoor, which was nice to see.”
It was also a crucial goal in the game, because Seattle did not exactly dominate possession through the first two periods and allowed 31 shots on Philipp Grubauer by the time the second period horn sounded. But with Melanson scoring early in the frame at 2:17, Seattle just needed to get out of the period, and it would be a whole new game in the third.
“Second period, we were a little under the fire there, but we managed to get away and get out of that one with a tie,” Grubauer said. “And it was, I think, a phenomenal third period, different than the other night [against Nashville], for sure. We were giving them less time and space and didn’t give them time to make some plays. I thought that was incredible, and that’s how we need to play.”
Takeaway 2: A huge third period
Coming out of the second intermission, this game felt like another down-to-the-wire barnburner. Instead, Seattle turned on the jets and took over, getting rewarded with both a game-winning goal from birthday boy Shane Wright at 1:57 of the frame and an insurance goal from Vince Dunn at 5:12.
WRIGHT AS RAIN! ☔️
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) January 6, 2026
Yet another impactful play by Ben Meyers, who makes a perfect saucer pass to Shane Wright, crashing the net for his first goal in eight games.
2-1 #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/vUnLCVMXwD
Remarkably, even when the fourth line isn’t technically “on the ice,” they still seem to make an impact lately. In this case, Ben Meyers got a rare shift with Wright and Jared McCann and showed his offensive prowess again, lofting a perfect saucer pass into a spot where only Wright could get to it. Wright had gotten behind Calgary’s defense, so all he had to do was skate into the pass and chip it over Wolf.
“[Meyers] had some open ice there, and I saw the D step up a little bit, so I thought I could find some room behind him,” Wright said. “And, I mean, he made an unbelievable pass.”
On a personal level for Wright, it was a big goal. He hadn’t scored in eight games and was without a point in five, despite playing on what could be a productive line with McCann and Berkly Catton.
Dunn’s goal three minutes later came off a beauty of a pass from Kaapo Kakko, who has also found his game since being elevated to a line with Matty Beniers and Jordan Eberle. After Dunn scored what should have been the game-winner in overtime against Vancouver on Friday—only to have it negated by a Catton interference penalty—you could tell he was holding his breath to see if it counted when Beniers flattened Wolf a split second after the puck went in.
HE DUNN DID IT! 🚨
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) January 6, 2026
Perfect pass by Kaapo Kakko, and Vince Dunn snipes it past Dustin Wolf just before Beniers runs him over.
3-1 #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/3zQtPz7AK2
Freddy Gaudreau added an empty-netter at 17:25, Beniers cleaned up a McCann rebound just 14 seconds later, and the Kraken rode their high horse out of Calgary with two more points.
Takeaway 3: Kraken continuing to climb
While the Kraken have been on fire, their Pacific Division counterparts have (almost) all been stumbling, making it the perfect time for Seattle to go on this run. Vegas has lost five straight, Edmonton has dropped its last two, and the Anaheim Ducks—who held first place for a good stretch of the season—have nosedived into a six-game losing streak.
The upshot is that with Seattle earning 15 out of a possible 16 points during this stretch, they’ve skyrocketed up the standings from last place in the division as recently as Dec. 21 to now third place. They also boast a points percentage good enough to actually sit ahead of Edmonton, who has played two more games, and just one point back of the Golden Knights for first place in the division. They will officially hit the halfway point of the season after Tuesday’s game against the Boston Bruins.
It’s all shocking when you consider how down and out this team felt just two weeks ago, but it’s also a stark reminder of how tight and tenuous the NHL standings are this season. The Kraken can’t stop winning now, or they’ll find themselves right back on the outside even faster than they climbed their way back in.
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.
Unfortunately, we’re winning despite not having elite superstars making $10mil+. That’s boring hockey.
I’ve never cared about anyone’s cap hit when watching a game. It’s been fun hockey all season. I do t understand the people that just want to stay mad
Not correct) It’s ok to be happy for the guys and wins, while remembering that at midnight the carriage will turn into a pumpkin. Life isn’t one-dimensional and emotions could be complex.
The game changer starts not from the current position but from performance of Beniers/Wright/Catton. Till now all three has less points combined than (as example) one Leo Carlson. The first creative thing I saw from Matty from his 250+ games was his winning shot vs Vancouver, so let’s hope it is a start)
Where will we be after the departure of Eberle, Schwartz, Oleksiak and other veterans with young players scoring half a point per game? The price of current victories is a draft pick 5-10 positions lower. Frankly speaking , the price of this joy is another Sale in our pipeline.
Not criticism just logic. No need to be overexcited with all that victories which are simply statistically possible probabilities without long-term progression. No need to be depressed either, wins are always a wins.
Life isn’t one dimensional… I agree. And having Leo Carlsson isn’t a cure all. Since November 10th – almost two months ago and the end of their “hot start” – the Ducks are a league worst -30 and are second only to the the Jets for the worst points percentage. But they’re fun to watch.
It seems to me you can be loaded with young, skilled forwards, but if they can’t defend you’re not going to be able to sustain any sort of success. That – to me – is the one dimensional trap the Ducks are demonstrating.
Where you are wrong is Matty does things every game that leads to wins without having to score a bunch of points. It’s confusing, I know. In many ways, he is better than Carlsson. Same goes for Shane Wright. When you are playing a team game, it doesn’t really matter who’s scoring. There is something to be said for not letting the best hockey players in the world put a bunch of pucks in your net…which would lead to losses.
The thing that hurts teams the most are guys who consistently play poorly at the wrong time. Morgan Rielly is a great example for Toronto. Ours used to be Phil Grubauer mostly combined with some Jamie Oleksiak and lack of accountability for unknown reasons. I would still say we aren’t out of the woods with Larsson, Dunn and sometimes still a bit of Oleksiak. But Evans was the poster child last night on the lone Calgary goal when he was standing there looking at his goalie with his back to the guy putting the puck in the net.
The funny thing about all of this is Seattle has been winning all these games, and frankly doesn’t look like it has its shit together most of the time. Still huge room for improvement. Go Kraken!!
LOL
Go Kraken!!!
Have you ever seen Kraken passing look so crisp and so well-timed? I cannot recall a time. Ryan Winterton especially has stood out recently in that regard, but all across the lineup it has been impressive. A lot of it has to be the result of the space they have been creating for themselves in one-on-one matchups on the walls.
Is it poor sportsmanship for me to enjoy the boys just stomping out the Flames and making it hurt while they were already out of it in the third? I don’t want to be that guy, but that seemed to exorcise some old demons.
Take a moment to appreciate how wonderfully reassuring it is to have two goaltenders absolutely balling out at the same time right when the team is playing the most brutal stretch of the schedule–a historically brutal schedule no less. If Gru and Joey were not lighting it up, we would be despairing the season right now. Thanks, guys.
Break the curse of the 3rd uniform
tonight!
Let’s Go Kraken!!!
Something I find particularly impressive about Melanson’s play is that he has 0 penalty minutes. That’s absolutely crazy for such a physical player. He took some hard hits last night that would cause a lot of players to retaliate and do something stupid and instead bounced up and just kept playing.
His goal was awesome. I was at practice on the 31st and at the very end, he was part of a small group working with one of the coaches on the exact one knee down slide to the net move he pulled off last night.
Spot on. We basically swapped Marchment for Melanson in the lineup, and taking a really dumb retaliatory penalty is exactly what Marchment would’ve done.
That is incredible, and it is absolutely something that I had not expected. Do you remember our first glimpse of Jacob Melanson playing for the Kraken? It was a preseason game a year back full of young prospects in which Melanson laid out a guy with a flagrant high hit in the middle of the ice and in full view of the refs and everyone else. That version of Jacob Melanson was a detriment to the team and a danger to other players. This year’s Jacob Melanson, on the other hand, hits clean. He does not commit stupid penalties and is aware of his and his team’s situation. At least, he has been so thus far. That change has allowed him to win the trust of his coaches and has given himself the chance to showcase his surprising skill and high-effort style of play. He has been impressive to watch, and his passion is infectious both to the crowd and seemingly to his teammates.
I still don’t believe what my eyes are seeing.
I’m sure the timing is somewhat of a coincidence, but was Marchment really that bad of a teammate? Did he just not click with any of our lines or did he really not want to be here?
I was suspecting before the trade, but with the stats coming out of Columbus, I’m convinced he was tanking on purpose to get traded. Lambert won’t even say his name any more. When Catton changed his number, it was all like “the player who previously had that number”
I saw a couple of what appeared to be brand new #27 jerseys with the-player-who-must-not-be-named on them that were probably Christmas gifts. I think the team store should do a deal to let them swap out the name plates.
He very obviously wasn’t working out so just replacing him with anyone functional is going to be an improvement. That said I also, and the team agrees, don’t think they were playing like they deserved the losing in the middle of December. Marchment being replaced by someone functional may have just given them that slight edge to turn the tide.
I really liked Dunn’s answer to Piper’s question about the 4th line: “Yeah, if you guys want to call them that…”. Like you all mentioned on the pod, that line is the only one with >50% expected goal share on the team. They hustle, they possess, they play defense, and they score. They’re the best line, period, right now. All forwards had double digit minutes last night. Maybe playing Stephenson 20 minutes per night wasn’t the answer after all!! Who woulda thunk it.
Really like how the team finished the game last night. Even after Dunn got the insurance goal, and the Freddy the ENG, they didn’t sit back or stop trying to score. You could almost say they look like they’re having fun playing hockey…
This season is kind of like the reverse of Season 1. They are getting outshot and outplayed most nights but getting rescued by goaltending — and especially Grubauer! So, really, exactly the opposite. I’d be more excited if these wins came from Catton and Wright busting out with goals. But whatever, winning is winning and I’ll take it in whatever form.
(Really happy for Grubauer by the way. It sounds like he is just an amazing guy and had to overcome the minors stint and buyout talk. And he’s getting hot just in time to play for his country at the Olympics.)
This is the first time they’ve actually been able to turn around a bad stretch of play before the deadline. In year 3 they had a rough stretch around the same time of year that snowballed. In both years 3-4 it seemed like the coaching lost the team by mid-season, while LL’s system appears to have reached critical buy in.
I thought this team was toast. Obviously they are getting some timely help by the rest of the division all stinking at once and the goalie play has been phenomenal, but you have to take advantage and credit to this group for doing so. The heavy schedule gives them an opportunity to keep piling up points.
Once Schwartz is healthy, where does he even slide into the lineup? You have a 4th line playing so well you can’t possibly break them up.
I would hope against hope that they would scratch Goudreau — by far the weakest winger in the lineup right now. But they’ll probably bench one of the kids even if it means messing up the “4th line”. My guess is Winterton.
Oh, another possibility is they scratch Ben Meyers (not really a kid) and move Goudreau to the 4th line. Again, I’d still rather they scratch Goudreau, but that would not be as bad.
Gaudreau is right-handed and kills penalties. Schwartz is left-handed and can score on the power play. They are not comperable players, so it would make no sense to swap one for the other. Schwartz would have to take a spot from one of Eeli Tolvanen, Jared McCann, Kaapo Kakko, or Ryan Winterton if only temporarily. I expect a rotation of sorts to set in on the left wing until the Olympics break.
I thin Catton rides the comfortable seats upstairs until some else goes down. He has been playing well.
It is starting to seem like the biggest offseason move was promoting Colin Zulianello. Gru had some good praise for him last spring and he seemed to play better after getting sent to CV last year for that short stint. Now this year he is playing like the guy we thought we were signing and is being a huge difference maker.
Also points are trickling in for Matty which good and his 200 foot game and physicality continue to improve. Hopefully fans seeing Wennberg’s new contract makes them realize Matty’s is pretty solid considering his game and age…even Stephenson’s pay at least for the next few years isn’t seeming so bad these days.
Interesting I haven’t been liking the play of Stephenson lately, thought he looked good until the last 3/4 games, he scored in that stretch but I haven’t liked his play. That change last night where he picked a bad time to change and bid it so slow and lackluster then noticed that it was a dangerous scoring opportunity stopped thought about trying to go back into the play then continued to change was crazy.
I think we’re living off our 4th line and goaltending, I’ve been saying that it’s not sustainable but the goalies keep doing it. I’d like to see Karts back in the lineup because he was doing great and the 4th line was the better of the lines when he was on it as well but they look even better now so… we simply have too many 4th line and 3rd line players and not enough 1st or 2nd. Hard to watch young players sitting in the box when they should be playing. I feel like we need to trade a few players to make room in the roster if everyone is healthy. Having depth is great but it should not be young players who still have upside.
Loved seeing Melly get his 1st he has deserved it, he’s hopefully going to be an important part of the team long term. Catton had a very good game last night, I thought for the most part they did a better job on both ends of the ice then Chandlers line. I know Chandler and co were getting a tougher match up but that wasn’t always the case and Chandlers line didn’t look great no matter who they were playing and other lines seemed to handle the matchup vs Calgarys 1st better when it happened.
I don’t know who comes out of the lineup but I don’t think it should be anyone from the 4th. Not even Meyers who I would have easily selected earlier in the season.
I enjoyed reading this article today because I do not have replay to watch the game again. I really like the jump Shane had lately, but especially on his birthday. That fourth line is doing what a fourth line is supposed to do and it is something we hadn’t had since year 2.
Thanks for the recap, Darren!
An amazing game that exemplified Kraken hockey: 5 goals, 6 assists by 11 different players each earning a point.