Sure, the Seattle Kraken are in the midst of a playoff race, but you wouldn’t know it from watching their 7-4 beatdown at the hands of the Ottawa Senators on Saturday. Seattle came out flat and—with the exception of a few brief glimmers during the game—remained low on energy throughout the contest.
“We didn’t play very well,” coach Lane Lambert said. “I could try and pinpoint something we did really well, and it’d be very very difficult to do. So I think as a group, coaching staff right on down, we’ve got to be better. It starts with me, moves right on down the line. So there wasn’t any positives tonight.”
NO POSITIVES?! Well, that’s not good.
Here are Three Takeaways from a positive-free 7-4 Kraken loss to the Senators.
Takeaway 1: No relief for Daccord
Growing up as a goalie, I never liked getting pulled out of a game, but I also didn’t like getting lit up. It was embarrassing to get pulled, but in seasons when I was the only goalie on the team, it was even worse to have to stay in a game where I didn’t have my best and was getting torched.
After two great performances in his last two starts against Vancouver and Carolina, this was a tough night for Joey Daccord, no question. In the end, he posted 28 saves on 36 shots for a .806 save percentage—not the ugliest numbers ever, but not great. The seven goals against were the most he’s allowed all season because Lambert has never let him get above five in a game.
The circumstances of this one were strange, though. While Daccord surely would have wanted back the Dylan Cozens goal that made it 2-1 at 13:35 of the first (an unscreened shot that hit his arm and went in), Joey also made plenty of sharp-looking saves in the first two periods.
2-1 Senators. Dylan Cozens.
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 8, 2026
Joey looked like he wanted that one back… pic.twitter.com/YTvKY0gJeX
Meanwhile, Seattle did start to show some life after 40 minutes and had cut the deficit from 4-1 to 4-2 after ratcheting up the physicality. So it didn’t make much sense to pull Daccord after the second, and once things started snowballing in the third, it became an awkward time to turn to Philipp Grubauer.
I asked Lambert if he thought about making a change to protect Daccord’s confidence.
“That’s a good question,” Lambert said. “I think there’s some that he would want back. Certainly, we left him hanging out to dry on a number of occasions. There were mistakes and breakdowns and stuff that we really haven’t seen for a while.
“And in terms of taking him out, I really thought after we went in after the second period, I wanted to give us a good chance to win the hockey game. I felt like some of the saves that he was making, even though we maybe question a couple of goals, I thought he made some good saves to keep it at four. So there was no thought for me of taking him out, and then after it got too late, it’s not fair to Grubauer to put him in there. And certainly, we don’t want to risk injury to him, bringing him off the bench when he’s been sitting there. So it’s just one of those things, one of those nights.”
Takeaway 2: Not enough energy
While Lambert found “no positives,” I did like the game of Jacob Melanson, as I often tend to do. Not only did he score off a 3-on-2 rush to give Seattle a fleeting 1-0 lead that was erased 34 seconds later, he also recognized things starting to get more physical in the second and went to work trying to ignite the team when the Kraken fell behind 4-1.
MELLY CELLY (but then a response goal)! 🚨
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 8, 2026
Off a 3-on-2, Meyers drove to the net and got a tip on Winterton's shot, then Melanson cleaned up the rebound and celebrated beautifully.
But… Tyler Kleven scored off a great saucer pass by Pinto 34 seconds later.
1-1 #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/s0eApV4ibG
Indeed, several heavy hits started flying on both sides of the puck, and once that began, the first chance Melanson saw to go after somebody bigger than him, he took it. Melanson slammed into Tyler Kleven behind the Ottawa net, then did everything he could to goad the 6-foot-5, 225-pound defenseman into dropping the gloves.
Kleven wouldn’t engage, so Melanson kept after him in front of the net, creating chaos in front of Linus Ullmark. Meanwhile, Cale Fleury pinched in and dropped Nick Cousins, and Ben Meyers hit Shane Pinto, who coughed up the puck to Eeli Tolvanen. Tolvanen blasted a slap shot through Melanson’s screen and scored to bring Seattle back within two goals.
EELI GOALVANEN! 🚨
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 8, 2026
Watch Melanson on this sequence. After several big hits in a row, Melanson is actively trying to start a fight with Tyler Kleven, who isn't interested.
While they battle in front, Tolvanen rips one past Ullmark and cuts it to 4-2. #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/ds38ifbx3E
“I think that’s how we have to play,” Tolvanen said. “It’s playoff time. We have to start playing like [Melanson] does, go to the net, be physical. That’s why we got the turnover, that’s why I got the puck because he’s playing physical.”
Added Lambert: “I think we had energy in the second period when we started to get a little bit physical. That was really the moment, I guess, there was a little pocket in there where we had what I consider to be energy that’s necessary and required. And other than that, there wasn’t a whole lot of energy.”
Brandon Montour also called the fourth line Seattle’s best line and heaped praise on Melanson for the way he plays. That’s both a great compliment for the fourth line and a bit of a stray for the other three lines, which plainly have not been good enough since the Olympic break.
Indeed, outside of that brief burst of nastiness in the second period, there simply wasn’t enough juice in this one.
While the team and its coach didn’t use it as an excuse, there is an illness going around the room right now that kept Freddy Gaudreau and Ryan Lindgren out of the lineup Saturday. Adam Larsson also skipped morning skate but still played. You have to wonder if that slowed a few guys down, because they definitely looked like something was dragging them.
Seattle needs to start finding its best 60-minute effort on a regular basis, or it will drop out of the playoff bubble within a game or two.
Takeaway 3: Scary moment for Jaden Schwartz
While the Kraken struggled to find energy, things got even tougher when they lost a veteran forward after Jaden Schwartz suffered a scary facial injury. During that stretch of physical play, Tolvanen blasted Nick Cousins into the boards right in front of the Kraken bench. As Cousins was going down, his skate came up and caught Schwartz in the face.
Wow. Scary one there.
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 8, 2026
Eeli Tolvanen laid a huge hit on Nick Cousins, and Cousins' skate came up and clipped Jaden Schwartz in the face.
Schwartz was down for a while, bleeding on the ice, but he went down the tunnel on his own power. #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/QyeBYgi5eN
Schwartz lay on the ice bleeding for a moment, though replay appeared to show that the blade of Cousins’ skate didn’t actually make contact with Schwartz’s face. It looked like the damage came from the heel of the skate striking him around the nose. Regardless, Schwartz left the game and did not return.
Lambert said Schwartz was being evaluated but didn’t have much of an update after the game. “It could have been worse, I guess, but he’s not— he’s again, like I say, he’s getting evaluated. I think it sapped the energy out of the building a little bit. It got pretty quiet.”
At the other end of the ice, Montour also knocked star defenseman Jake Sanderson out of the game with an apparent shoulder injury. Montour crushed Sanderson into the corner boards and then fell on top of him in the second period. That could be a massive loss for the Sens, who are also pushing for a playoff spot.
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.
Well a middle-six UFA forward is on the way to “help out” for the next 20+/- games. I guess we’ll know when and how he’ll slot in when we get the update on Schwartz.
Fun facts: McMann will be second leading in goals on our team. Second fun fact: you can re-sign players to new contracts.
More fun facts: how players score on other teams is not directly applicable to how they will score on another, particularly on a team that is very much focused on defense rather than scoring. Also free agents can walk, just another fun fact.
I get the facts may be difficult to swallow but McMann was on a similar team on the Leafs and even if his production goes down by 25% he’d STILL be a top 5 producer. Our fanbase just seems to want to be mad and it’s sad to see.
Fun fact, he wouldn’t be second if he played all season with the kraken.
Mickey Mouse team
Mickey Mouse management
Mickey Mouse ownership
👍👍
On the bright side, if they lose their last 20 games in regulation they’ll end up with a nice draft pick!
Wait aren’t people enjoying the org that lives and breathes the mushy middle?
Screw talent when we can watch this boring and bland nothing team three times a week year after year.
Five years in and the team hasn’t moved an inch.
HOW do the people in charge of this fiasco still have jobs?
Thankfully other teams pick up fresh, exciting talent from the draft (SOMEHOW – WHAT A MYSTERY) so I don’t get bored to death by this org.
That is the question, isn’t it. In any other business, if you were incompetent, you would not last six months, let alone six years.
All that makes sense is that the Kraken make money from hockey ops, have a solid role in the community, and the franchise value keeps increasing.
If you make a profit, the asset values are increasing, and your reputation in social circles is good, then why care about a poor product on the ice?
That seems like why the Kraken’s ownership continues to not take more forceful action. Add to that the majority owner inherited her fortune instead of made it herself.
In any other business, your average person wouldn’t presume to know more than the one doing the job yet here y’all are. Sports fans get emotional and that’s fine, but to think the leadership group is incompetent has no basis in reality. The ignorance of wittmont’s comment, I won’t touch. If he really thinks this team hasn’t gone anywhere, he is willfully ignorant at this point. I will touch on the making money part. They spent 1.2 BILLION with a B on the arena. IF they are making money, they aren’t making mad bank and you don’t increase the value of a sport franchise a ton by being bad to mediocre. They’ve continually tried to improve the team but for a variety of reasons things haven’t come together to this year. What’s funny is we’re in a playoff position and y’all are still in hear crying like were a bottom 8 team. That is probably just the emotions of the season getting to you, but if it isn’t, you need to maybe find something else to do. Sports will never make you happy if you’re going to just be angry all the time.
Sorry, but you lecture about someone else’s ignorance and then go on to demonstrate your own.
The Seattle Kraken DID NOT build Climate Pledge Arena; the OAK VIEW GROUP did. The OVG paid ~$1.15B to build the arena. You probably aren’t aware of this, but the Seattle Kraken have about $350 million of debt on their balance sheet. The $350mm debt was incurred to pay/reimburse the Oak View Group for approximately 1/3 the cost of building CPA. The original assumption was that the Sonics would soon follow, and the BB team would also pay ~ $350mm to the Oak View Group, meaning each of the three private entities (Kraken, Sonics, OVG) would have effectively paid 1/3 the cost of CPA. In exchange for that, the three private entities would each receive 25% of the net operating income (a total of 75%). The final 25% goes to the fourth (public) entity – the City of Seattle.
Sorry, my reply sounds a little testier than it should, but I think the distinction regarding the finances is important. At least to me anyway….
It’s painfully obvious that their young talent isn’t good enough. The young core of Beniers/Wright/Catton et al will not be carrying this team to any Stanley cups. They can’t even (maybe) carry this team to the playoffs without a career year from a 35 year-old Eberle and a miraculous turnaround from Grubauer.
I don’t think ownership or the FO are at fault necessarily, they made all the correct picks at the time. The players just didn’t end up being good enough. It happens. But this coming offseason will reveal how competent and desperate this team’s leadership is. If they sell out for a playoff run with this subpar core, then we’ll know for sure that they have no idea what they’re doing, and the fans will abandon this team in droves.
I can’t believe how often this team just totally fails to show up on Saturday nights in front of energetic home crowds. I think the only worse performance in kraken history that I’ve attended was another Saturday night game against the NYR two years ago.
Everyone has said it already, but Melanson seemed to be the only one even trying. I wouldn’t even say the 4th line bc i don’t think Meyers and Winterton were particularly good.
Can anyone explain why the Kraken did not trade pending UFA Jamie Oleksiak? If they re-sign him after the season, then they would be blocking all their prospects defensemen from moving up in the next few years. Was he not more valuable as a trade piece than as a third pairing defenseman?
Because he had one great game recently with 7 monster hits and they thought he’d figured it out!
Jk
I know someone will read this and give me a good, constructive answer; if your job as a professional athlete is to play hard and fast and check the opponent, why do they rarely do this? LL even made the comment in the interview. People went nuts over Oleksiak’s performance last week. So why is he now back to sleepy Jamie? They know what to do but they play a totally different game. They also neutralize the hard hitters after a while. Those players eventually play down to the other’s game. Even Melanson holds back when others aren’t playing physical. I mean come on… the 4th line is now starting because they want to set the fast physical tone!
Do you think that RF prefers the other style of play and that’s why he hires non-physical coaches? None of them have been the Paul Maurice style coaching that they say they want in the post interviews.
Sorry for the ramble
I think you could ask this same question about a ton of pending UFAs that didn’t get moved all over the league. At some point the value of the player, even in the very short term, is greater than the return. Add in the importance some teams place on treating their employees well and it seems completely understandable that Oleksiak was not “shipped out”.
We still should have shipped him out 😂
Sure. To make a trade you need a partner and a willingness on your part to trade. Teams in playoff positions tend not to dump responsible vets which Oleksiak is. We don’t really care if we get a second for him which is what the market price would likely have been. That doesn’t help us in the least 2nd picks are unlikely to play in the NHL at all and there was no big fish out there to be had that would have warranted us packaging him. This was also an extremely slow trade market. Depth defenseman were really only moving off of teams which were clearly out of the playoffs or in full rebuild mode. We are neither
You’re welcome
I caught Lindgren/Gaudreau/Larsson had; watching Kraken made me sick.
The question I have was this game any worse then our average game?
11 shots through two periods, lots of chess moves and puck dumping. I think it actually was pretty average the difference is our goalie didn’t win it for us. We’ve been bad all season and playing the most boring hockey in the entire league.
If frustrated me sooo much when I watched LL in the pre game intro video.
Considering they scored 4 goals, I’d say it was an above average performance.
That’s funny, 11 shots through 2 periods isn’t going to cut it. Yeah Ottawa got a little too relaxed in the third but really the offense wasn’t there especially when we needed it.
Yeah, the score flattered the Kraken. The Kraken never looked offensively dangerous, and of course 2 of the goals were in garbage time during that major penalty at the end. The Ottawa goalie was also bad, as he has been all season — in fact goaltending has been Ottawa’s main problem. As Nino said, for once, our goalie was also bad. But I do think the rest of the team also looked particularly bad.
Before the game, they showed a video on the screen of Jason Botterill talking about the Eberle extension, and he said “any time you get a chance to re-sign your captain and top scorer to an extension, you gotta take that chance,” or something along those lines. Look, I’m fine with the extension, I like Eberle, and it means something that he’s the captain, but the “top scorer” part was very cringey. Yes he is currently, technically the team’s top scorer (mainly because McCann missed a chunk of time), but that is exactly the problem. He obviously should not be. I say “obviously,” but is it not obvious to Botterill? Does he really see Eberle as the team’s “top scorer” for the next two years, and that they are still trying to be a “perennial playoff team”? He can’t really think that… right? Is this team’s management THAT delusional?
As for the deadline, it’s easy to say “no one was available.” That’s loser talk. Everyone is available at the right price. The winning teams make something happen even when it was someone was ostensibly unavailable. At the beginning of the year, Botterill said the team was done stockpiling future assets and wanted to start using those assets to take swings at elite players. It is entirely fair to say he has failed (so far) to do what he said he would do. I’m not saying “I know more than this experienced Hockey Man,” I’m just judging him against his own standard and the broader standard set by the other Hockey Men on the other teams.
I would say there are only 2 teams in the league without at least ONE player better than ANYONE on the Kraken: Vancouver and Calgary — two teams that are actively tanking this year. Not good! (Please try to talk me into any other teams.) I know elite players don’t grow on trees, but after 5 years, that is abysmal.
I agree that they made a huge deal about resigning the old player that is good but where else is he going? We do love Eberle but these videos were everywhere, making up for the fact that they didn’t sign but 2 players and one was already in the bag. #sad