Those aren’t the same Florida Panthers that won the last two Stanley Cups. Badly banged up and often lacking the mojo that carried them to hockey’s highest pedestal the last two years, the Panthers have sunk to last place in the hotly contested Atlantic Division.
But… entering this game, the Seattle Kraken and Florida Panthers—two teams with opposite outlooks about making the postseason this year thanks to a massive disparity in divisional makeup—were even in standings points at 69 (nice… we still make that joke, right?).
With that in mind, this game didn’t matter much for the highly injured Panthers, but it meant the world to the Kraken, who came in one point behind the San Jose Sharks for the last playoff spot in the Western Conference.
Seattle had its ‘A’ game in the second of back-to-backs and rolled to a 6-2 win. Here are Three Takeaways.
Takeaway 1: Everyone producing, suddenly
We should have taken the win Saturday at the Vancouver Canucks with a grain of salt, because the Canucks are… well… terrible. So there was probably a little something in the minds of fans going into Sunday’s game that the Kraken could return home to take on a better team and lay an egg similar to the several eggs they had laid in the four games prior to the Vancouver win.
Credit the players, though, because they came out flying in this one and dominated long swaths of the game.
With Bobby McMann inserted into the lineup on Saturday, coach Lane Lambert has made some tweaks to the forward lines, and suddenly the entire team has gone from “can’t buy a goal” mode to asking, “How many goals should I score tonight?”
After the top line of Matty Beniers, Jordan Eberle, and McMann each had three points in Vancouver, it was the third line of Kaapo Kakko, Shane Wright, and Berkly Catton and the fourth line of Ben Meyers, Freddy Gaudreau, and Ryan Winterton that carried the mail in this one.
“We were just talking about it,” Winterton said. “After the break, we weren’t playing the way we wanted to. I think frustration set in, and I think everyone wanted it. So it’s just a full-team effort, and this time of year, that’s what you’ve got to do.”
Kakko led the way against Florida with a goal and two assists.
🎶 HEYYYYY KAAPO KAKKO! 🚨
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 16, 2026
4-1 #SeaKraken. Dunn works it low, Kakko uses his long reach and waits out Tarasov.
Kraken are up to four players with two points tonight: Meyers, Winterton, Catton, and Kakko. pic.twitter.com/gZDNaRyyrz
His goal to put the game mostly out of reach at 4-1 was nice, taking a pass from Vince Dunn down low, then walking out to the front and using his long reach to wait out Daniil Tarasov and sweep it around the sprawling goaltender. But his play to set up Berkly Catton’s goal was even better.
Jamie Oleksiak had just made a spectacular play to steal the puck at the top of the left circle, stickhandle around two Panthers, and slide it to Kakko slicing down the slot. Kakko dangled through two defenders, then deked to his backhand and got rejected by Tarasov twice before Catton followed it up and scored.
“[Oleksiak and Kakko] made two great plays, and I just shoveled it in, basically,” Catton said. “That was a really great play by Kaapo, and luckily enough, it just popped out in the right spot.”
“[Kakko has] shown a lot more confidence,” Lambert added. “He’s owning pucks, doing things down low. He’s been really, really good, and it’s good to see those guys get rewarded tonight.”
And how about Oleksiak? Aside from that outstanding assist, he also jumped up in the play late in the game and scored for the second night in a row, bringing Seattle to an all-time record of 16-3-2 in games where the Big Rig scores.
Oleksiak joined a group of five players—along with Catton, Winterton, Meyers, and McMann—to have a goal and an assist in the game.
McMann has had plenty of shine lately on Sound Of Hockey, so we won’t focus on him here, but it is worth noting that his two points now put him at five points since joining the team in earnest. That’s quite the impressive start.
Takeaway 2: What a night for the PK
With McMann’s power-play goal late in the game to make it 5-1, and the penalty kill going 4-for-4, the Kraken officially won the special teams battle in this game.
But what’s not immediately obvious in that stat line is what the PK did in the middle of the second period. Chandler Stephenson and Eeli Tolvanen got called for back-to-back high-sticking penalties, giving Florida 57 seconds of 5-on-3 time and three straight minutes of power-play time.
The trio of Gaudreau, Adam Larsson, and Ryan Lindgren came up huge, using a face-off win to get an immediate clear, then maintaining a tight triangular formation to limit the Panthers to just two real looks in the 5-on-3. Joey Daccord made a great save on one of those two, and Anton Lundell missed wide on the other.
“It was really good,” Lindgren said. “It seemed like we did a really good job of being connected, we pressured when we could, and obviously Joe made some huge saves when he had to. So yeah, it was a critical point in the game, and we did a good job.”
Seattle was up 4-1 at the time, but who knows how much momentum could have swung if Florida had scored a goal or two in that stretch?
Takeaway 3: Good vibes are back
It’s just crazy what a difference a couple of days can make in the NHL. The Kraken went from riding high heading into the Olympic break to feeling like the sky was falling after losing six of eight after the break and dropping out of the playoff bubble.
Now, suddenly, after two good days, they’re right back in the picture and looking like they can play with anybody.
So… bring on the high-flying Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday.
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.
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