The effort wasn’t bad, but the execution was horrendous for the Kraken in a 6-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning that took yet another little nibble out of Seattle’s continuously declining playoff chances.
After handing the Lightning a three spot in the first 21 minutes, the Kraken came alive in the second period and made a game of it heading into the third after goals by Bobby McMann (his fourth goal and sixth point in three games as a Kraken) and Jared McCann.
But the class of the Lightning was too much for a Seattle roster that has to play a borderline perfect game to beat top teams in the NHL, and the Kraken were far from that on this night. Tampa Bay ultimately pulled away, riding massive nights from Nikita Kucherov (three goals, two assists), Brandon Hagel (one goal, three assists), and Anthony Cirelli (one goal, two assists) to what proved to be an easy win.
Here are Three Takeaways from a 6-2 Kraken drubbing by the Lightning.
Takeaway 1: “Catastrophic” mistakes
I’m going to first give the Lightning credit, because there’s a reason that Jon Cooper has lasted as long as he has and had the success he’s had as Tampa Bay’s coach. Sure, there’s a ton of talent on the Lightning roster, but in the five years I’ve watched this team beat up on the Kraken, they have consistently swarmed to pucks as well as any team in the league.
In the first period especially, it felt like every time Seattle got control of the puck in its zone, there would be two or three Bolts on the puck carrier, either forcing a turnover or pressuring the Kraken player into making a loose play and handing it to Tampa Bay.
Case in point: the first goal against, which was ultimately scored by former Everett Silvertip Gage Goncalves. On this one, Seattle won the puck away, and it landed on McCann’s stick at the top of the defensive zone. He initially made a good play to cut to his right and gain some space, but then he should have chipped it off the glass and simply gotten it out of harm’s way.
Instead, McCann tried to do too much and painted himself into a corner. He looked to gain ground up the boards but ran right into Darren Raddysh, so he instead tried to go backward and ran into Goncalves. The puck came right back down the Kraken’s throats and ended up in their net to put them into chase mode at 5:45 of the first period.
#SeaKraken having a hard time getting out of their zone when they've gotten the puck.
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 18, 2026
Here, McCann tried escaping a few different directions instead of chipping it off the glass. Ran out of space and turned it over in a dangerous spot.
Former Everett Silvertip Gage Goncalves… pic.twitter.com/ECDVS00fy3
“It started with me. Obviously, the first goal [against] there, I turned the puck over at the blue line, and they scored. So, that’s on me,” McCann said.
The second goal against—Kucherov’s first of three on the night—came when Ryan Lindgren tried to push the play up ice quickly but misconnected with Ben Meyers, and Meyers ended up handing it to Kucherov. He and Hagel came back on a quick-developing 2-on-1, and Philipp Grubauer was hung completely out to dry after a nifty give-and-go play, a theme throughout the evening.
While the #SeaKraken failed to generate much of anything in that 1st period, they were also extremely inefficient at getting the puck out of their zone.
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 18, 2026
Case in point, this Nikita Kucherov goal to make it 2-0. pic.twitter.com/BQyrgEhHDA
“For the most part, it was a fairly even game,” coach Lane Lambert said. “Our mistakes were really catastrophic, obviously some really, really poor decisions… The turnovers, going backwards in our own zone, the second goal, we can just… we’re changing. We should just stay behind the net, get organized. So we’re making some mistakes here that you can’t make. I’m not even going to say they’re uncharacteristic, because apparently they are at the moment, but you can’t make these mistakes.”
Those plays in the first period, a bad change early in the second that created a 3-on-1, and another turnover by Matty Beniers early in the third were enough to do in Seattle in this game. The Lightning tacked on a couple more just for good measure and pulled away for a lopsided result.
Takeaway 2: Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand make their returns
Former Kraken forwards Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand made their returns to Climate Pledge Arena for the first time since being traded away at last season’s trade deadline.
Both players got brief welcome-back videos and gave cordial waves to the home crowd.
And Yanni Gourde gets a nice ovation with his welcome back video. #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/iPPN8TxsUB
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 18, 2026
While Bjorkstrand had a quiet night, Gourde showed a couple of flashes of what endeared him to fans during the course of his four seasons in the Pacific Northwest.
In the first minute of the third period, Jacob Melanson—who has, in a way, replaced Gourde as Seattle’s resident pest—laid a heavy hit on Gourde along the half wall. Gourde popped back up, and from the way he was looking around, you could tell he was incensed and out for a pound of flesh.
He got his revenge within seconds, catching Meyers with a high hit and sending him flying. Meyers then chased down Gourde and challenged him to a fight, which Gourde definitely won.
https://t.co/dimRnEq6S0 pic.twitter.com/AYclwwbX0W
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 18, 2026
“Just a hit, just kind of heat of the moment,” Meyers said. “I didn’t really see him coming, so it just happened quick.”
Did that sequence reignite Tampa Bay after they lost momentum in the second? It’s hard to say, but plays like that by Gourde certainly made him a fun player to watch at times with the Kraken.
Takeaway 3: Pillow fight to the finish?
It’s wild that the Kraken are still in the last wild-card spot in the Western Conference, despite having won just four games out of 11 since the Olympic break. But that’s the conference they’re in, and while they continue making it harder and harder on themselves, they’re somehow still alive and well, holding on by the hair on their chinny-chin-chins.
They now head out on a two-week road trip through Nashville, Columbus, Florida, Tampa Bay (to face these same Lightning… yikes!), and Buffalo. Then they’ll come home for an off day and go back on the road for one more game in Edmonton.
With the San Jose Sharks and Los Angeles Kings continuing to do their part, the Kraken just need to string a run of wins together, and they can still (somehow) set themselves right back up as a surefire playoff team.
Losses like the one on Tuesday don’t help their cause, though.
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.
I turned on the game half way through the first period and the Kraken had zero shots and just as the have done all year, they cannot beat teams of the same quality or better. The first line got played and they had no offensive answer for teams with good defenders, I will keep watching but I am not confident in their ability to make the playoffs or even if they do, they will not advance.
This team is like soup de jour. You never know what you’re going to get.
I disagree, this team has been as predictable as possible in the relatively random sport of hockey. Yes they scratched out one miraculous one-goal victory over Carolina by playing near-perfect structure and a great goalie performance, despite getting generally badly outshot and outplayed. Otherwise, since the break, they beat the worst (by far) team in the NHL twice, got a win against a Florida team that has written off the season and was playing essentially their 2nd team and 3rd string goalie, and got steamrolled by everyone else (except Nashville, which is also slow and old and mediocre — but sometimes luck goes the other way). They are crashing back to earth when the schedule got hard and the luck ran out, just as all the “biased” East Coast national writers with their outdated “public” models said they would. It has all been well predicted and highly predictable, to everyone except the team’s deluded management and partisan defenders.
I don’t recall any predictions of the Kraken playing meaningful games in the second half of March. I do recall a lot of predictions of this team as a bottom five team in the league. Some might point at the division and the conference as the issue, but understanding those aspects is part of prediction.
To say this team is “as predicted” is, I think, highly dependent on how you view this team individually. I’m not opposed to being called a “partisan defender”, but the bias seems to me to cut both ways. I honestly believe right now this team is somewhere on a spectrum of most of the views expressed on here. No one thinks they’re contenders and on the other end it’s possible they may already be at their ceiling – they may need to be “torn down”. I’m open to views anywhere in there. Personally, I think they’re on a progression and as I’ve been saying since prior to last season – 26/27 should be the season that establishes what they are.
Go Kraken!!!
I didn’t mean to zoom out that far. I took PAX’s comment to be about how the Kraken have been playing lately, and I just meant since the break, they have actually been remarkably consistent and predictable. Zooming out, yeah, the overall season record is higher than most predicted because Grubauer and special teams rebounded big time — which no one thought would happen.
In terms of the long-term progression — do you really think the team is progressing in a *positive* direction? Because it’s the opposite. The team’s performance at 5 on 5 (goaltending aside) continues to get worse every year, including this year. Their xGF% at 5v5 every year since 2022-23 (the 100 point year) is 51.75, 50.56, 46.21, and this year… drum roll… 44.41%. 31st in the entire NHL, and by far the worst performance in team history. It has been a steady regression, not progression. It would be one thing if the team was trying to rebuild and get a couple top draft picks, but this has been the team trying to win now. I see no reason to believe the trend will reverse in the next 3 years. All of the prospects coming up have a middle-six ceiling at best, and even that might be generous, from what I’m reading.
Yes, I really think the team is progressing in a positive direction. I’m not being difficult here, but I don’t care about expected goals and I don’t care about shots on goal. I’m not saying these metrics don’t matter and I get the value they provide. Expected goals is supposed to “smooth out” things like luck and goaltending and historically there’s a strong correlation between shot volume and goal scoring. Those are both worthwhile starting points, but – and I think this is important – they’re only starting points. To me there are a ton of problems with expected goals and shot volume (I’ve gone into this elsewhere and it has a lot to do with defense and situationallity to me).
While the Kraken may be an abysmal 44.41% in expected goals share at 5v5 they’re an actual 50.5% in goals share at 5v5. Now of course the obvious answer is the goaltending – as you mentioned – but this isn’t otherworldly goaltending. Yes, they’re near top of the league in several metrics, but now that Gru has changed his game does anyone think what they’re doing is not sustainable? Neither one of those guys is being talked about at all around the league. They’re playing well, but do you honestly think they’re carrying this team in the way Sorokin or Shesterkin carry their teams? So, to me, this is realistically a 50/50 team – something close to 0 goals differential.
Why I think they’re progressing is because they’re doing this as the “shit team with no superstars” that so many folks think of them as. They’re an expansion team that is regularly sending out seven drafted skaters, they’ve got a ton of cap space and a bunch of picks to work with and still they’re in a playoff spot in the middle of March.
Yes, they need to find more “high end” talent and no, they’re not a contender, but it seems to me they have opportunities available to add and to develop. I also think it’s easy to focus on any one metric and draw from it the conclusion you want. I did this last season with the three worst defensive teams in the league, the only teams that allowed more than 3.4 expected goals against per 60 – the Sharks, Ducks and Canadiens – and look at them now.
Honestly, I think there is a lot of room with this team to see what you want to see. I can’t dismiss the idea that this roster is flawed beyond redemption. I think there’s a lot of traction for that narrative. For me, however, I also think one can see a team that is building towards something…
Just my thoughts.
And by the way… whoever is using the Daryl V thing… go fuck yourself. I’ve got zero patience for the name-changing cigarette and cashew trolls who play that game… find another crutch to prop your broken self upon.
There are now five teams in the west fighting for a single WC spot, four of them within two points of each other. It will go down to the very end. The Kings, Preds, and Jets have the collective experience, the Sharks and Kraken do not.
Would be interesting to get everyone on record now who they think will take that one playoff spot, with 15 games to go.
Your pick?
LA, SJ, SEA, WPG, NSH
Same order as Joe Z
SJ, LA, SEA, NSH
But who knows
Even caveman understood last night game. That was bad, slow team playing good, fast team.
All the usual whiners in here after some tough losses, minus a few. “Our team sucks! It’s all management’s fault! We need a new coach! All the “east coast analysts” are right about the Kraken! Our players are too old! Blah, blah, blah. ”
This is NHL hockey, babies. It’s supposed to be hard. That’s why real hockey fans like it, and pseudo hockey fans whine and complain, because they somehow think it should be easy like everything else in their lives. Unfortunately, Amazon Prime can’t deliver you a Stanley Cup.
Maybe go back to basketball where your favorite team can dominate with two super stars, and when you lose, you really can say “it’s because we don’t have those two guys” and you are probably right.
Seattle G – I don’t know why your parents didn’t tell you this, but you’re expressing your thoughts like a teenager with an attention deficit disorder who feels wronged by life. Every part of your post is aggressive and toxic, does different view really bother you that much?
What people think about the team is their own business; it’s strange that you decide who’s right and who’s wrong and condemn others’ views on what’s happening in practically every post on this site.
If an alternative point of view insult you, gather the facts and present them in a persuasive way that makes public take it seriously. Without emotions, distortions and cognitive biases. Discuss the subject on its substance, not a form.
The national analysts were wrong, the Kraken were generally projected to be bottom 5 but they are currently the 12th worst team in the league by points percentage. So they exceeded expectations and get the “reward” of not getting a high draft pick.
The national were spot on except for the resurgence of Grubauer and Daccord doing what he does. We are a very bad team being salvaged by goaltending. Yes a goalie is part of the team and should be accounted for but who could have predicted Grubauer actually looking like he belongs in the NHL.
Well said, I can’t believe that three people actually liked his post.
Who could have liked a post like that do they have no shame.
I’m not surprised that you’re surprised. You’ve been detached from reality for a while so another reality check is going to fly right over your head.
Well I know where one of the likes came from 😂. The Pompousness that someone could actually write a post as it’s fact, calling out other fans as not being fans because they don’t agree with their opinions is crazy in itself but to like that comment is saying something about yourself.
I disagree with your assessment of my comments. Thank you for replying.
Read your post how could it be taken any other way
Ah. One of the biggest whiners in the history of the SoH comments section. Here’s a great nugget of Nino wisdom from March 7…
“We shall see how the McMann trade works out, I mostly don’t like it because he’s just a middle guy and likely to just push our prospects further down the way LL coaches.”
Well Nino, good thing Tolvanen is injured, I guess, and we can bring Jani Nyman up for some depth. Hopefully another “middle guy” will get injured, and we can put Jani in hopefully for the rest of the season and this chase for the playoffs and bring up even more young prospects. Morrison is doing great in CV. Maybe he should get a chance. Obviously, this all has to do with the way Lane Lambert coaches.
Oh crap. I almost forgot. We aren’t supposed to be trying to get into the playoffs. We need to be losing and saving up “draft capital” so we can get awesome players like Mark Scheifele, Kyle Connor, Artemi Panarin, Alexis Lafreniere, Mika Zibanejad, Auston Matthews, etc etc…even though we are currently either above them or kind of neck and neck in the standings. But hey, our management also sucks.
You have no clue what you’re talking about but keep talking.
With 32 teams in the league, there are 12 teams that are “overdue” for a cup. Anyone that has won more than one in this century has statistically overperformed. Yet, less than 5 years in, Seattle is doomed.
Whats funny is that there’s more facts stated in the one post than half of the stuff on here. I’m exaggerating but you get the point.
When the Kraken lose, there are significantly more people posting. Fact.
Managment is blamed as if they play the game. Fact.
Coaches are blamed as if they play them. Fact.
There IS a lot of complaining here. Fact.
The line about everyone thinking things should be easy is a little off base but people do think Vegas can be replicated. Pseudo Fact.
The only thing he gets wrong is that is THREE superstars, not TWO that can win you a championship in basketball.
I’m all for sharing an opinion but its a little hard to take serious when everyone but the players are scapegoated for a 5 year old team that’s on their 3rd coaching change in as many years.
I didn’t watch the third period but was surprised to see it ended 2-6 Tampa. It could have been 2-1 Kraken going into the third or even 2-2 without those “Catastrophic” turnovers in the first. For a defensive oriented team that is just unacceptable. I get that Tampa pressures the puck but you have to trust your teammates and the system you play in. I heard Montour say that exact thing pre-game. play within the system. But i cant blame McCann for trying.