Just when you think theyāre 100 percent deadāseasonās over, nothing left to see hereāthe Seattle Kraken rally back from a three-goal deficit in the third periodā¦ and still lose in a shootout to the Florida Panthers.
The single point in the standings means Seattle is now five points out of the last playoff spot with just 12 games remaining, two teams to jump, and theyāre chasing the Nashville Predators, who are on a five-game win streak and a 7-2-1 heater over their last 10.
Seattle once again did not play with the urgency of a desperate team fighting for its playoff life until it fell behind 4-1 and recognized its season hung in the balance against a very beatable team.
Coach Lane Lambert threw his lines in a blender for this one, moving Berkly Catton to the top line with Jordan Eberle and Matty Beniers and dressing 11 forwards and seven defensemen, with Jani Nyman as a healthy scratch.
āI just felt like from a defenseman standpoint, I felt like Fleury needed to come in, and this gave us an opportunity to move our forwards around a little bit and double up on Catton and a couple other guys,” Lambert said. “So I thought worked out pretty well.ā
I guess that tells you what Lambert thinks of Nymanās performance in Columbus on Saturday.
Anyway, in a weird night for Joey Daccord, in which pucks were finding ways to skip through him, off him, and around him, he came up big in overtime. But his mates couldnāt find the game-winner and ultimately came up empty in the shootout.
Here are Three Takeaways from a wild 5-4 Kraken shootout loss to the Florida Panthers.
Takeaway 1: A furious comeback
This was a miserable game to watch for 54:17 of game time. But an outstanding individual effort by Matty Beniers and two quick strikes from Jordan Eberle and Bobby McMann rallied the Kraken back from the dead and erased a 4-1 deficit in a span of just 2:23.
The comeback started with Beniers catching a high-to-low pass from Brandon Montour and driving hard to the net, then taking advantage of an overly aggressive Sergei Bobrovsky and pulling it around the netminder and into an open net as he was falling to the ice.
Matty Magic! šØ
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 25, 2026
Impressive individual effort from Beniers, but still down by two, likely too little, too late. #SeaKraken
4-2. pic.twitter.com/Jo4k3elPaj
āBobrovsky plays pretty aggressive,ā Beniers said. āEarlier, I think in the first, [Berkly Catton], made a nice play to me coming down, and [Bobrovsky] was way out. So, I kind of knew if I could get to the weak side of the ice, I might be able to just tuck it in there.ā
That goal, which came less than two minutes after a Shane Wright own goal that made it 4-1, seemed to give the team belief that it could get back in. Sure enough, Eberle stole a puck at the blue line and scored on a breakaway, then McMann did the exact same thing to tie the game just 12 seconds later.
MCMANN CAN! šØ TIE GAME! #SeaKraken have erased a three-goal deficit in 2 minutes and 23 seconds.
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 25, 2026
4-4
WHAT IS GOING ON?! #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/Ckrrv1ykeL
āI think the guys were doing a good job tracking that one,ā McMann said of what led to his goal. āAnd then I just had to stay on the puck and was able to pull it free, tried to separate with some speed, and was able to move laterally on him and get it in there.ā
Now THAT is the urgency this team needs to show from the hop. They just never seem to find it until theyāre way behind the eight ball.
āWeāve got to make sure we’re playing with that urgency all the time,ā McMann said. āSo it’s really good that we found it. But we’ve got to play with that from the drop of the puck, consistent throughout entire games to put those efforts forward.ā
Takeaway 2: Kraken pick up Shane Wright
This was a tough night for Shane Wright. Immediately after two separate goals, he could be seen looking skyward and questioning his choices. The first came when he tried to sling a quick pass to Brandon Montour to start a breakout, but he missed his teammateās stick by a solid two feet and instead put it on Carter Verhaegheās tape in the slot. Verhaeghe lost control of it, but scored with a bank shot off Joey Daccord from the corner. That goal made it 3-0 at 7:37 of the third period.
That feels like a season-ending turnover and fluky goal. 3-0 Panthers. pic.twitter.com/TrJvTJlSXp
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 25, 2026
After Ryker Evans got a good bounce of his ownāoff the end wall, off Bobrovsky, and ināto finally get the Kraken on the board 33 seconds later at 8:10, another Wright miscue ended up in the Kraken net. This one was just a bad bounce that went off his stick and into an open goal, but Wright was once again left looking dejected as the score ticked up to 4-1.
Shane Wright did everything right on this play, except… where he redirected the puck.
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 25, 2026
His reaction says it all. #SeaKraken
4-1 Panthers. pic.twitter.com/HWayHrIA2H
āWe turned the puck over on their fourth goal at their blue line. We canāt do that,ā Lambert said, indicating that Brandon Montour shouldered more of the blame for that goal than Wright. āWe pass it right to them in the slot on their third goal. We canāt do that. So, if we can eliminate those mistakes, thereās more positive days ahead than not. But again, this is whatās happening, and weāve got to cut out those catastrophic errors.ā
The Kraken didnāt quit after that, though. Instead, they picked up their young teammate and fought back into the game.
āThings like that happen,ā Beniers said. āI can think of five or six off the top of my head that I remember pretty clearly on my mistakes. So everyone makes mistakes; itās a game of mistakes. He did a good job of brushing it off and going back out to the next shift and playing his game. And that’s a really hard thing to do, especially when it goes off your stick and finds the back to the net. It sucks. He knows weāve got him.ā
Takeaway 3: A night of milestones
It was a big milestone night, with Aaron Ekblad playing his 800th NHL game, all with the Panthers; Paul Maurice becoming just the second coach in history behind Scotty Bowman to coach his 2,000th NHL game; and Adam Larsson skating in his 1,000th NHL game.
That brought lots of good vibes to an optional morning skate on Tuesday, where Kraken players, coaches, and staff donned special Adam Larsson t-shirts commemorating the accomplishment, and he waxed poetic about his time in the league and in Seattle.
āIt’s kind of hard to reflect on the whole journey to get here, but it’s been awesome,ā Larsson said. āMy last five years in Seattle has probably been the most fun I’ve had going to the rink on a daily basis. Obviously, we’ve had some tough seasons, but it’s still been very fun to come to the rink and kind of be around the guys and all that kind of stuff. So to look back all the way to my first year is pretty crazy.ā
Considering thereās been some conversation around our Sound Of Hockey community recently about top players not wanting to come to Seattle, Larsson saying these have been some of his best times in hockey is somewhat reassuring.
Larsson has had a lot of support along his way to 1,000 and has endured some difficult timesāespecially during his Edmonton years, when he lost his father unexpectedly. Robert Larsson, a former pro hockey player himself, died in 2018 at age 50, when Adam was just 25 years old.
But Seattle has given Larsson the change of scenery he needed.
āI was looking for a fresh start. I got that, and I’ve had some just amazing teammates, coaches, support staff, and all that kind of stuff.ā
Seeking the opposition’s perspective, I asked the always thoughtful and eloquent Paul Maurice about Larssonās game and how heād describe him āas a competitor.ā
āThatās the word that you would fire out when you describe him,ā Maurice said. āThe change of defensemen over the last 30 years is that style of defense would have been a really big, bruising, fighting defenseman 30 years ago. They play just as tough now, but itās a different style of game. So, heās hard on pucks, heās hard in corners, heās hard net front, he can move the puck, he can get up ice, but his calling is that 1-on-1 battle area. So to be good at that, you have to do it every night. Thatās where the strength of his career has been for me is that heās been very consistent in his compete level.ā
Maurice, by the way, got a nice ovation from the relatively light home crowd at Amerant Bank Arena and gave a heartfelt wave when he was recognized for his truly exceptional milestone Tuesday night.
Larsson said the best advice he ever received was, āBelieve in yourself. I’ve never doubted myself by any means, but I’ve gone through some tough stretches, tough years, and stuck with it. I’ve had some tremendous leaders, coaches and kind of brings you back again, and that’s been a huge part.ā
The Kraken did believe in themselves this night, at least in the third period. But it wasnāt quite enough to make Larssonās 1,000th game unforgettable.
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.
Proof that the Kraken is not a playoff team.
And? What are you going to do now?
Iām not trying to provide fuel to the faux hockey fans on SoH, but I donāt mind sharing my opinions. Brace your brainsā¦
No matter whether you are an optimist, a pessimist, a stat conehead who kinda sorta likes the game of hockey, a Hab infiltrator who hates Shane Wright because Seattle selected him at #4, and for Quebec reasons they want to punish Seattle and a young Shane Wright for the dual treacheryā¦we should all agree on one thing:
How is it possible the quality of an NHL hockey teamās performance can be indistinguishable between game 1 and game 70? How is that possible?
Itās kind of a mystery, nāest-ce pas?
Hot goaltending to pucks going in, we were never good just lucky.
But the goalie is actually a position in hockey. They are supposed to stop pucks. Thatās kind of the idea. Not sure you can say this is influential anymore than good defense, for example.
They are definitely a part of the team but way more important than any other individual sport on the team, a hot goalie can literally win you a game you had no business winning. A single defender or forward playing well isnāt going to make up for the rest of the team playing horribly. Thatās why I was saying when they were playing well that it wasnāt substantial and when goaltending cools off we are in trouble.
The system LL has been playing all season is dependent on your goalie being better than the other guys goalie, literally giving the opposition the puck and letting them have as much puck possession as they want. Trying to limit chances by having everyone back and hoping that they get frustrated and make a mistake. Itās an absolute crap way to coach.
So transversely, can we just toss out the first four seasons because the goaltending was so bad? Last season you had good and bad and the results to match and while Grubauer was exceptionally bad, Joey wasn’t coming up in Vezina talk. This season Moneypuck has them 18th (Gru) and 38th (Joey) in goals saved above expected per 60*. Those are nice numbers, but they don’t seem exceptional.
The goaltending has been very good, but to me, just because it isn’t actively undermining the team doesn’t mean it’s carrying them.
*62 goalies with 20 or more appearances.
A hot goalie cannot win you a game if you can’t score a goal.
I think this is all conjecture since nobody actually knows what the specifics of Lambert’s system is, but it seems to me that it just relies heavily on taking away the middle and letting teams shoot from above the circles while giving the goalie a clear view of the shot. This isn’t a rocket science approach, nor is it particularly uncommon in the NHL. Any NHL goalie is going to be able to save a high percentage of these types of shots, and I think that’s exactly why we are seeing Gru having a bounce-back year. It’s not that he’s been especially world-beating (although I think he has been better than previous years), but Lambert’s system seems to encourage teams to take lower percentage shots. I think this is why both goalies have a very respectable save percentage even though GSAA/60 is more modest.
That’s not relying on your goalie to be the best player on the ice, it’s just relying on them to do their job. That being said, any and every coach in the league will tell you that your goalie needs to be the best player on the ice every night.
And the idea that Lambert is telling the team to let their opponents have as much puck possession as they want just seems so farcical I don’t know how anyone could take it seriously. The Kraken’s roster, not their coach, is what’s holding them back.
Turbo what are you talking about, factual? When you dump out as many pucks as the kraken do your giving the puck away. When you dump in the puck with only one forecheck youāre giving the puck away. When you take a one off shot with nobody around to get the rebound youāre giving the puck away. When you have zero pressure in the neutral zone you are allowing possession. When you a passive and allow them fee time in the defensive zone you are allowing them possession.
You can tell a lot about a system by watching the game Iām not sure how you can possibly say nobody knows what his specifics his system is. Sure we donāt know maybe a few tiny details but we fully see how his game is played. Anyone who has played higher level hockey or coached can see exactly what heās doing. You see everything that gets executed and what players are trying to doā¦. Itās kinda not rocket science you just put two and two together. How can you possibly say nobody knows what his system is?
Darylā¦ yes we lost a lot of games because of Grubauers play in what we can call the sub par years.
I think its deeper than that and i think it has more to do with the timing of your question than anything else. They’re a streaky .500 team.
The same question can be asked in the middle of a winning streak but with a very different tone.
Now onto this specific losing streak. 4-10 out of the Olympic break. that’s abysmal. They would have to rattle off 6 wins to get back to their typical .500 performance. Not out of the question but that would be 2 games longer than their longest of the season at 4.
So why is this streak different than the others? From the last few games I’ve watched the bottom 3 wingers have been absolute ghosts. Teams skating through them, scoring at will. Not what you want from your “energy” lines in a low event team. Couple that with limited production from their top offensive and defensive players yeah you’re going to struggle. These are the symptoms. what is the cause? If we had the answer to that we would not be in the SOH comments section. From what I’m watching, there’s no connectivity and a lot of sloppy play. Tons of bad mistakes.
Look at how these players have done in the last 5 games:
Montour, (0g, 3a, -8)!!, Lindgren (0g, 0a, -8)!!
Melanson (0g, 0a, -7), myers (1g, 1a, -6)
Yikes. I’m curious to know how often these four players are on the ice together during the goals scored against. Over a 5 games schedule the offensive and defensive lines should be shuffled around enough to even things out. Someone with a hockey reference account should look into that.
In a low complex system that limits events, defensively and offensively, mistakes are going to hurt much much more.
The system and coaching.
I’m a little surprised that Seattle G sees a big difference between game 1 and game 70. They started the year with a below average roster coached by a very defensive coach. They were always likely to be a little better than the sum of their parts because it’s easier for average players to play sound defense than effective offense. They can’t score (no surprise based on where we were in the summer) and their defense is ok. The eye test would tell you this and the stats would tell you this and it hasn’t really changed. Where’s the mystery?
Hot goal tending for periods or some unusual scoring trends caused some win streaks. Given enough games they have regressed to their mean and that shouldn’t surprise if you really watch the team play. The only folks that thought this team was going to the play-offs were Kraken fans, the unbiased folks were right. If you choose to see every win streak as proof that they’ve turned the corner then my advice would be hire a professional to do your retirement investing.
My thought on this gameā¦ why the f*** did we play almost half the game trying not to score. We only were let off the F***ing leash when we were down. LL let the F***ing team try to win a game. We actually looked ok when LL let them play hockey.
Iām so ready for a new coach.
Shootouts suck!
Player statistics donāt even count in them.
Play an additional 5 minutes of overtime if necessary. If still tied each team gets a single point.
Sitting in my $35 seat in the upper reaches of UBS arena on Long Island Sunday night, I realized how much I enjoyed just watching a game without being emotionally invested in the outcome.
Looking at the rest of the schedule and how the team has played this month, Iām ready to let go of my playoff hopes, but to continue to watch and to appreciate so many of the little elements of the game itself that I enjoy – the skating, a good hit, a tough puck battle won, the joy in a goal celebration.
I’ve started doing this same thing and also paying closer attention to specific players. I’m no scout, in fact, I’m not at all confident in my ability to assess players, but Beniers and Catton have both been impressing me – Wright… not so much.
I purposely concentrated on Schaefer on Sunday. He is remarkably similar to Landon DuPont in the way he covers the ice. I think DuPont may be better sealing up the blue line, so Iām definitely ready to focus in on that at the Silvertips games this weekend.
On the other side of that game, Jett Greaves, the Columbus goalie, impressed me again. I had already taken note of him when he played in Seattle on a back-to-back start, and he played a solid 58:35 of shutout hockey on Sunday after the early goal that ended up being the game winner.
I watch all the games. Whatever is on ESPN or whatever my HULU will get me but I see so much hockey is embarrassing. There are so many good games to watch. The playoffs are coming and it’s a good distraction from our own team being less than stellar.
Was anyone actually watching when the comeback happened? Other than the folks who get paid to watch?
Yes
Shaking my head at Wright’s assist and goal for FLA, along with inept defense by Lindgren, I stuck with watching the comeback. Eberle and McMann both had take-aways at the defensive blueline, exploded up the ice at max speed and shot high. Eberle still has some speed, and McMann’s acceleration is elite. After Freddy’s slow skate shootout miss, I was surprised that neither Ebs nor Bobby tried a fast skate type of shot in the shootout. Bobby’s skating on the shootout was not super slow, but didn’t seem 100%.
I was, but I admit it was because I was at a restaurant where it was playing on the TV. Otherwise I probably would not have been.
I don’t really “get paid,” per se, and I was watching. š
I was trying, but on a plane and the āimproved wi-fi, including streamingā was not as advertised, so I was only able to track the gamecast. The wi-fi went out as we started descending and the score was 4-1. The shootout had just ended when we finished landing š
Yes. Probably the best 3 minutes of Kraken hockey all season….oh well
They are as close to 30th place as they are to the 2nd wild card. We are solidly in the “please just no loser points” phase of the season. A phase we have become all too familiar with…
The West is pretty stark: 2 best records in the league, and 2 worst playoff-bound records (18th & 22nd overall).
Interesting to see Nyman a healthy scratch which speaks directly to what Lane Lambert wants from his players. Accountability. A -4 in Columbus while playing 8 minutes of NHL hockey. Geeze. That was one of the worst individual performances I’ve seen by a Kraken player all year.
Speaking about accountability, the amount of mistakes from this team is shocking. This comes after an extended period of rest. I dont think this system in overly complicated, yet players still fail to execute it. Montour, Wright, Catton. Joey handling the puck way too much.
They break out of their D zone then turn it over at their own blueline. Cant get the puck deep. Special teams have been poor.
Makes me think its a roster issue. ZERO depth. That was very apparent with Shwartz, McCann and Winterton out.
I did like the McMann, Stephanson, Kakko like though.
I mentioned this previously, but I do not want this team to make the playoffs. We know it’s a benchmark but they simply do not deserve to be able to say, we made the playoffs 2x in 5 years! Their goal needs to be that they’re contenders – not just yay, we made the playoffs and who cares what happens next. I could see that in other years, with different circumstances, but not this one. It’s been one long ride on the struggle bus for 95% of the season.