The Seattle Kraken are truly on their last tentacle. The other seven tentacles have been sliced off at this point, and while the rest of the Pacific Division has done everything in its power to keep the Kraken afloat by mostly matching Seattle’s losing pace, the Nashville Predators—sadly—did not get the memo. After selling a couple of fringe pieces at the deadline, Nashville has surprisingly caught fire with five straight wins and a 7-2-1 record in its last 10, including two victories over Seattle.

Meanwhile, the Kraken finally turned on the desperation we’ve been hoping to see Tuesday at the Florida Panthers, but they didn’t do it until they were down 4-1 with six minutes left to play. They rallied back to salvage a point but came up short in a shootout.

It appears the hole the Kraken have dug themselves since the Olympic break—going 4-9-1 in 14 games to fall five points out of a playoff spot—will be too deep to escape, but coach Lane Lambert isn’t ready to write off the season just yet. He indicated he hopes the comeback in the third period against Florida can be the spark that finally gets his team back on track.

“There was a lot of positives to that game, and obviously, the comeback was huge,” Lambert said at an optional practice at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa on Wednesday. “The point was huge. It’s unfortunate we didn’t get two, but to be down like that, mount the comeback like that, hopefully that catapults us here. We kind of always say there has to be some sort of event that happens. Maybe that was our event.”

There are technically three games left on this six-game road trip, but the Kraken will face the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday and the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday, then head home for a day to change their clothes before going back out to Edmonton to face the Oilers on Tuesday. The Lightning are 4-0-1 in their last five games and just embarrassed the Kraken 6-2 at Climate Pledge Arena on St. Patrick’s Day, and the Sabres have lost in regulation just once since Feb. 5. Hold onto your butts.

Top-line Berkly Catton

Being on the road with the team has its benefits, like the occasional opportunity to be the only reporter in a press scrum with the team’s head coach. That’s what happened Wednesday, so I took full advantage and held Lane Lambert “hostage” with a wide range of questions that led to a surprisingly long 1-on-1 presser.

You can hear the full conversation here:

Our Twitter intern went 1-on-1 with #SeaKraken coach Lane Lambert in Tampa this morning. pic.twitter.com/Zdavsj3144

— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 25, 2026

One thing I wanted to dig into a little more with Lambert was his decision to elevate Berkly Catton to the top line in Seattle’s 5-4 shootout loss in Sunrise on Tuesday. Of course, part of that is just looking for a spark, and it worked in a way, as Matty Beniers and Jordan Eberle (Catton’s linemates) both scored, and Bobby McMann—who vacated the line and was replaced by Catton—also potted the game-tying goal to complete the third-period comeback.

“If you watch Berkly play, obviously, on the production side of it, we’d love to have more,” Lambert said. “But at the same time, he’s making plays. He made a couple of extremely elite plays last night. And for me, from an offensive standpoint, we need him, certainly with [Jared] McCann being out and [Jaden] Schwartz being out. I think he’s got some elite vision, elite talent in order to make some plays. And so I thought he played a very good game last night.”

That’s some high praise of the 19-year-old rookie.

Meanwhile, although I didn’t explicitly state it in Three Takeaways on Tuesday, I thought Beniers—who is also the guest on this week’s Sound Of Hockey Podcast, publishing relatively soon—was Seattle’s best player against Florida. His play to drive to the net, deke, and tuck the puck into an open net while falling to the ice was an outstanding individual effort and was representative of the type of desperation this team has needed for several weeks now.

Matty Magic! 🚨

Impressive individual effort from Beniers, but still down by two, likely too little, too late. #SeaKraken

4-2. pic.twitter.com/Jo4k3elPaj

— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 25, 2026

“I do [agree that he’s putting forth an outstanding effort], actually,” Lambert said. “I think that his leadership qualities… they’re coming through, as well, coming through on the bench. There’s different things that he’s doing that maybe people don’t see from that standpoint, and he’s bringing his ‘A’ game, he’s bringing his desperation.”

Oscar Fisker Mølgaard in, Jani Nyman out

Oscar Fisker Mølgaard has been recalled from AHL Coachella Valley, and Jani Nyman has been reassigned. Lambert hasn’t plainly stated that Nyman is a bad fit for his roster right now, but his actions have certainly indicated that.

After Nyman took a minus-four rating in just 8:15 of ice time on the fourth line at the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday, Lambert was so disinterested in putting him back in the lineup on Tuesday that he opted to dress Cale Fleury as a seventh defenseman and play one forward short. All that to say, it was unsurprising when the Fisker Mølgaard swap was officially made Wednesday.

“We’ve been running with four penalty killers here, a little bit,” Lambert said. “Oscar’s a pretty smart player, obviously, a penalty killer, he’s playing well down there. I think, as it stands right now, his game is a little more suited for this time of the year, from that standpoint. So we’ll see where we go.”

How I read this is that Lambert simply doesn’t trust Nyman defensively but does feel more comfortable putting Fisker Mølgaard in, if needed.

Wishing the Winterton family the best

Ryan Winterton has been absent from the Kraken roster for several days, and it was revealed Wednesday that his older brother, Jacob, passed away after a battle with cancer.

The #OHL is saddened to learn of the passing of Jacob Winterton following a courageous battle with cancer at the age of 25.

A member of the @FlintFirebirds and @Oshawa_Generals, the league extends its thoughts and condolences to the Winterton family, as well as Jacob’s friends… pic.twitter.com/H30bz22DUF

— Ontario Hockey League (@OHLHockey) March 25, 2026

“Obviously, it’s an extremely difficult time for Ryan and his family,” Lambert said. “We’re obviously always very, very supportive of him. I can’t imagine… And certainly, we just want everyone from [the Winterton] family to be as good as they could possibly be. In terms of his game, when he comes back… We miss him, and we can use him.”

Devastating news. Ryan is such a genuinely nice young man and doesn’t deserve to experience this kind of loss. Wishing peace and love to the entire Winterton family and all those who were close to Jacob.

Other odds and ends

• Jaden Schwartz, out indefinitely with an upper-body injury after getting inadvertently kicked in the face in a 7-4 loss to the Ottawa Senators on March 7, has been on the road trip—a good sign that he remains on the road to recovery after that scary incident.
• Matty Beniers told me during his SOH Podcast interview that he thinks Seattle tends to get a “bad rap” around the league. I asked why this is, and he said he thought it was mostly related to the weather. He refuted the claim nicely. Give that interview a listen when it comes out; it’s a fun one.