That feels like the end of the Seattle Kraken’s playoff hopes. Optimism around the team’s chances had certainly waned in recent weeks, as the group continued to sputter its way farther out of the picture. But entering Thursday’s game three points out of the last wild card spot with nine games left to play, it was beyond time to start make hay.
The Kraken made no such hay against the Utah Mammoth, frittering away a strong start and a 2-0 lead by allowing Utah to score six unanswered goals and roll to an easy 6-2 win.
“We certainly do find ways to, I guess, beat ourselves at times,” coach Lane Lambert said. “The special teams were poor tonight, the power play wasn’t good, the penalty kill gave up three goals for the first time in, [I don’t know] how long. [We took] two four-minute minor penalties for high sticking. You can’t come through those types of careless plays with your stick.”
While Seattle didn’t deserve to win the game, it also couldn’t catch any breaks, and Joey Daccord had another tough outing—he’s now been under a .900 save percentage in three straight starts and has dropped below that number for the season—and Lambert went out of his way to say he thought the team needed some more saves from him.
Here are Three Takeaways from a (probably season-ending) 6-2 Kraken loss to the Mammoth.
Takeaway 1: Goalie interference call shatters fragile team
One of the many things that has plagued this team since the Olympic break has been its inability to overcome bad breaks. Something goes the other team’s way, and that’s all the Kraken need to shrivel up and fade quietly into the night.
On this particular night, that thing was a negated Jacob Melanson goal in the second period, which completely turned the game on its ear.
Seattle had gotten out of the gates hot, scoring 41 seconds into the first after 1,000-game honoree Adam Larsson fired a puck at Karel Vejmelka, on which Jordan Eberle cleaned up the rebound to make it 1-0.
O, CAPTAIN! 🫡 🚨
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) April 3, 2026
Moments after getting honored for 1K games, Adam Larsson gets the primary assist after a tasty dish from Jared McCann. Jordan Eberle cleans up the rebound.
1-0 #SeaKraken 41 seconds into the game. pic.twitter.com/0sOAFlsaTB
Bobby McMann also scored his eighth goal in 10 games since joining the Kraken at the trade deadline to make it 2-0 at 13:45 of the first, finding a loose puck after a lane drive by Chandler Stephenson and sweeping a backhander past Vejmelka.
But after Logan Cooley cut the deficit to 2-1 with a power-play goal at 16:27, the next goal felt critical.
At 6:11 of the second, Melanson appeared to reestablish a two-goal lead, tipping Ryan Lindgren’s wrist shot out of the air and past Vejmelka. Melanson even had a fantastic “Melly Celly,” aggressively dusting off the ice with his right glove. But the feeling of elation quickly turned into the wind being sucked out of Climate Pledge Arena.
Utah challenged for goalie interference on Melanson, and the overhead replay showed the slightest contact between Melanson’s right skate and Vejmelka’s left pad, with the contact happening in the blue paint. That was enough to overturn the goal.
Melanson scores, but Utah successfully challenges for goalie interference.
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) April 3, 2026
Hoo, boy, that's a SOFT goalie interference call. 😓
Still 2-1 #SeaKraken. pic.twitter.com/rf67GttjHv
“Rules are rules, but it’s a tough break, for sure,” Melanson said. “We can’t have excuses like that. It doesn’t count, we’ve got to get right back to it and get another one.”
Four minutes later, Daccord coughed up a juicy rebound to Logan Cooley, who scored his second goal of the game to tie it 2-2 at 10:05.
The Kraken completely collapsed after that—a microcosm of the post-Olympic portion of the season—and it was all Utah for the second half of the game.
Takeaway 2: Horrendous special teams
Seattle’s special teams haven’t been great in these later stages of the season. In fact, the power play has been dreadful—it hasn’t scored a goal since a 5-2 loss at Columbus on March 21—and the Mammoth picked apart the penalty kill in this one for three goals.
“32nd in the league after the break. It’s just not good enough,” Eberle said of the power play. “I mean, we’ve had chances, we can say that. But at the end of the day, we have to find a way to be a catalyst in the game and score goals so that we can have a chance to win hockey games. It’s that simple. We’re not doing that, so that’s on me and that’s on the rest of the power play.”
“Tonight was an off night [for the PK],” Lambert said. “When you’re trying and being forced to kill multiple minutes at a time, it becomes a problem. They’ve got a good power play over there, high-end skill over there, and we know this. So penalty kill has been good [lately]. The power play was really good before the break. The power play has been not good after the break, and we’ve been looking for solutions, and we have to find them. The players themselves have to be better, they have to take accountability of that situation. They are the veteran guys for the most part, we trust them, we keep putting them out, but you can only do that for so long.”
While the power play showed its ineptitude in the game, going 0-for-3, the Kraken also gave Utah six opportunities—twice off four-minute high-sticking penalties on Berkly Catton and Eberle. Cooley and Nick Schmaltz each scored on the power play to help take the game from 2-0 Seattle to 3-2 Utah. Michael Carcone added one of the uglier goals you’ll ever see with a manpower advantage in garbage time.
Takeaway 3: Nail in the coffin (probably)
With the playoff picture looking as bleak as it did entering the game, it felt like this game was going to be the last gasp for Seattle. Win and stay alive to fight another day, lose and watch the rest of the field pull away.
Indeed, Nashville, Los Angeles, San Jose, Vegas, and Edmonton all picked up a point or more, and the hill grew to four points with four teams to leap over in eight games. It could still happen if the Kraken win—let’s say seven of their last eight—but the problems are just too plentiful for this very fragile team right now.
What a wasted opportunity this post-Olympic stretch has been.
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.
“So you’re telling me there’s a chance.” – Lloyd Christmas
On Moneypuck, their chances of getting the no. 1 pick (6%) are now higher than making the playoffs (4.7%).
The season is over now even for the external optimists and the only thing to look forward to is a high draft pick and the clearing out of the executive offices.
If they wait too long, like they have in the recent rounds of coaching hires (so they had to take Lambert), they will again be left with the dregs. The best thing to do would be to immediately fire Francis and get a new head of hockey ops in fast before any other teams have a chance to move.
Agreed just fire him already.
I’m one of those eternal optimist and I agree, the season is over.
I wouldn’t be shocked if they let Francis go, but I think everyone will get one more season.
By the way, Scott Wheeler’s Prospect Pool ranking for the Kraken dropped today. He has them at No.7 with more players featured than any other team in the league.
Some positives, I’m surprised to see Catton on the list as he’s played in the NHL all season. I’m not sure what to think of Firkus, he should absolutely have a chance to play some NHL hockey especially being that we need goal scoring. I really can’t see a player like him fitting into the LL system though and that’s costing him potential development opportunities.
Reading that article I have to admit I was thinking about how good Catton would look playing on a team like the mammoth. I think he’d gel very well with their high flying offense.
I certainly don’t know much, but if you look at the roster this team iced most of the season, there were five, six and seven guys 23 or younger out there most nights. I think Catton is going to be a good get which would be nice because I was super-disappointed they didn’t take Buium.
Wheeler said even though Catton played all season in the NHL he felt this was mostly because of the NHL/CHL agreement and he would’ve been a perfect player for the forthcoming 19 year old AHL exemption. More or less, he still considered him a prospect this season.
The Kraken have a loaded cupboard, tons of cap, and five firsts over the next three seasons. If they go into next season without adding a legit top line forward – whether there’s an opportunity or not – then I’ll jump on your bandwagon Nino. This is, to me, the offseason they absolutely have to do something.
Why Jump on the bandwagon tho? It’s not the FOs fault if there’s no high end talent out there to be had. All signs point to the FA pool being dreadful so they’d have to pry someone from a team and literally everyone is going to be trying to do that. We’re better positioned than most teams on that front but there’s at least 5 teams in similar situations as us with draft capital, prospects and collective will.
We’ve really been screwed by circumstance. Our teams “go get guys” window is exactly when everyone has extra cap due to the artificially deflated cap the last few years. That means everyone can sign their players.
Koist, I agree with all your sentiments on the front office. I do think, however, given the circumstances and the resources going into this offseason, if they’re unable to do anything, it’s less about accountability and more about message. Again, I don’t know much, but I think there could be a lot of player movement opportunities this offseason. With all the “chatter” at the deadline and the lack of movement, I think those situations will be revisited.
Anaheim and San Jose have premium young talent, but the rest of the division looks, to me, like it could be wide open for several seasons to come.
I hope our ownership is smart enough not to placate the internet masses but I also wouldn’t be overly concerned if they moved on from Francis as a token gesture. We both know he’s not running the hockey ops anymore but there’s enough fans that believe he is that they’d probably be placated seeing him moved. I’m sure we will make a move. We have enough assets to overpay if we have to and a bunch of roster spots freeing up.
I agree with you on the Pacific. I fully expect the standings to be inverted in the next few years from where they were last year. It’s going to be fun to watch.
Francis hasn’t been running hockey ops the entire season. He really does live rent free in y’all’s heads.
There’s no reason to clear out executive offices when we have clearly a player problem. No one in hockey ops is telling players to give up on their assignments or telling goaltenders (Joey) to get way out of position. You’re seeing player level focus issues. Could be partially coaching but Lambert constantly talks about it so he’s aware and working on it. Could also be a player personnel issue which they can hopefully resolved with roster management this offseason where we are well positioned to make changes.
But even when FO had chances to change the players, they did so with dumb, too long contracts for players that are ho hum. Making bad choices that we’re complaining about but not adding any value. It is their fault. RF has proven, after 5 years that he’s not cutting it. I think owners need to think about the message they are sending. I also think Botteril is a bad step up so he needs to go too.
They literally signed two of the top 10 players on the big board, both of which have been big contributors. Everyone complains about Stephenson as if he’s millions overpaid. The projections for his contract were only 500k lower than what we paid. Their terms also don’t matter at all. They are both on modifier NTC clauses at the end of their contracts and will be on easily movable dollar amounts when that happens. The more I see people articulate their reasons for hating the FO, the more clear it becomes how little they understand the actual job (and the player market/contracts)
Also please provide any well reasoned arguments against Botterill. I’ll give you a hint now: there really aren’t any.
“There’s no reason to clear out executive offices when we have clearly a player problem”
That’s exactly why the front office has to be cleaned out not an example as to why not. This roster is not well planned and RF doesn’t know how to build a roster. Seriously if you don’t believe RF is running this team and is the architect then I don’t know what to tell you.
I know he’s not running this team. The team has even said as much. It’s more and more clear you are detached from reality. The roster was always planned to be a draft and develop roster. This year is the first year you’d expect to see fruits of that and we have. We had half a dozen players under 23 in the lineup and we have about that many as realistic competitors for roster spots next year. The roster construction isn’t the problem but explaining that to you would require way too long and you’d just dismiss any facts anyway so what’s the point?
I can only believe this Koist poster is a teenager, so will cut him some slack only for that reason.
Once you get out into the real world, Koist, you will find out that leaders are completely responsible for what happens underneath them.
Francis had had six years, which is at least three times as much as any business leader in any other profession would get to demonstrate success. Maybe six times longer.
When the organization under them has been a failure, high-paid upper management pays the price. If he had any ethical bearings at all, Francis would resign based on the failure that has been his tenure.
Will he? Probably not, because the same lack of insight that shows up repeatedly in his talent evaluations means he cannot see himself for the management failure that he is.
Kaz have you ever talked to a brick wall.
Just so I’m clear Kaz, a General Manager of an expansion NHL franchise should demonstrate “success” within two years or be fired? Or maybe one year? And if not fired, they should resign in disgrace. That’s the “real world”?
I think he said another business (not hockey) would get two years of failure before being fired. I feel that probably and mostly is correct although a start up company would have a longer term of allowable failure I’d think?
I was thinking the same thing about the two years as you point out here Daryl. I would have emphasized that the stated goal has been to draft and develop too. That is important because with how hockey works, for a team just starting out it WILL take a long time to start seeing results
My complaints have typically been not leaning HARDER into draft and develop. They should have traded a few pieces at this deadline. They should not have signed Stephenson to a big VERY long term contract. That type of thing.
I don’t know enough about hockey to make the call on Francis. My determination would probably mostly revolve around grading how they have converted draft picks to quality players. #7 best farm seems marginal or iffy given all the extra picks and focus on that aspect of the team.
Aw look at the ad hominems right off the bat. Expansion teams usually take over a decade to be competitive. Vegas only bucked that trend because GMs freaked out and gifted them players in the expansion draft. Let me know when you actually have an argument to make though. I’d love some spirited, fact based debate but so far all anyone seems to have is “team bad”. Also, again, Francis isn’t running hockey ops anymore so his departure is meaningless at this point.
I thought we played a good first period and then we decided that being we were up two goals it was time to lock the game down. Will LL ever just let them play a full game of actual hockey and let them try to produce offense all game long?
After UT got two goals they had built momentum we were sitting back and had gotten ourselves out of the game. We literally just handed over the momentum, a bad coaching mistake cost us what could have been a very important win…. Hey when the games going your way why would you possibly want to switch up what’s working!!!
On another topic we truly don’t deserve to be in the playoffs and we should not be fooling ourselves into thinking we’re capable with this team. We are a 500 hockey team that’s just gotten lucky that they happen to be playing in a historically bad division where almost 500 hockey can get you a date with a 4 game sweep. We just had six unanswered goals scored against us by a team that is in a wildcard position, we’re not talking about a top division team we’re talking about a wildcard team!!!! We let this happen in a game that is crucial for their playoff survival!!!
RF absolutely has to go and the whole coaching staff including Jessica needs to be gone with him. This franchise desperately needs a reset.
Season has been, as predicted, a disaster, masked by being in an historically atrocious division. 3 years, 3 coaches, they’ve gone nowhere. Clearly now behind Anaheim, SJ and Utah; soon to be Chicago and St Louis. Got nothing for the UFAs. Lambert system provides no optimism for the future since his dislike for playing youngsters reinforces the worst aspects of Francis’s instincts. Never a right time to play the kids since they are trying to “compete”.
Nyman, a complete waste of a season, he has real ability as a goal scorer but they’re complaining he’s not a forechecker; meanwhile the PP is dreck. Wright, probably done as a Kraken, never got a full run despite a positive goal difference every year he’s been in Seattle; he’s going to be the next Geekie or Donato or Kartye, or worse Sam Bennett, thrive when he escapes the suffocating system. Catton shows promise but he’s no further ahead than where Wright was this time last year; he’ll probably be bouncing up and down to CV to get further “development”. Most of the others will never be more than 4th liners until they leave and get playing time in a new situation.
They’ll probably try to sign a 30 year old McMann, extend Dunn and McCann like they did Eberle, resign Tolvanen and Schwartz and somehow claim they’ll be competing… again. Wouldn’t be shocked if they extended Grubauer. Maybe add some useless entity like Patrick Laine just to trick the fans
Lambert is untouchable, at least until midway thru next year when the vets quit on him for his dreadful system.
The only move that matters, right now, is getting Francis away the team. Nothing gets better until that first step is taken…
You’ve been unable to objectively evaluate this team for a while now so I won’t touch the majority of the nonsense you listed here. That said… it’s fascinating to see Ron Francis still living rent free in your head (and the head of other doom and gloomers). He isn’t running hockey operations. He isn’t involved in the draft or the signings. Let it go.
Koist he’s living rent free in almost every kraken fans head. Look around this isn’t an oddball opinion.
You only ever hear from the angriest fans, never the rational ones. Thus you get a false impression that the ignorant opinions are the correct and prevailing ones. It’s sad to watch so many fans be delusional, but it also doesn’t help a certain other podcast stokes the fires with ignorance and rage bait.
So are you implying that you’re a rational fan 😂
Trust me Seattle is done with RF, what you choose to believe is not going to change that.
Don’t worry you can tell us all how it was the foundation that RF built that made the kraken better after he’s gone.
He’s not the GM anymore Nino. How gone does he need to be?
Was there somewhere that I said he was the GM? He’s without a doubt the architect of this team and the person responsible for the product we have on the ice. The thing is that even if Jason was a good GM he has his hands tied because the guy who created this team is his boss, I’d love to be a fly on that wall. So Ron now that I’m GM I’ve decided to remake the roster because well what you’ve done actually sucks….
This is RF’s team and it will be as long as he’s in town.
Lambert said we needed a couple more saves last night. He wasn’t wrong. Joey’s been making the same mistakes over and over since the break and yet we keep starting him. We can’t be serious about winning and put Joey in net right now.
Joey has not been good about as much as some of the others haven’t been playing well. As crazy as this sounds I think they should resign Gru for 2 years, although not sure at what salary. It’s hard to say he should make more saves when the offense can’t create goals. It just stands out more when he gives them up.
I’m more worried about goaltending than anything else at this point. It’s possible Gru regresses, but Joeys shown two seasons now he can’t handle the load of being the primary goalie. Kokko also hasn’t had the season you’d want to see to decide to rely on him.
Makes no sense, goaltending has been our strength this season. Joey hasn’t shown he can’t handle the work load we just have a bad team that relies too heavily on goaltending. The only reason we are not seriously trying to decide who we should take with our first overall pick is because of outstanding goaltending most of the season.
We also have strong prospect options developing for our future needs, goaltending is not our problem at least since Grubauer has found his game.
I’m sorry Nino but you really have detached from reality again. Lambert straight up called Joey out last night in the post game presser and has repeatedly over the last month. He’s been unplayable several times post break. The same thing happened last year. Lanes system has done a good job of keeping shots to the outside which has made the jobs of the goaltenders a lot easier this season. It’s also why our analytics look bonkers.
Koist is this supposed to be a joke because it’s very funny. The reason we lost straight up was because of LL himself switching the system to lockdown at the start of the second when we were up 2/0…. I’m so very surprised that he didn’t call his own dumb ass out but he didn’t. Yeah Daccord let in a few soft ones but not until the game was already over…. That loss was in no way the fault of our goalie and if you honestly believe anything different your a complete imbecile. Seriously go watch the game again if you have any doubts.
The more I think about this the funnier it gets, Koist weren’t you one of the diehard Grubauer fans that was defending him at all costs? Grubauer who was last in the league in just about every category and couldn’t stat a game without giving up three goals in the first 10 shots 😂
So now this is all joeys fault, an absolute hypocrite.
You seem to not only be detached from reality but have reading comprehension issues. I never once out the blame solely on Joey for the loss but the bad goals weren’t late. As for your comments about Lane changing the system, that is als not at all what happened in the game. I’m beginning to see your problem overall. You really struggle to parse the game. That at least makes all your comments make a bit more sense. You’re still delusional about who’s running the team but you’re clearly too far gone in that front.
I agree with that but he did play a good game until the wheels fell off, I don’t feel that’s a game that our goalie cost us the game. Maybe it could have been a closer game, possibly a 4/2 loss? It was LL that cost us the game by switching to a lockdown after the 1st period and allowing the momentum to shift. That was the bigger factor not the goaltending.
Kraken need a bold strategy from ownership. I’m not sure they’ve got it in them. They have two years left to do something before we bail on season tickets. I’m a fan, but not an idiot.
I’m not being glib here PAX, but what does a “bold” strategy look like… other than tanking or “winning a bunch of trades”? On Ray & Dregs this week, Ferraro – who I consider the absolute best on the NHL – was talking about fans always wanting their teams to go out and make trades but, as he said, the reality is, most of the time there’s just not a trade to be made. I’m honestly curious what the expectation would be.
You all sound like The Canucks and management acts like the Canucks management. Look where that got them. The Kraken have just a few fast players that can use their speed to make up for their mistakes. I do not see a system. I am assuming that the Kraken could not trade anyone because anyone they have would not make the other teams better. Eli, there was a reason why he was released, Tea he can kill penalties and he has a hard shot but what good it a hard shot if he cannot hit the target? It time to commit to the young players. I mean lets let him play 19=20 minutes on the second line instead of 13 mins on the 3rd or 4th line. More than likely they will trade him and he will thrive. A defensive system is not playing the 3rd line or a 4th line that acts like a back up for an inefficient defense. When they are pressuring the other team in the offensive zone, teams with good D-men stay playing the corner to keep the puck in lay before it crosses the line. They have no offensive systems. Good teams ply both an offensive and defensive systems.
The Canucks are an organization I’m intrigued by. Here was a team that won the Pacific, had two 100 point centers, one of the absolute best defensemen on the planet, a Vezina finalists in net and the Jack Adams award winner behind the bench… and now they’re guaranteed to finish dead last in the league just two seasons later.
I think there’s more to roster construction, building a team and player development than most of us realize.
In my opinion they made a series mistake in bringing Miller onto the team, I feel he is a cancer and tore the locker room apart. I don’t feel they were ever able to recover from it and decided to just screw it and start fresh, they know they have the fan support to withstand a rebuild and fans that are knowledgeable enough to understand that it’s the right track in today’s NHL.
We haven’t figured that one out in Seattle yet, you either have to do it like Vegas or like Vancouver/SJ/Ducks/UT etc. this wish wash BS we want to become a playoff contender before we’re ready is how you don’t do it. I recall even old school Eddie O saying a few weeks back when we were playing some team going through a rebuild… that’s the only way to do it. I always wondered if that was a stab at the Kraken he was making.
Miller was in his fifth season with the team when they won the Pacific.
I’m not sure where the idea of them trying to be a “contender” is coming from. It seems to me they’re trying to be a playoff team and then they can work towards being a contender.
Lastly, all due respect to Eddie O, the idea that there’s only one way to build a contender seems both simplistic and outdated.
There is more then one way but I think GM’s have figured out that the most successful way to do it is with a full rebuild. Trading isn’t as easy as it once was and the FA market has proven that it can seriously jeopardize your future with the contracts often being handed out.
I don’t think it matters if it was millers 2nd, 5th or 10th year… he still tore that room apart. He drove Bo out of town then got into it with Peterson. He is also having similar issues in NY from my understanding.
Another thing I’d add regarding the Canucks is that they have been rumored to have over active ownership that like to make decisions that it might be better if they didn’t.
Anyway who’s going to the game tomorrow, are we cheering for a win? I don’t know anymore.
Root for a loss if you want to increase the odds of this team winning a championship. Root for a win if you have a strong preference for instant gratification that has negative long term consequences.
John mentioned in the podcast that it takes 9 years on average to complete a rebuild. Thinking about it from that perspective we are in year 5 with the expansion draft being the start of the rebuild. There are some glimpses of the positives in the youth (Beniers, Evans, Wright, and Catton), the areas for improvement (too long to list), and the junk. Personally I have little faith in Botterill based on his resume other than maybe Seattle’s ownership will not hand tie him as much as his time in Buffalo.
It would be nice to see them take a big swing with some of those 25 prospects the Athletic mentioned and land a dynamic player but it takes two to tango and different teams have different needs. And it doesn’t mean it will happen.