It is officially (well, technically it’s still “unofficially,” but it feels pretty darn official at this point) time for Kraken fans to root for losses. With yet another dreadful loss to the last-place-in-the-Central Division Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday, Seattle dropped from four points out of the second wild card to six points out with seven games left to play.
It’s bizarre that the Kraken have stayed in the race for as long as they have, considering their ineptitude since the Olympic break—they’re now 5-12-2 in 17 games since returning from the three-week hiatus on Feb. 25—especially when you recognize that they’ve simultaneously sunk to 28th in the NHL. If they end up in that spot when the season ends, they will have the fifth-best odds of landing the No. 1 overall pick in the NHL Draft.
Then again, it’s also downright sad that we’re in this spot again, rooting for late-season losses for the fourth time in five years. And making matters worse, there’s no obvious bright, shining light on the horizon for this club.
But hey, maybe they’ll win the Draft Lottery? That would be exciting, right?
While the Kraken are still mathematically alive, they sent a clear message Saturday that they are not interested in fighting their way back into the playoff hunt, coming out—as Brandon Montour called it—“flat” to start the game, then again waiting until they were down 2-0 (against a bad team that had lost five straight) to finally show some life.
“Not enough desperation, didn’t start the game well, and our goaltender played fantastic for us,” coach Lane Lambert said. “Too many quality chances from them, and the power play didn’t give us anything, and our penalty kill got scored on. So really, not a really overly great assessment of the game in a game that we needed. It just wasn’t good enough.”
Here are Three Takeaways from a 4-2 Kraken loss to the rebuilding Blackhawks.
Takeaway 1: “Clearly, there’s something that has to change”
As I reported in my Kraken Notebook article on Friday, the team has been trying a different tack the last couple days in a last-ditch attempt to shake themselves out of the emotional crevasse into which they’ve fallen and become lodged. They were more boisterous and jovial than usual at practice on Friday, and while I didn’t attend morning skate Saturday, I heard it was a similar mood. The group is usually quite stoic, so with execution and confidence in short supply, they decided to try loosening things up.
That too did not work. In fact, this loosey-goosey version of the Kraken came out looking dead as a doornail against the Blackhawks and only remained in the game because Philipp Grubauer was outstanding for much of the night, stopping 27 shots with several 10-bellers mixed in.
“We were flat, and you’ve got to give it to them, young legs, had some buzz,” Brandon Montour said. “They’ve got nothing to lose. I don’t know if we’re gripping our sticks too tight or just not playing fast. We created a little bit, but not nearly enough, especially against a team that’s below us, a team that’s already out, we’ve got to obviously be— we keep saying it, but desperate.”
It has to be maddening for a guy like Montour, who left a Cup-winning team known to have (for better or worse) so many big personalities to join a Kraken team that can somehow manage to come out “flat” with its season on the line.
Lambert, by the way, has been an absolute quote machine lately, and he again brought the heat Saturday. I asked him about Montour’s commentary and how he can wrap his head around the team being “flat” at this stage of the season.
“I can’t [wrap my head around it]. I can’t,” Lambert said. “A game of that magnitude, to come out flat, clearly there’s something that has to change.”
What even can change at this point? Hmm.
Takeaway 2: A classic last-minute killer goal
Despite the flat start, Seattle remained tied 0-0 against a poor opponent through half the game. But Vince Dunn took a tripping penalty at 7:52 of the second, and the penalty kill—which has been one of the many areas the team has struggled in of late—again had a lapse that resulted in too easy a look for Teuvo Teravainen.
Credit the Blackhawks for the play, because after Teravainen took a pass from Connor Bedard at the left hashmark, Tyler Bertuzzi suddenly started racing down the slot in lockstep with Teravainen. That made Jamie Oleksiak start backing up to cut off the passing lane to Bertuzzi, so Teravainen cleverly took the ice being given to him, walked all the way in to the top of the crease, and jammed the puck through Grubauer.
Teuvo Teravainen breaks the ice with a power-play goal. 1-0 Blackhawks.
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) April 5, 2026
I'm uninspired by the #SeaKraken so far in this game. pic.twitter.com/ilXW6542qz
But man, I thought Lambert’s head might explode after the second goal against at 19:37 of the second. He had been pacing up and down the bench, screaming instructions at his team to try to get them to sustain puck possession with the clock ticking down in the frame. But Chicago got possession and started a rush that Seattle seemed to have covered, with numbers back.
In fact, Ilya Mikheyev’s pass intended for Anton Frondell did get broken up, deflecting off Jaden Schwartz’s skate. But the puck sat in the slot, and Berkly Catton seemed to get fooled by the direction of the puck, cutting away from Tyler Bertuzzi instead of sticking with him. Bertuzzi jumped on the loose puck and snuck it inside the post.
“That same shift, we had chances the other way, and then I think it was a 3-on-3 play,” Schwartz said. “And it just went off… I think it was my skate to one of their guys that they weren’t even trying to pass to. Just a little bit of an unlucky break there.”
The #SeaKraken look like they have packed it in.
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) April 5, 2026
2-0 Blackhawks after a Tyler Bertuzzi goal with 22 seconds left in the period.
Thought Lane Lambert's head was going to explode on the bench after this one, and they *almost* gave up another one 12 seconds later. pic.twitter.com/KetiYTCc9U
It was actually the third goal—Sacha Boisvert’s first NHL goal, scored at 13:08 of the third to make it 3-1—that gave Chicago proper control of the game, but that one in the closing seconds of the middle frame is what put the Kraken too far behind the eight ball.
Takeaway 3: Jaden Schwartz gets on the scoresheet
How about a little palate cleanser for Takeaway 3?
There were a few bright spots in this otherwise dreadful game, like Grubauer’s play and Schwartz getting on the scoresheet for the first time since getting kicked in the face and missing several weeks.
He got the Kraken on the board and gave them life with a simple drive to the net at 10:48 of the third, redirecting a pretty pass from Eeli Tolvanen past Arvid Soderblom. He also started the play that led to Kaapo Kakko’s rebound goal, picking up the second assist.
THE POWER OF THE SCHWARTZ! 🚨 🕺
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) April 5, 2026
A simple drive to the crease gets the #SeaKraken on the board. Schwartz's first since returning from injury.
2-1 Blackhawks. pic.twitter.com/sds4Kn9dZR
“When you miss time, it always takes a game or two,” Schwartz said. “Just doing what I can for this team right now, and wins is the only thing that matters.”
—
I’m still thinking about what those “changes” were that Lambert was alluding to… Hmm.
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 can’t [wrap my head around it]. I can’t,” Lambert said. “A game of that magnitude, to come out flat, clearly there’s something that has to change.”
So LL I’m all for you showing yourself out the door and that could be a change in the right direction.
This could very well be the worst coached kraken team so far in their history. How they had no jump and did don’t try to take the game over is puzzling to me. We’re talking about one of the cellar dwelling teams, let the team go and attack. 🤬
I truly believe that they have been coached sooooo hard all season long to not play hockey that they actually can’t do it anymore. I feel that any energy that existed is just completely lost, the culture that LL preached all season is in full effect.
I also feel that this all smiles tactic at the end of the season is completely BS unless you have given up, if that the case I’m ok with that but bring up some kids from the farm and play for the future if that’s what we’re doing.
Don’t give me this crap that we need to play lighter loose hockey but don’t actually do anything other then smile at practice.
Nino,
Appreciate all your perseverance as you continued to take arrows from the dim bulbs who speak loudest on this website.
LL being fired is a no-brainer. RF as well. Whether the new hockey ops lead gets a chance to evaluate JB, unsure.
Think this might have to be the end for Campbell, as this is two years of mediocre teams she has been a coach on under two HCs. Put her in charge of power skating for the prospects.
Regarding LL’s coaching and its impact on the team – there’s much truth here. Given the roster limitations, management hired LL to coach his trademark tight, hard, defensive style that they (management) thought was the only way for the Kraken to be competitive, and in fairness LL’s done exactly what he was hired to do. But coaching this way relentlessly throughout the season could have taken its toll, and subliminally the players have been hearing the message (from FO and LL) “you’re just not good enough to complete, you’ve left us no choice but to play this way.” Hard for players to play inspired hockey under those circumstances.
Darren pointed out recently that this team is “fragile.” No way to know for sure, but I wonder if the above has something to do with it. A commenter (many months ago) said that the Kraken job was “last chance gulch” for LL. No doubt true. But Lane Lambert was set up to fail – he was handed a roster that wasn’t playoff quality. Maybe he deserves more credit for getting an undertalented team as close to the playoffs as they did. This season is a disappointment, and the FO has to share (most of) the blame. They constructed a roster no better than the prior two seasons (probably worse given their over-reliance on players that will soon “age out”). If this is “last chance gulch” for LL then it should be the same for RF and JB.
Finally, I wanted to echo Goist’s thoughts as well. The scorn and ridicule you sometimes endure is completely unjustified. You speak boldly and don’t bow to those that are slaves to conventional wisdom and thinking. Your perspective is one that’s needed.
Hang in there.
Thanks totem, your hockey knowledge is an asset to this community.
I do have one question for you, did we get closer to the playoffs or did the playoffs get closer to us? With 7 games left it’s possible to finish second or third worst in the entire league, I don’t feel like we’ve gotten closer to the playoffs. I feel like we are regressing but there are a lot of bad teams around us right now. That in itself should have made us better but it didn’t.
I think we’re worse this year than last, and the optics of being “closer” to the playoffs is because the Western Conference has come down toward the Kraken, not because the team moved up. In 24/25 six teams in WC finished with 100 or more points, and four more teams finished with 90+ points. St. Louis needed 96 points to make the playoffs; the Kraken missed by 20 points.
This year we’re closer, but just because the WC sucks. Only 3 100-point teams and 13 other mediocrities, and the conference is way more tightly packed than last year. Probably it takes only 87/88 points to make playoffs, which Kraken will miss by ~ 5 points or so. Optically we’re closer than last year, but only because of how and crappy the conference is vs. last year.
Simplistically speaking, the Kraken’s plus/minus is more telling. Last year Kraken’s adjusted GDiff was decent at -11, ranking ninth in WC. This year (so far) it’s worse at -24, a YoY decline of -13 goals which ranks eleventh in WC. By this metric it looks as this year’s team is worse than last the 24/25 version.
Sounds familiar… And, yes, it turned out to be a dreadful season…
60 year old Lifer with no offensive hockey intuition and an inability to handle youth. He delivered exactly what he had in his repertoire. Grubauer was the main beneficiary. Maybe the only beneficiary.
His hiring, we have since learned, was because their target had issues that made him unemployable.
That said, there’s no future with Lambert. His style is ancient, the lack of offensive imagination tragic, his inability to work with the kids (unlike older guys like Quennville, Bowless or Maurice) is the true deal breaker with this team. Giving him half a season to get some defense out of next year’s kids isn’t unthinkable provided a huge number of the vets are pushed out; under no circumstances can they be used to block the kids. That’s the new GMs call. He’s gone in a year, regardless.
Face it, they’ll stink next year. Maybe not Vancouver level but it won’t be much better. It’s what the team needs to do
Going to say something VERY controversial. Could Shane Wrignt’s absence be hurting us?
* Shane Wright
Our 4th overall draft pick. He hasn’t been playing, and we have been losing.
No single player’s absence is responsible for this junk.
Several players’ presence is, however. The coaching was mediocre at best. The management was and is terrible.
Start chopping at the top. All of them.
Wright still has a chance at a good career: Compares favorably in his start to several quality players. Better start than another 4th overall choice, Sam Bennett, had. Last season was nearly identical to Cutter Gauthier’s year. Dismissing a guy who just played his 21 year old season as washed is idiocy. He’s important to the organization because he was the first to be drafted and developed, not brought straight out of college. He’ll be good. Just not in Seattle, the Kraken have blown their chance with him. Trade wisely…
Didn’t see THAT one coming lol. Could be true – I hope it’s true, actually. My fear (stated earlier by Darren B) is that the FO gives up on him, ships SW off, and he flourishes somewhere else. As a fan that would be difficult to take.
An experienced, enthusiastic head coach with the understanding on how the game is played today
and how to coach the team your given instead of trying to force a system that isn’t effective in the first place and doesn’t use the players skills to your advantage would be a positive move for the team and the fans I think.
That’s what they tried to do with Bylsma, and the results were even worse.
Turbo I don’t believe at this point Bylsma was worse. This realistically is our worst team performance since day one. Grubauer is better not coaching.
I would argue the current goalie coach has played a role in PG’s improvement.
Yes so far as we can tell the goalie coach might be our MVP this season.
Nino, Bylsma was worse. Not much worse, but definitely worse. We’ve been more competitive this year even though results haven’t followed. The long stretches of miserable, non-competitive play from Bylsma’s team were far more frustrating than what I’ve seen this year, and I know this for a fact because my entire beer league team agrees with me, as well as the vast majority of season ticket holders I’ve encountered.
Since appeals to popularity hold more weight than statistics in this comment section you are now contractually obligated to agree with me.
I’m still not convinced, I feel like all he’s done is clog up the game and reduce chances both ways. I feel like you could argue that that makes us more competitive because it’s a closer game but is that really more competitive? We’re still getting outplayed almost every game.
I mentioned this a few days ago but we play around 32% of our games against a historically bad pacific division, worse then last season. We have been getting most of our wins because of goaltending the team play itself has been head shaking bad throughout most of the season.
We might finish with slightly more points this season but honestly how do you feel Bylsma would have done with Grubauer playing top level hockey and a horrible pacific division to feast on?
Regardless… if it’s even remotely debatable that lambert could be the worst coach in kraken history then our coaching hunt should continue. It’s not like LL has had success elsewhere, there is no evidence that a large portion of our failures were not due to coaching.
Rather a young, hungry coach aware that attacking on offense is allowed. 3 recycled coaches in a row…. Time to try something new.
This leaves one with only three words so say, “Fire Francis Now!”
Let’s salute Nino, the only consistently clear thinker on this website.
Welcome back, Chuck.
…not that you’ve actually been gone anywhere.
Dunn and Larsson got destroyed when they were on the ice last night. And that pairing has been pretty bad for a long stretch lately. That Lars extension is aging like milk. Chicago had multiple 2-on-1s, with a least two of them because Lars/Dunn were out of position.
The Kraken need to completely overhaul the D corp. Olekisak is a UFA and shouldn’t be brought back, given his age. Evans is routinely over-matched on the D end (and on the PK). The PK breakdown Darren pointed out also had Evans just backing up into the crease while not even attempting to stop the puck… something Evans has done a lot lately. He just let the guy walk into the goalmouth.
Best case scenario would be to obtain a better RD (replace Evans) so Lars can get pushed down to the third pairing, which is sadly where he belongs at this stage of his career.
Dunn… his moments of good offensive play are coupled with him tossing hand-grenades when trying to exit the zone. Might have to think about exploring a trade option but a better solution would, again, upgrade the left side and be able to cut some of Dunn’s minutes.
People can talk about the offense all they want, but so much of the team’s issues as of late is the fact that D corps have been atrocious at… well… everything.
And for the love of God… Chandler Stephenson’s face off percentage might be the most meaningless number in existence. I’ve never seen a softer / perimeter floater / poor board player in my life that routinely gets major defensive and PK shifts. Catton is a better board player and is more physical than Stephenson, and it’s not even close. His offensive stats are completely wiped out by his non-existent defense.
It seems to me Dunn hasn’t been the same since the concussion from the Pospisil hit. The first goal he’s in the box, the third comes off of him having the puck behind his net for what looks like an easy clear only to hand it over, and the final goal is him getting beat for the empty net. I think, and this is couch talk, they’re inability to get out of their own end is obviously a real problem and it goes back to last season. As much as everyone is bemoaning their lack of an elite forward, I think you’re spot on Matt, the D corps has been atrocious. They added an 89 point, 55 goal scorer and they’re 3-6-2 in his 11 games.
This was a point of contention last year when people weren’t sure if it was D or goaltending that was our biggest issue. I think it’s fair to say it was both since goaltending has clearly been better this year but D problems remain the same. You could see Grubauer getting visibly frustrated with their difficulty in clearing the zone all night.
I agree with your Pospisil take – he never seemed to return to form after that. Decision making just seems off and there were several times he got caught between making a play and just getting the puck out/in deep last night, but this isn’t just a last night issue.
To my eye Monty has been more reliable, but also a little more quiet than last year. I do wonder if he’s been dealing with some level of injury.
Yes… all of it.
Geez, I hope that you’re wrong but I fear that you’re right. When is fucking Gary Bettman and the league get serious about this? George Parros is a joke…
I think the key is pairing Dunn with a top notch stay at home guy but also returning Dunn to the offensive form he had in the past. I agree with you that he’s look bad. I also wonder if it’s partially a systems thing. We’re being asked to play a more defensive style and that may be limiting Dunn’s upside while highlighting the bad parts of his game.
It’s been all pretty much mediocre play since the premature firing of Hakstol… whom will probably get another opportunity somewhere after what the Avalanche has accomplished this season.
I think you might want to dig into your Hakstol in Colorado take just a bit…
https://milehighsticking.com/do-the-avalanche-regret-hiring-dave-hakstol-01kgqbatj7hh
Thanks for that link. I guess that season 2, 100 points season was a fluke eliminating the Stanley Cup champs in the first round and taking the Stars to game 7 one win away from the Western Conference finals.
The players jelled that season together, Donoto, Geekie, Strong and others who are gone soon after boils down to the boneheaded moves from the front office.
I find rooting for losses to improve your draft picks to be absolute loser behavior, but admit the idea that we could climb all the way to #2 is intriguing.
You can’t fix slow brains, slow hands and slow feet with no heart and a full bank account with long term deals of guaranteed money
How about a three week vacation?
The team has been unwatchable for the past several games.
Why can’t they pass the fucking puck? Do they even bother to look before sending it off to make sure that there is an open player (from their own team) and they’re not hitting it directly into the legs of a defender standing two feet away???? Don’t rocket it at 60mph so it ricochets away and aim for the damn tape and stop hitting it into skates (or missing entirely).
Can they please stop trying to play whatever this chaotic disaster is and just play some simple straight-line north-south offense? Let’s see if they can master some basic fundamentals before trying anything complicated.
Watching so many of the teams that are playing younger rosters, one thing that stands out is that they are playing relatively straightforward games, with players hitting their spots on the ice, competing passes and moving the puck and actually scoring.
I feel like half the time they’re stating down at the puck trying to figure out what to do with it… and then dishing it off into someone’s skates – could be from either team.
Oops… staring down at the puck
I also cannot believe how often when they’re “breaking the puck out” it gets passed up ice to a guy that’s wearing a defender like a poncho… and guess what? Right back into the D zone.
The “changes, hmmm…” comments seem to be a tongue in cheek reference to something, but isn’t it indeed too late in the season to change anything? Am I supposed to get what Darren is referring to? I feel like I’m being dense. Is it just benching one or two vets in favor of melanson and winterton?
I don’t want the team to sell low in Wright.
I am hoping for a new coach, and hoping that coach makes a significant gesture to Wright in the off season to tell him that he is a valuable member of the team that will get lots of minutes. Tell him he believes how he was treated this year was BS.
Every Fish decays from its head. Yesterday moves on MC by Islanders is just great. I deeply doubt possible to make by RF. Keeping the warm chair is a priority so status quo. Change the head change the future. No other way.
Good thing RF doesn’t run hockey ops anymore eh?
To be honest the loss is the best outcome for that game. They are 5th for the draft right now and 3 points from being 3rd. The team needs talent despertly and haven’t been able to get that through trade or free agent signings so they need to pile up as many high draft picks as possible.
but they would not get McKenna, the followers on the 2nd and below are defensemen, Kraken need talent forwards
Draft lottery, every spot you drop increases your odds of getting 1st. Even finishing last overall doesn’t guarantee first pick.
Vancouver – they’ve locked up last – has a 74.5% chance of NOT selecting first.
I know you know this Daryl, but they may have a low chance of picking first but a REALLY high chance of picking top 3. Order of finish is important. Especially if you win it all, that’s really important!
@Brian James…
Absolutely – 100% – where you finish matters and from what I read about this draft there are three guys in a top tier (McKenna, Stenberg, Verheoff) and then everyone else. Vancouver is guaranteed one of those guys. Yes, the higher the better from that perspective… but just look at Vancouver. I get the feeling sometimes folks on here would want to trade places with that tire fire because they’re the worst team in the league and to twist up the Reese Bobby quote, “If you’re not first, you should be last”.
I’d love for the Kraken to land a top three pick in this draft. I’d hate for the Kraken to aspire to that as a team.
Long term contract make this team soft//Kraken management not recognizing they aging UFA’s should have been traded and now they will sign them all to long terms and we will be right back being mediocre again next year. Long losing streaks and not being able to beat elite teams should have sent red flags. Sending the message to the long terms should have priority “plsy better or we will trade you to Vancouver for a bag of pucks if need be. Without any speed, this team is doomed.
There were a few bright spots in this otherwise dreadful game Snow Rider 3D, like Grubauer’s play and Schwartz getting on the scoresheet for the first time since getting kicked in the face and missing several weeks.