When Bobby McMann entered the Seattle Kraken lineup in the middle of March, he helped lead the team to victories on back-to-back days against Vancouver and Florida, while the team maintained the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
Since those games, the Kraken have lost nine of their last 10, falling to now 32-33-11, eight points out of a playoff spot with six games remaining in the regular season.
While McMann’s production on offense hasn’t dipped — eight goals and four assists in 13 games with Seattle — the production of the rest of the Kraken lineup has, and they’re paying the price heavily now.
The losing ways continued on Monday night in Winnipeg, with Seattle falling 6-2 to the Jets.
What’s funny about the win for the Jets is these two have essentially swapped places from 10 games ago. Before this stretch, the Kraken were five points clear of Winnipeg in the wild-card race. After tonight, they are now five points back of them.
Kraken head coach Lane Lambert described the team as “Playing for pride,” at this point, which pretty much means they’re ready to throw in the towel on this season.
Takeaway 1: Change for change sake
We’re officially in the “throw everything at the wall and see what sticks” portion of this stretch for the Kraken. It really seems like they’re trying to do everything differently. Team leadership had been trying to be looser at practices and on the bench, including Jordan Eberle having more vocality to his leadership style of late.
Now the coaching staff is getting in on the action, as the team now seems to be more focused on trying as many different line combinations as possible, in hopes of finding some untapped chemistry, than it is winning games.
The Kraken switched the lines offensively, which was to be expected with Ryan Winterton back from personal leave and slotting back in on the fourth line. Some other reshuffling included Jared McCann and Kaapo Kakko playing with Berkly Catton on the third line, which did look good when they got their opportunities.
But the major change came on the back end, as for the first time since the inaugural 2021-22 season, Vince Dunn and Adam Larsson — in the same lineup together — were separated. Dunn was paired with Cale Fleury on the top pairing, while Larsson went with Ryker Evans.
Dunn was asked postgame by Piper Shaw of the Kraken Hockey Network what it was like when he found out he wouldn’t be with Larsson tonight.
“It’s definitely alarming when you walk into the rink today and you see that,” Dunn said. “Defintely very different.”
Takeaway 2: Philipp Grubauer injured
One player who has held up his end of the bargain for much of this season has been Philipp Grubauer.
Despite losing four of his last five games, he still had a .900 save percentage during that stretch and was still sprawling out to make miraculous saves. Unfortunately for him, great saves haven’t meant much with an offense as stricken as this one.
Against Winnipeg, he made three incredible point-blank saves on Jets leading scorer Mark Scheifele, keeping the score close at least while he was in the game, but he left halfway through the second period after a seemingly innocent, noncontact play. He froze a puck to get a whistle, and then skated straight to the bench.
Kraken PR later confirmed him out for the game with a lower-body injury. Lambert had no update on his status afterward.
Grubauer has dealt with his fair share of lower-body injuries before, and with the season pretty much dead in its tracks, it might be wise to shelve him for the rest of the season and have him start offseason recovery a little early.
Matt Murray is on the trip with the team, so he could be a backup in Saint Paul against the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday (or even play?) if need be.
Takeaway 3: On the bright side…
If you want good news from this one, Seattle still has the fifth-best odds of winning the draft lottery, according to Tankathon, at an 8.5 percent chance. The New York Rangers are tied with Seattle in the overall standings with 75 points, but because of Seattle having more regulation wins, the Rangers have 9.5 percent odds.
The Kraken could still technically wind up with the second-best odds, though that would require Chicago to win all of its games at the end of the season … which is asking a lot, I know.
Anyway, if the Kraken keep falling, then this number will continue to climb. Coincidentally, my insanity levels will climb as well.
Oh well, there’s still time to catch a game at Climate Pledge Arena. After Tuesday in Saint Paul, the Kraken will have one last three-game homestand, wearing the thirds against Vegas on Thursday.
Bonus Takeaway: Jordan Eberle eclipsed the 25-goal mark with a pretty wraparound effort in the first period, which gave the Kraken their only lead of the game. It’s the first time he’s scored 25 in a season since doing so with the New York Islanders in 2017-18. The longevity of his career continues to be impressive.
I want to thank all the authors of this site. It’s amazing that you still find the time and motivation to write, even when there’s nothing left to add.
All fifty people who cared about this team at the start of the season – and perhaps still do – are gathered here.
Here here!
Thanks Cam for stepping up after yet another tough loss.
The thing to think about now is what happens to the UFAs. It you are Oleksiak, Schwartz, McMann or Tollvanen, would you re-sign here?
I would think they would be better off, as far as a competitive team, with heading south. Anaheim and San Jose are both on the upswing, with the core of the teams very young. Think these vets would slot in nicely in those lineups. The millionaire’s tax and Cal. state tax should be a wash.
I don’t think our older vets a good enough to be the backbone of this team and there are too many of them playing in key positions. We really need to take a hard look at our lineup and make decisions that might not necessarily make us better next season.
Having said that with how horrible the coaching was this season I’d hate to make a decision to move on from a player solely because of how their performance was this season.
Fire RF get a new coach running the show and see what we have, Schwartz and the Rig should not be resigned though. Don’t go adding middle six free agents and don’t trade Wright until we have a new coach in place and we’re sure he’s not the fit.
0.01 chance of the playoffs… so there is a chance.
Two pre game statements by LL stuck out to me. One was that the team needs to play better defense, although true their defense sucks I feel like maybe the better problem is the offense…. Maybe I’m going out on a limb though? I will say this though, we play a very passive system on both ends of the ice allowing teams to have their way with us, I wish our system was more aggressive on both ends. The other statement that LL had was that we need to be better at the things that don’t require skill!! I kind of took this the wrong way and I think it’s hard not to. Everyone and their dog is talking about how this team has no skill and the coach comes out and says that… maybe not the best way to get the room motivated?
Wouldn’t mind seeing them beat the Knights (selfishly because it’s my last game) but we really don’t need or want any more wins. This isn’t a bad year to try to get a better pick, it’s all we have to look forward to now.
Let me know when it gets to 0.000001…
I’m ready for big, bold moves. Fire RF and his team (I’m no Botterill fan) get a coach who is willing to shake things up. It seems like management has been playing it safe and those days are over. Get rid of players who are hovering in the middle and make room for bigger moves. Keep your young talent but find a coach that will develop them properly. It seems like some of them have been mismanaged. They need to send a message to both the fans and the players they’ll keep. Nobody wants to work at a company that doesn’t value your performance.
So much of this. Hire Sullivan before he’s off the market the way that the Islanders went and got DeBoer before all the teams went in on him. I’ve been trying to give Botterill the benefit of the doubt based on he got screwed over by Buffalo management but he’s been mid. At this point don’t bring back any of the UFA’s and make space for younger talent, ready or not.
Is Sullivan available?
I’m not thinking the Kraken should hire a new coach until they figure out if they are keeping RF, I’m sure new management would like a say in their coaching staff. I honestly can’t see them keeping RF past this season but I could be disappointed.
I’d be interested in maybe going towards someone like Manny Malhotra, he could be an interesting candidate. There is also mark savard who would be a little more fun to watch coach, RF would never hire him though.
Given that Ron Francis has no involvement in the player personnel or the coaching staff, whether he’s here or not is irrelevant much like your comment here.
It’s not irrelevant, he’s the architect of this mess. It all falls on him whether you like it or not. The team can’t move forward in a different direction with RF at the helm. Where do you even get your information from… he has no involvement In the coaching staff? That’s a good one, he just spends all day updating the teams twitter/x account? You can’t even spell your name correctly!!!
Nino, I get you’re willfully ignorant at this point but I get my jnfo from the team who has stated exactly what I have already told you. Botterill is running the team. Hell Ron has even said he was going to be hands off. There’s a ton more that goes into the administration of a hockey team than the actual team itself. I’m sorry to have to keep correcting you but you keep regurgitating the same ignorant nonsense.
Still nothing to do with the fact it’s his team he’s built, you’re the ignorant one. You don’t even pay attention to what people say, glad to see you learned how to spell your name.
I find it very very difficult to believe that if a new coach was hired RF would have “nothing” to do with it. You have no clue what you are even talking about you just sit around and troll posters.
And again you stick your head in the sand and deflect when provided with evidence: the teams own words. At least you’re proving me right… you’re willfully ignorant and don’t want to learn. Come back when you actually have evidence.
I heard you say clearly, BTW, that Francis architected the team. That’s not a point for debate so there was no point in mentioning it. His being on the team is indeed entirely irrelevant to any future coaching or roster moves as he won’t be involved per the facts I’ve now laid out to you repeatedly. Don’t bother replying with more denials here. Facts are facts. Go listen to the press conferences. I know you won’t. Easier to be angry that get informed.
I wonder if maybe after the PK went 0/3 Gru just said “F this” and called it a night. Who could really blame him?
Or F this and called it a season.
It’s sad to see Gru go down but I guess that at least forces the hand here to play the worse goalie given we’re basically eliminated at this point. Might as well give Murray a game or two as well.
Did you think Grubauer was the worse goalie last season, the season before that, the season before that and the season before that?
Well since you asked and you’re fishing I’ll school you. He was the best goalie the first two seasons but that wasn’t exactly saying much. The third season was a bit of a mixed bag but generally Joey was the better goalie. He was the worse goalie for the majority of last season but that had a lot to do with the coach setting him up for failure (well documented at this point and I’m sure part of what got Bylsma and the goalie coach fired). He’s been the better goalie the majority of this season.
I shouldn’t have to tell you this as this is all backed up by data (and using your eyeballs), but given you’ve proven to be unable to parse the game, we’ll stick to just the data.
Well actually you’re wrong again. Technically DRIEDGER had a better save percentage and looked like the better goaltender in year one but the Kraken played Grubauer more because of his contract. Year 2 Grubauer was only three games above 500 and had a horrible season until he got motivated for one series against his former team. A huge majority of our wins came with JONES in net and in fact we would not have even made the playoffs without jones.
This actually is the first season that Grubauer has been the better goaltender but Daccord has better numbers this season than any other year that Grubauer played for the kraken… FYI. If you’re willing to write off Daccord so quickly after a slightly down season why not Grubauer?
See above. It’s funny watching the mental gymnastics you’re doing to avoid accepting reality. Pro tip: Save % is not what you should be looking at. It’s also funny watching you try to twist words. I’m not writing Joey off at all. He may improve next season but he’s show two years in a row now he can’t handle a traditional starter load. Gru may also regress next year. Goalies are a fickle bunch.
Your just a troll please never reply to me again
You never say anything of substance and just constantly attack people, most have more hockey knowledge in their fingertips than you will ever have. If you a mentally challenged or under 15 I apologize but if not go screw yourself.
Nino, be better. Name calling and going so low below the belt is really uncalled for. I’m sorry the reality checks have been unpleasant for you but please do refute the points being made as I have on your.