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Three Takeaways – Kraken lose 5-3, Kings clinch playoff spot

Darren Brown

Kaapo Kakko 041326

In their final home game of the year, the Seattle Kraken actually found a fairly ideal outcome. In classic 2025-26 Kraken fashion, they fell behind by three goals and then tried fruitlessly to stage an epic comeback in the third period. It ended up being too little, too late, but it made for a reasonably exciting game and gave home fans something to cheer about, while also keeping themselves alive in a race for a top-five draft pick.

“A couple of bounces over our stick, and [Quinton] Byfield made us pay,” coach Lane Lambert said. “Certainly our game management at times in the second period wasn’t great… But I thought we generated some chances, some opportunities, and I wasn’t unhappy with the way we were playing, I just didn’t like the scoreboard.”

Here are Three Takeaways from a 5-3 Kraken loss to the Los Angeles Kings.

Takeaway 1: Oh, that’s how you make the playoffs?

One thing Los Angeles coach DJ Smith alluded to after the game is that his players have largely rallied around legendary two-way center Anze Kopitar, who is set to retire after the season, closing out an outstanding 20-year NHL career. Kopitar impacted this game with an assist on Adrian Kempe’s goal that ended up being the game-winner at 12:29 of the third period.

Whether Kopitar is the reason the team has earned a postseason berth is open for debate, but what Los Angeles has done down the stretch is exactly what I kept expecting the Kraken to do after the Olympics, but they just never did it. They never got on even a small hot streak, which could have solidified a playoff position, instead winning no more than two consecutive games from Feb. 25 onward.

The Kings, on the other hand, got hot at exactly the right time. As the Great Pacific Pillow Fight raged on deep into the season, Anton Forsberg rose to the occasion and backstopped Los Angeles to wins in five straight starts, and the Kings as a whole won six of their last seven. That was all they needed.

That kind of run is not crazy. If Seattle had just done that at any point since the break—they had plenty of opportunities with strings of beatable opponents—they may have been the ones celebrating after this game instead of the Kings.

Takeaway 2: More chemistry from Kakko and Gaudreau

The Kraken may have missed an opportunity earlier this season to get Kaapo Kakko and Freddy Gaudreau together. They’ve played a total of 59 minutes together, most of which came on the wings of Chandler Stephenson in the last month or so. But the last couple of games, Gaudreau has been the center with Kakko on the wing. The other wing against Calgary on Tuesday was Jared McCann, but he was shut down for the last three games, so Berkly Catton slid into that spot for this one.

The constant in those last couple has been Kakko finding Gaudreau to create Grade-A looks, and Gaudreau converted for the second game in a row Monday after previously not scoring since March 19.

In this one, Ryan Winterton had a shift playing with that duo, and he made an outstanding play to win a puck battle against three LA defenders. The puck popped out to Kakko at the right side of the crease, and he found Gaudreau at the left side for a wide-open net.

“I like to play with him,” Kakko said of Gaudreau. “I mean, I feel like we kind of think the same on the ice. I already know where he is, and he knows where I am.”

Kakko, by the way, has arguably been Seattle’s most consistent player in the later stages of the season. He said the Olympics helped his confidence.

Meanwhile, there’s no question this has been a frustrating year for Gaudreau, who was traded to Seattle from Minnesota, a team that has emerged as a true Stanley Cup contender this year. After scoring 18 goals there, he’s managed just seven this season, with two of those coming in the last two games.

Perhaps Kakko and Gaudreau finding each other is better late than never, and they can be reunited and find that chemistry again next season.

Takeaway 3: Tough night for Ryan Lindgren

By the 13:19 mark of the first period, Quinton Byfield had scored two goals—one off a 2-on-1 and one off a breakaway—with both coming thanks to Ryan Lindgren-related mishaps at the offensive blue line.

On the first goal, Matty Beniers cleanly won an offensive-zone face-off back toward the side boards. It didn’t come off the wall as hot as Lindgren expected, causing him to hesitate in stepping up for the puck. That little hesitation was enough time for Byfield to jump off his hashmark and poke it around Lindgren, creating the 2-on-1 and giving Los Angeles a 1-0 lead 2:43 into the game.

The second one was just a bad break. Jordan Eberle’s pass intended for Lindgren at the point hopped over his stick, and Byfield was off to the races.

“You know what? [Lindgren] gives it everything he’s got,” Lambert said. “I think that over the last little while he’s definitely had some, I guess you could call it, bad puck luck, with a couple of those power-play goals a couple games ago that go off his stick. But he’ll continue to battle, he’ll continue to grind. That’s just the way he is, but… I thought there was some frustration on his part.”

Bonus Takeaway: Jacob Melanson is a psycho

How about Jacob Melanson, getting challenged to a fight by Samuel Helenius, having it broken up by the refs, then stepping out of the penalty box and immediately dropping the gloves in earnest?

Helenius is WAYYYYYY bigger than Melanson and has fed him his lunch previously in the AHL.

“I just wanted to fire up the crowd there and wanted to get the guys going,” a stitched-up Melanson said after the game. “We had a fight a couple years ago, but I wanted some redemption.

“I don’t think I can say what I said in the box. I talked to him before the game, just seeing what he was up to, and he kind of jumped me at the start. I wanted a fair square off, and he gave it to me, so I appreciate that from him.”

On Melanson fighting to try to spark the team, Lambert said, “Loved it. We need more of it.”

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.

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