Earlier in the season, we compared Seattle Kraken data from the team’s winning streaks and losing streaks. Now that the season is over, I wanted to revisit that analysis and break the season into three buckets.

• Opening stretch: Oct. 9, 2025, to Dec. 19, 2025, 12-14-6 record in 32 games
• Pre-Olympic break: Dec. 20, 2025, to Feb. 5, 2026, 15-6-3 record in 24 games
• Post-Olympic break: Feb. 6, 2026, to April 17, 2026, 7-17-2 record in 26 games

The buckets are not equal in games played, but they are big enough sample sizes to learn about the differences in how the team was performing during those times. Those periods also make sense to use for this analysis, because the Kraken had very different success rates in each stretch.

Opening stretch

The opening stretch featured a team that showed promise, started hot, then went ice cold.

Through the first 23 games of the season, the Kraken were 11-6-6. That put them second in the Pacific Division and 10th overall in the league. That stretch carried them to Thanksgiving, Nov. 27, 2025.

At the time, it looked like new head coach Lane Lambert’s system was working. The Kraken were competing and winning in the first quarter of the season.

Then, after Turkey Day, the season turned. Seattle went 1-8-0 and dropped from 10th in the league to 31st.

Pre-Olympic break

Just when many were counting the Kraken out, they became the hottest team in the Pacific Division before the Olympic break.

Seattle went 15-6-3 and surged back into the playoff conversation. The Kraken had the fourth-best record in the NHL during this stretch.

With a little more than two-thirds of the season complete, it looked like the Kraken had found their way. Outside of the 1-8-0 stretch, Seattle had played 47 games at a .649 points percentage.

The Kraken headed into the break full of confidence and sitting third in the Pacific Division.

Post-Olympic break

After the break, the Kraken could not find a shred of confidence. They free-fell out of the playoff picture.

Seattle went 7-17-2, which ranked 31st in the league during this stretch. The only team worse was the Toronto Maple Leafs, who finished one spot ahead of the Kraken in the NHL Draft Lottery odds and eventually won the first overall pick.

The Kraken finished 27th in the NHL standings and landed the seventh overall pick in the upcoming draft.

Expected vs. actual goals

The Kraken used a system that relied heavily on defensive structure. That came at the cost of offense, but during the pre-break stretch, Seattle found the best balance of the season.

The Kraken scored 3.42 goals per game during that run, their highest mark of the three buckets. They also had their best defensive results, allowing 2.58 goals per game.

During their worst stretch, the post-break run, the Kraken generated their lowest expected goals for at 2.58 per game. Scoring dipped, but the bigger issue came at the other end.

Seattle allowed a season-high 3.69 goals per game after the break. That was significantly higher than its expected goals against of 3.17, suggesting the defensive structure and goaltending both struggled.

One data point stands out. During the pre-break run, Seattle had its highest xGA of the season at 3.22. But the Kraken allowed only 2.58 goals per game, indicating they received elevated goaltending during that stretch.

Team goaltending

The team goaltending numbers aligned closely with Seattle’s win-loss record in each bucket.

During the pre-break stretch, when the Kraken were winning, goaltending hit a season high in both save percentage (.915) and goals saved above expected (15.24).

The opposite was true during the post-break stretch. Seattle’s save percentage dropped to .877, and its goals saved above expected fell to -13.65. Both were season lows.

Scoring first

If you pulled the numbers from the scoring-first chart, they would look almost identical to the team save percentage chart above.

More often than not, teams that score first go on to win the game. The Kraken scored first in 41 games, exactly half of their season, and went 24-13-4 in those games.

Overall, that sounds like a decent record. It also highlights the importance of scoring first. The issue came after the Olympic break. Seattle had a losing record when scoring first, even though it scored first exactly half the time in each bucket.

That shows the Kraken had a hard time protecting leads. It becomes even clearer when looking at games where the Kraken held a two-goal lead at any point.

Seattle won 23 straight games when holding a two-goal lead to start the season. But in the final 20 games, the Kraken held a two-goal lead seven times and went just 4-2-1. One of those wins came in overtime.

Percentage of time leading

Game strategy can change depending on whether a team is leading, tied, or trailing.

With Seattle’s defensive strategy, the Kraken often seemed comfortable playing with the game tied. But after the break, there was a dramatic uptick in the amount of time spent trailing.

That forced Seattle to chase offense. When teams chase offense, defensive breakdowns tend to follow, which helps explain why Seattle’s goals against jumped after the break.

Shots

Looking at shot volume, it is interesting that the Kraken were at their best when taking fewer shots.

During the pre-break stretch, when Seattle won the most games, the Kraken averaged only 24.9 shots on goal and 50.1 shot attempts per game. They also allowed their most shots against during this span, which again points to how important goaltending was during that run.

Here is a breakdown of expected goals from shots from the low-, medium-, and high-danger areas.

Overall, the Kraken had a lower offensive xG than their opponents in each bucket. It is hard to win consistently over a full season when the opponent generates more expected offense.

Special teams

Finally, let’s look at special teams.

The penalty kill finished 31st in the NHL. Technically, it could have been worse, but not by much. There is far more room to improve in the positive direction next season.

John Barr created a 10-game moving average of the penalty kill that can be viewed here.

The power play finished 21st in the NHL, solidly in the bottom half of the league.

The biggest takeaway is that Seattle’s power-play xG per 60 dropped to its lowest total during the third of the three buckets at 5.44. To rub salt in the wound, the Kraken scored only 2.99 goals per 60.

Watching the games live, it seemed like the Kraken started taking more shots from the point after the Olympic break. Here is a heatmap of the power-play shots in each bucket.

At first glance, the intent looks similar in each bucket. The Kraken wanted to get the puck to the net front, where most of their shots came from. They also generated shots from the wings near both face-off dots.

I added an orange line to the heatmap, 10 feet from the blue line, and counted the number of shots from that area in each bucket.

There are two takeaways:

1. The percentage of point shots increased to 12 percent. Those are typically low-percentage shots and are easier for goaltenders to control.
2. In the opening stretch and pre-break buckets, the point shots were more tightly grouped. In the post-break bucket, they spanned a larger portion of the blue line.

That could indicate a change in strategy, with the Kraken shooting from everywhere to get pucks to the front of the net. But it also felt like they were rushing shots.

For comparison, Kraken opponents took only 4.8 percent of their power-play shots from the point against Seattle’s penalty kill. It should be noted that the special teams data only looks at 5-on-4 power-play situations and 4-on-5 penalty-kill situations.

Hot and cold

The Kraken had a hot-and-cold season where goaltending, defense, and offense all had to align for a full 60 minutes to earn a win.

The team had sustained stretches where that formula worked. But the lows also showed Seattle does not have enough offensive firepower to consistently compete when it falls behind.

The finish to the season is not all bad. The Kraken are set to get their fifth top-10 pick in the NHL Draft on June 26.

Meanwhile, although the Kraken are done for the season, the Coachella Valley Firebirds continue to amaze. They are advancing to the AHL Pacific Division Finals against the Colorado Eagles, giving Seattle’s prospect pool more valuable playoff experience.

All data was sourced from MoneyPuck.com and the NHL play-by-play data.

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