If hockey is a game of mistakes, the Seattle Kraken made one—or maybe two or three—too many on Thursday, costing themselves a standings point against the Tampa Bay Lightning. But to their credit, they very nearly overcame those mistakes again and did rally back to force the game into overtime.
“[It was] skating,” coach Lane Lambert said of what made the game feel different from period to period. “We weren’t moving our feet. We weren’t making quick enough plays, so when we don’t do that, we look very average. When we do it, we look above average.”
The overtime defeat meant the Kraken are now 3-0-1 on what many viewed as a very tough early-season test of a road trip, with an opportunity to come home Saturday night with as many as nine points out of a possible 10.
“That’s a good point for us to get, certainly being down like that in the third period,” Lambert said. “So at the end of the day, you start getting into Game 4 and Day 8 or 9 of a road trip, and it starts to become fatiguing. I thought we had a little bit of fatigue tonight.”
By the way, this loss may have come with an even bigger cost to the team, which we’ll touch on in Takeaway 3.
Here are Three Takeaways from a 4-3 Kraken overtime loss at the Lightning.
Takeaway 1: Costly mistakes
After Freddy Gaudreau pressured Andrei Vasilevskiy and Emil Lilleberg into a costly turnover, Ryan Winterton opened the scoring on the doorstep. Seattle returned the favor 11 minutes later.
Off a rush that looked like Seattle had plenty of manpower back, both Brandon Montour and Ryker Evans shaded toward puck carrier Brayden Point. That meant Brandon Hagel was cruising down the right flank uncontested. Hagel shot, got his own rebound, and chipped it over Philipp Grubauer’s shoulder.
Brandon Hagel gets his own rebound and ties it. #SeaKraken had numbers back, but both Montour and Evans went for Brayden Point, and Evans seemed to lose track of Hagel. 1-1 https://t.co/scnN3iZ0jo
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 15, 2026
To be fair to Evans, I do believe he read that Berkly Catton had Hagel marked on the backcheck, but as Evans moved toward Point, Hagel pulled away from Catton and found himself with plenty of time and space.
Later, with the score tied 2-2 thanks to a Jared McCann power-play goal at 2:54 of the third, Ilya Mikheyev was gifted a go-ahead goal by Ville Ottavainen around the midway point of the frame. The 24-year-old rookie defenseman, who scored his first NHL goal Tuesday in Philadelphia, briefly lost the puck at the side of the net.
Ottavainen regained control momentarily, but rather than quickly swatting it into open space, he instead tried to stickhandle right through Grubauer’s crease. He lost it again, but this time he did so right onto Mikheyev’s stick, and although Mikheyev didn’t get good wood on his shot attempt, the puck popped up in the air and fooled Grubauer.
Oh, no, Ville! 😬 Ottavainen stickhandles right in front of Grubauer and coughs it up to Ilya Mikheyev. The puck pops over Grubauer and in. 3-2 Lightning. https://t.co/jIIcXfVt4n
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 16, 2026
The cherry on top of the sundae came in overtime. With Victor Hedman rushing through the neutral zone 1-on-3, Shane Wright, Evans, and Mackie Samoskevich got too spread out at the blue line and left a big gap right up the gut for Hedman to exploit.
Indeed, the former Norris Trophy winner saw the opening and pushed the puck ahead. He then powered his way right past all three Kraken players before poking it under Grubauer and stealing back the second point for Tampa Bay.
#SeaKraken lose 4-3 in overtime. Victor Hedman pokes it ahead and then powers between Shane Wright, Mackie Samoskevich, and Ryker Evans before slipping it under Grubauer. Kraken did well to pull a point out of that one, though. Now 3-0-1 on the road trip. https://t.co/6oEJb0nvFQ
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 16, 2026
A standings point in Tampa Bay is never reason for a team to hang its collective head, but a win was within reach for the Kraken in this one. They just shot themselves in the tentacle with a few sloppy plays that proved to be the difference.
Takeaway 2: Matty Magic
Lambert mentioned fatigue being a factor, and it definitely did not feel like Seattle had its best mojo in this one. Of course, Tampa Bay is still a great team, so seeing the Lightning tilt the ice in the second period and take a 2-1 lead into the third in their building wasn’t terribly surprising.
While a Kraken win was within reason, had they avoided some of the aforementioned mistakes, it would have been a regulation loss if it weren’t for an excellent individual effort from Matty Beniers in the dying minutes of the game.
He cleanly won an offensive-zone face-off back to Vince Dunn at the point, then did the smart thing and hustled straight to the front of the net. While battling there with Hagel, he kept his eyes up and showed off his hand-eye coordination to get a piece of Dunn’s shot just before it reached Vasilevskiy, deflecting it past the superstar netminder and tying the game with 4:19 left on the clock.
MATTY MAGIC! 🚨 Beniers wins the face-off and goes straight to the net. Vince Dunn drags and shoots, and Matty gets the tip. 3-3 #SeaKraken https://t.co/v54BdKhftE
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 16, 2026
“Obviously, it’s a big goal for us,” Lambert said. “He did a really good job of winning the face-off and going to the net. We drew it up that way. We felt we could beat their centerman to the net, so he did exactly that.”
The goal, by the way, was Beniers’ 200th NHL point.
“It’s very, very cool,” Beniers said. “Yeah, I don’t know. It’s a sweet thing to think about, but I think I’m just more focused on the team winning at this point.”
Takeaway 3: Brandon Montour goes down
One reason for optimism coming into this season was good health for key players like Jared McCann—who came through again with his third goal and eighth point in eight games—Kaapo Kakko, and Chandler Stephenson.
And lest we forget, perhaps the most important of all those “hopefully more healthy” players is Brandon Montour, who was limited to 64 games last season due to a bursa on his ankle, a broken hand, and the tragic passing of his brother. He also told Sound Of Hockey that injuries lingered for him all season long.
Now, there’s reason for concern for Kraken fans once again. The Kraken Hockey Network mentioned during the game that Montour had gone missing from the bench midway through the first period. Having gone back and watched his last shift before that brief disappearance, I didn’t see anything obvious, and he did return after a few minutes.
But then, a few minutes into the second, he fell awkwardly going over the blue line and left the game for good due to what the Kraken officially deemed a lower-body injury.
#SeaKraken are without Brandon Montour right now. The KHN broadcast said he’s gone missing twice tonight, but here is his most recent shift. He did have an awkward fall going over the blue line… https://t.co/ZyJLAo9bLp
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 16, 2026
Montour going down left the Kraken with five defensemen rotating for more than half the game. Remember, they already are without Ryan Lindgren and have both Ottavainen and Josh Mahura in the lineup, with Cale Fleury still serving as a healthy extra. There’s a chance all three will be in the game Saturday at Florida.
Here’s hoping the injury is nothing serious, because Montour is a player the Kraken cannot afford to be without for any significant period.
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.
To be fair, I just finished watching the Hawks game on delay after watching The Kraken, and then had a cigar and a whiskey, and then cleaned the kitchen, and haven’t had a chance to read this article which is probably awesome. BUT… I’m not sure going into Tampa and getting a point is “costly”.
To be fair, I just finished watching the Hawks game on delay after watching The Kraken, and then had a cigar and a whiskey, and then cleaned the kitchen, and haven’t had a chance to read this article which is probably awesome. BUT… I’m not sure going into Tampa and getting a point is “costly”.
Sorry, haven’t figured this new system out. Apparently you can go back, and then forward and it posts your comment again.
I’d suggest reading the article before posting, there was an injury in the game.
don’t love the new system but I guess I’ll get used to it.
By the way. Remember when we wanted Rick Tocchet? Holy smokes.
Otto has certainly looked like a rookie a few times coughing up the puck in the D zone in the handful of games he’s played. Chalk it up to growing pains but if Monty is out for an extended period with Lindgren our D core is going to be pushed to its limits. We played a pretty good game against a top tier team and coming away with 1 point is considered a win in my book.
Ugh, is Monty going to be on the injury bus this year?
Sweet Christmas, can the Lightning ever backcheck! I don’t know what lit a fire under them, but they were going all-out for that win like they had the game circled on their calendar. The game was a track meet for a while with the Kraken holding their own righ up until they got gassed, which is to be expected when playing with only five defensemen. I think Ville Ottavainen finally had his “welcome to the NHL” moment today. The rookie is going to be good for sure, but he still has some rookie mistakes to work out of his system.
The Catton line, for all their offensive skill, it still having some trouble getting the puck out of the defensive zone. The puck got stuck in their end on a few occasions last night, but, thankfully, Grubauer was his awesome self and kept things from getting bad. We call it “the Catton line,” because Catton takes slightly more draws than Wright does, but I noticed something when watching them between plays: it’s really Kaapo Kakko’s line. That grizzled old veteran Kakko is calling the plays and telling the other two where to go. He is also the only one of the three who is good at winning along the wall. Wright still isn’t quite comfortable yet, and Catton gets seperated from the puck a little too easily. Kakko, though, is on top of his game. Keep an eye on him the next time you see that line on the ice, and you will see what I mean. He is the catalyst.
Matty is really something else. Not only did he, McCann, and Samoskevich manage to keep up with the appropriately named Lightning, but they seemingly tilted the ice in their favor whenever they jumped over the boards. Lately it has been the Gaudreau line that has done that, but last night the Beniers line felt like the energy line.
Speaking of the Gaudreau line, Ryan Winterton continues his rapid ascent. All three of those guys can finish (who knew Freddy was a sniper?), but Winterton’s explosive speed has given him a few opportunities so far against opponents who looked surprised by how he was able to blow by them. Traditionally speaking, he is a prototypical top-six winger, but he is making his skill and speed work to his advantage along with Meyers and Gaudreau to create a truly dangerous transition threat. How long can the Kraken keep Winterton on a line that gets so little ice time? He is in kind of the opposite situation as that of Catton and Wright. With the latter two, we keep wanting them to seize the opportunity to move up, but with Winterton it’s like he has well earned more time but everything is working so well with Samoskevich and Eberle that he has no path to a bigger role.
Has anyone else noticed how differently Jordan Eberle has been playing this year? It looks like he is trying to change his game to be more of a hard-checking possession guy who gets the puck off the wall to Stephenson and McMann who then take advantage of the opportunities Eberle creates. It’s a smart move, in my mind given his age It may buy him a couple extra years in the league. Hopefully he keeps finding opportunities to deploy that backhand shot of his.
Hats off to the defensemen in that game who played way more minutes than they should after Montour got hurt. Sure, the Lightning took advantage of them on a few occasions, but those situations happened on long shifts for guys. Even Ottovainen’s ill-advised play in front off the crease happened when he and Mahura had been back there a while and were just trying desperately to get the puck out. I also noticed Adam Larsson specifically being a beast when the puck went low. I see you working, Big Cat.
Hope Montour returns to the line up quick. If he ends up going to IR, this feels like the time to call up Ty Nelson. Other than Dunn and on some occasions Ryker, they don’t have another D who can really drive offensive play the way Monty does. He had a good camp and has opened the AHL season well, this feels like the time to bring him up.
Hit post and saw the Kraken already beat me to it. I’m looking forward to seeing Nelson get his chance, but I’m hoping this doesn’t mean something too serious is wrong with Montour.
I suspect that it is a bad sign that they are recalling Nelson right now before the end of a road trip instead of waiting until they get home. That probably means that they want him practicing with the team as soon as possible to prepare for an extended stay, because reinforcements will not be arriving anytime soon. God, I hope that Evans and Fleury work well together, because they are about to get a lot of ice time.
My guess is that if they are bringing up Nelson he is probably going to be playing. That could be frustrating for Fleury if that happens. I would be happy to see Nelson getting some NHL games and thought he earned that in the preseason but I also feel for Fleury.
Oh boy, I really do not like the idea of Ty Nelson playing second pairing minutes with the big club this early on, especially given how shakey his would-be partner Evans has looked so far this season while taking on more responsibilities in Lindgren’s absence. Between Nelson and Ottavainen, the team would have two rookies making rookie mistakes at the same time, and neither would not be paired with a guy who wear an “A.” I would feel much more at ease with the veteran Fleury in the role. At least Fleury is a known quantity at the NHL level, and he has been practicing with the team for the past couple weeks. But, hey, Coach knows better than I do what his players can do. If he thinks Nelson is ready for it, then he is probably right. Still nervous, though.