Hello from the friendly skies for another edition of “Kraken Road Dispatches,” as I reflect on my second Kraken road trip of the season. After following the team to Calgary and Edmonton to begin the season, I connected up with them in Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia on this most recent trip before splitting back off to New York, while the Kraken limped their way to one point against Tampa Bay and Florida.

What was I doing in New York, you ask? Well, it had nothing to do with the Kraken—it was for a friend’s birthday bash—but that’s how I ended up at two games of the Kraken road trip, along with Sound Of Hockey’s John Barr. With a trip already planned to New York, tacking on stops in D.C. and Philly was a bit too easy to pass up.

So, for those asking if I’m going to be on every road trip with the Kraken this season, the answer is, sadly, “No.” The road trips just got a tad front-loaded this season with the season-opening jaunt and now this one coming in quick succession. Nonetheless, it was great to catch a couple more games on the road… And they were fun games, at that.

As I did after the first road trip of the campaign, here are some more bullet-pointed thoughts from what ended up being a 3-1-1 trip for Seattle.

Tough finish to the trip — Seattle had a chance to bring home what would have been an almost unbelievable nine points out of 10 if it had brought its best in Florida on Saturday against the Panthers.

That certainly didn’t happen, though, with the Kraken conceding two separate hat tricks to Carter Verhaeghe and Sam Bennett and getting smoked 8-3. Couple that with a mistake-riddled overtime loss at Tampa Bay on Thursday, and they brought back seven points. Still a strong showing, but things fizzled in a big way as the team fatigued and started to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Joey Daccord has had some great games but also a couple tough ones so far this season, and this was one of those “tough” ones. Statistically, he posted just a .784 save percentage in the game, allowing eight goals on 37 shots (I wouldn’t hang many of the goals on him, but it’s a rattling game, regardless). I was a little surprised coach Lane Lambert stuck with Daccord and let him get shelled like that, but remember, Philipp Grubauer had played the two games prior.

It’s hard to say what the right course of action is for protecting your netminders in those scenarios, when one is presumably tired and the other is getting shellacked. I’ve always believed it’s best to get your goalie out of there to protect his confidence, but perhaps Lambert didn’t see that as an option.

Mackie Samoskevich returns to Sunrise — Mackie Samoskevich returned to Florida on Saturday to face the team that drafted him and with whom he won a Stanley Cup as a rookie two seasons ago. I had planned to do a video interview with Samoskevich in Philadelphia, but he ended up with a scheduling conflict, so we had the chat remotely when the team was in Tampa. It’s now on YouTube for your viewing pleasure.

It was heartwarming to see Samoskevich, still just 23 years old, get a massive ovation from Panthers fans in his return to Sunrise. In the interview, we discussed how much of a roller coaster it was to win hockey’s ultimate prize in his first season in the NHL, as well as the incredible gesture he made for his community afterward, bringing the Cup to the Sandy Hook Elementary Memorial in his hometown.

Fourth line cooking — Even with the Kraken getting rolled in Florida, the fourth line contributed offense yet again, with Freddy Gaudreau potting his fourth goal of the five-game, 10-day journey. He also had two assists on the trip, while linemates Ben Meyers (1-4—5) and Ryan Winterton (2-3—5) each racked up five points of their own.

In Philadelphia, I asked Winterton and Meyers what is working so well with that trio. Here’s what they said…

Meyers: “I think we’re just working together, and kind of enjoying that process. There’s a lot of good communication going on, and obviously, we’ve gotten good results the last couple games. So, I think it’s just sticking to a process, and I think we just work well together as three guys.

“I think all three of us just have wide skill sets. You look at Freddy, he can play any position, really. He takes draws. I think we’ve all been working really hard on the forecheck, which is kind of the name of our game. It’s how we’re going to have success, so I think that’s the foundation, but also just being in the right spots and being consistent and predictable is huge too.”

Winterton: “I just think, this road trip especially, we’ve just been very connected. And it kind of seems like things are going our way right now, which is nice. But also, we’ve got to stay on it here… I think our line can contribute every night, and I guess it’s kind of showing right now. I think we’ve just got to run with the confidence right now and keep this thing going.”

Meyers explains hit on Victor Olofsson — Speaking of Meyers, I finally got a chance to ask him about his hit that injured Vegas forward Victor Olofsson in Seattle’s 6-2 loss to the Golden Knights back on Oct. 6.

As I said in various forums following that game, I didn’t think the hit was malicious, mostly because of my interactions with Ben Meyers and watching him play over the last couple of seasons. He’s a guy that I don’t think would ever intentionally hurt a fly.

But the fact of the matter is, he did catch Olofsson in an awkward position, and he did finish the check, sending Olofsson into the boards, injuring the player, and sparking an extremely contentious finish to that game. For the hit, Meyers received a five-minute major and a game misconduct for boarding, but the NHL apparently agreed with me on the nature of the hit because it did not give Meyers any supplemental discipline.

Ben Meyers catches Victor Olofsson in an awkward position and injures him. Olofsson needed help getting off the ice. Looked pretty bad. Meyers got a 5-minute major and a game misconduct for boarding. #SeaKraken #VegasBorn https://t.co/hVZc6wk8Bc

— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 7, 2026

“It was obviously, super unfortunate. You don’t want to see anybody go down, ever,” Meyers said. “I didn’t mean to… obviously, I think he was in a pretty unfortunate spot, close to the boards, and, I mean, I made contact with him. I think it was a penalty. I don’t know, I certainly didn’t try to finish hard, and I don’t feel like I did, but, unfortunately he got hurt.”

Olofsson is still week-to-week and remains on injured reserve.

Defensive depth being tested — And speaking of injuries, the Kraken have remained fairly healthy up front so far [knock on wood], but they’ve begun dipping into Coachella Valley to shore up their blue line. Brandon Montour was injured in the 4-3 overtime loss at the Lightning on Thursday and is day-to-day with a lower-body injury.

It’s a big concern, of course, because Montour is a critical piece for this roster and was dealing with injuries all last season. The hope was for him to stay healthy in 2026-27, so seeing him go down is troublesome. The day-to-day tag, coupled with the fact that the team has not placed him on IR, are positive signs that it should be a relatively short-term absence.

But with Ryan Lindgren already on the shelf since the aforementioned Golden Knights donnybrook game, the Kraken had all three of Josh Mahura, Cale Fleury, and Ville Ottavainen in the lineup on the same night Saturday.

Ty Nelson was recalled from the Firebirds on Saturday but did not play against the Panthers. Him being the first call-up confirms what we saw from him in September—that he had an excellent Training Camp and left a positive impression on the Kraken brass.

Put D.C. / Philly on your list — As I did in the last Kraken Road Dispatches, I’ll give a quick review of D.C. / Philly as a potential road trip for fans. While Calgary and Edmonton made for a super-easy trip, those cities lacked pretty hard on entertainment options.

I think that’s what makes D.C./Philly worth the cross-country flight. Sure, it takes a long time to get there and back, but you can fly straight into DCA, which is in the middle of Washington and about a 10-minute cab ride from the heart of downtown. Washington is, of course, a proper big city with infinite entertainment and cultural activities, and the arena is right there in the middle of it all. Great road city.

Then, to get to Philly, you can easily take Amtrak or, as we did, drive just two hours. Philly is underrated as a city, and the fan experience at the game is great, assuming you enjoy hearing curse words from Flyers fans.

One thing I didn’t like, though, is that the arena is three miles south of downtown in a complex with the Phillies and Eagles stadiums. There’s not much around the arenas, so you do have to take an Uber or the subway. The Philadelphia subway isn’t particularly nice, but it is an efficient way to get to the arena/stadium district.

On the whole, this is a great pair of cities to put on your future road trip plans.

Hot dog ninja — I’ll close this out with one quick anecdote from the Kraken/Flyers game. Between periods, I came across Flyers president of hockey ops Keith Jones having a conversation with former Flyers/Blues/Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube. I have no idea what they were talking about, but they were locked in. The problem was that they were fully blocking the buns for the press box hot dogs, and I was hungry.

Part of me considered tapping Jones on the shoulder and asking him to move out of the way of the buns, but interrupting these two high-profile personalities did not feel like the appropriate course of action. Coming back later was also not palatable, because the hot dogs were all the way at the opposite end of the press box from my seat, and again, I was hungry.

So, I proceeded with the mission.

I’m proud to say I showed impressive body control to squeeze up behind Jones without touching him, reaching over his right shoulder to the package of buns that was perched on a high shelf above him. I then collected my dog from that machine with the rollers—I don’t know what those are called, but you know what I mean.

I then slowly and carefully returned the buns to the shelf over Jones and slinked off to my seat with glizzy in hand, Jones and Berube none the wiser. Mission accomplished.