The Seattle Kraken’s 4-3 shootout win over the Detroit Red Wings on Tuesday at Climate Pledge Arena came dangerously close to being the kind of loss that severely damages a team’s psyche.
Coming off a dreadful 8-3 defeat at the Florida Panthers on Saturday, blowing a 3-0 lead in the third period and ending up with an overtime or shootout loss would have been an absolutely crushing way to start a tough four-game homestand.
But to the Kraken’s credit, they didn’t make any egregious mistakes in overtime, got through to the shootout despite Detroit maintaining much of the possession in that extra frame, and then got more heroics from Bobby McMann and Philipp Grubauer to take back the second standings point.
Here are Three Takeaways from a heart-attack-inducing 4-3 Kraken shootout win over the Red Wings.
Takeaway 1: Two solid periods, and then…
It’s hard to say if the first 40 minutes of this game were a case of Detroit playing terrible hockey, Seattle playing outstanding hockey, or a combination of the two. I’ll choose the optimistic route here, because I genuinely believe the Red Wings are a better team than their last-place-in-the-Atlantic-Division 3-3-3 record shows. Plus, they had won their previous two games coming in, so they have played better of late.
Detroit coach Todd McLellan also said Seattle had frustrated his players by scoring goals and not allowing many chances through the first two periods. During that time, Mackie Samoskevich scored off a nice drop-and-pick play by Chandler Stephenson at 6:45 of the first, Ryker Evans had a power-play goal off a turnover by Michael Rasmussen at 3:22 of the second, and Brandon Montour scored off a Berkly Catton face-off win 13 minutes later.
Entering the third—and even several minutes into that final frame—it felt like the Kraken were going to cruise to an easy win. But somewhere in that stretch, things started to get a little looser through the neutral zone and into the defensive zone, and suddenly, odd-man rush opportunities were popping up.
When Viktor Arvidsson got one by Philipp Grubauer at 6:25 of the third, and Evans took an interference penalty 36 seconds later, you could really feel the tide shifting in the game.
Lo and behold, Lucas Raymond scored on the ensuing power play to get Detroit within 3-2.
Lucas Raymond gets Detroit within 3-2 with a power-play goal. 😬 Hold onto your butts… https://t.co/YCNKF3N00z
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 21, 2026
And with time ticking down and Seattle facing a 6-on-4, the unthinkable happened. Dylan Larkin dumped it in from center ice, and Vince Dunn went back to retrieve it. It looked like he’d easily collect it, spin around the net, and ice it down to run out the rest of the clock.
But the puck took a nasty hop right over his stick to Raymond, who poked it back to Larkin. Larkin one-touched it to Alex DeBrincat, and suddenly the Kraken had coughed up a three-goal lead and found themselves tied with 17 seconds left.
Oooooof. Alex Debrincat ties it for Detroit with 16 seconds left. https://t.co/Fnjgn162Ch
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 21, 2026
Lane Lambert gave his team more grace for the third-period letdown than I expected and even expressed frustration with the way the game was officiated down the stretch.
“It comes off and appears that we lost [our consistency in the third], but to be honest with you, I thought our start was great in the third period,” Lambert said. “We had two or three chances to make it 4-0. I thought we were on our toes, and then we ran into a little bit of penalty trouble, and it turned a little on a dime. We made a mistake through the neutral zone on their first goal, which gave them some momentum and gave them some life, clearly.”
I believe the mistake Lambert referenced was a combination of McMann and Samoskevich both shading to the right side and allowing Emmitt Finnie to fly straight up the middle.
Arvidsson gets #LGRW on the board. #SeaKraken defense has been a lot looser to start this 3rd period. 3-1 SEA with quite a bit of time left, and now Detroit going to a power play. https://t.co/Ra7HoN78VC
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 21, 2026
“We ran ourselves into penalty trouble. I didn’t agree with the penalties that were called. It put us on our heels, so I think I’m pretty happy with, obviously, the result, and I’m pretty happy with most of the game. You can’t control certain things that happen… When they have a face-off 6-on-5, and they’re holding [Stephenson] up, clearly interfering with him, our guy’s trying to get out there, and we end up in the penalty box, it’s kind of astonishing to me.”
Takeaway 2: Top-six shakeup
While the so-called “bottom six” has been rolling for the Kraken to start this season—the Kaapo Kakko / Berkly Catton / Shane Wright third line and the Ben Meyers / Freddy Gaudreau / Ryan Winterton fourth line have both contributed in big ways—the top two lines haven’t clicked the way Lambert would have hoped.
We saw at practice Monday and again at morning skate Tuesday that he was making a small adjustment, moving Jordan Eberle back onto the line with Jared McCann and Matty Beniers and swapping Mackie Samoskevich onto the line with Stephenson and Bobby McMann.
Lambert indicated he was looking for a spark and said things just weren’t quite working, but it’s also worth noting that McMann, Stephenson, and Eberle got lit up like a Christmas tree in Florida on Saturday.
The early returns were positive, at least for the new McMann/Stephenson/Samoskevich combo, which got the scoring started off a nice play by Stephenson to gain the offensive blue line, drop to Samoskevich, and then drive to the net to push the Detroit defense back.
MACK ATTACK! 🚨 Nice play by Chandler Stephenson to gain the zone, drop to his new linemate, and then drive to create space for him. Mackie Samoskevich rips it home for his fourth goal as a #SeaKraken. 1-0 https://t.co/gqnvMxToaW
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 21, 2026
“Yeah, [Stephenson] just made a nice play,” Samoskevich said. “We already knew he’s a great passer, great playmaker. He just kind of set it up for me there, picked the guy, and I just walked right into it.”
Meanwhile, I liked Matty Beniers’ game, and Jordan Eberle had several opportunities, but no cash for the top line in this one.
“Yeah, we obviously made a little switch there on the top two lines,” Lambert said. “Switched Mackie and ‘Ebs,’ and I thought Mackie had a good night, certainly, I thought Chandler played well. I thought he was skating, made some good plays. So those guys got us on the board, and it was good to see.”
It’s also worth noting that Montour returned after missing just one game and came through in a big way. It was revealed in the video of Lambert’s post-game speech to the team that Tuesday was the anniversary of the tragic passing of Montour’s brother. Montour got Seattle’s third goal of the night and looked like himself despite dealing with another lower-body injury.
His return to the lineup meant Cale Fleury came back out, while Lambert kept Ville Ottavainen and Josh Mahura together as the third pair.
Takeaway 3: Shootout dominance?
The Kraken entered the season 10-18 all-time in shootouts but have so far used them to their advantage this season, recovering twice after coughing up a two-goal lead in Philadelphia last Tuesday and then a three-goal lead against Detroit this Tuesday.
McMann scored the deciding goal in both contests, and Philipp Grubauer came up big in both as well.
This was a topic of conversation following the game, with Montour sharing that goalie coach Colin Zulianello has done a lot of work with the team to help prepare them.
“I like that we put a lot of focus on shootouts this year with Zuli, the goalie coach,” Montour said. “Guys have really keyed in and [been] working on it.”
“We didn’t have as much success last season as we wanted to. These are huge points to be able to earn, and it wasn’t like we didn’t work on it last year either,” Lambert said. “But I think our goalie coach, when you look at it, he did a really good job, Colin Zulianello, of putting together a presentation. He spent a lot of time doing it over the summer, and really put together a good presentation, and I know guys work on it in practice. Our EBUG, I think one day took about 150 penalty shots in practice, he probably couldn’t move anymore. Guys are working on it… I think it was beneficial for our guys to see it from a goaltender’s perspective.”
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.
Last season the Kraken managed the same 13 points in their first 10 games as they have this season; however, they went 5-2-3 with just three wins in regulation. That was their best start ever.
This season they are 6-3-1 with four of those wins coming in regulation.
If you stack up last season with this season in the standings, this season wins the tie break.
They’re off to their best start ever!
Go Kraken!!!
did anyone else feel like Ian Furness was just painful to listen to in the third? detroit scored one goal and from then on he sounded like a loss was inevitable. i lived in cleveland for 20 years so i am familiar with a delivery like this but it felt like it came out of nowhere. he proceeded to be a debbie downer for the rest of the game and seemed like he was going to collapse with worry every time detroit had possession. i dont know why it bothered me as much as it did, but i did not enjoy hearing him continue to bemoan every thing that happened up until the shootout win.
@Wrath – I’ve never been a fan. I don’t know why we were missing our JF but it wasn’t great. Interesting to see Chris Egan in the booth with Alison. He was okay, but lacked the Kraken detail of Brett Festerling.
john had amazon duty and was calling another game. im generally in the middle on Ian but yeah, after detroit scored their first goal youd swear we were playing the red army team, some sleeping giant we had awoken. the wings arent trash but they arent world beaters either and they certainly werent as overwhelming as florida was.
I agree, totally stumbled through the game. Lots of moments of silence like he couldn’t think of anything to say. Had trouble calling players names too.
I can hardly blame him for having trouble with player names. Even Forslund has trouble with that when the team wears the black sweaters. They are pretty up close and in person, but from a distance a person needs a good young pair of eyes to read those numbers.
Ian, as a WSU fan, is used to his team snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, aka “Coug’ing it.”
Ian is reasonably good, I think we’re just spoiled with John being one of the GOATs. I would still prefer Everett, but Ian is okay. I’ve watched a lot of hockey broadcasts over a lot of years, and it could be so much worse.
If you had to pick a #1 goalie – would it be Gru? He would be my choice. Such a turn around.
He’s definitely the more consistent of the two right now. Joey has had some terrific games, and a couple of stinkers. He was in the net for the Florida game, but I don’t really put that one on him. The team looked gas, our defensemen looked lost, and the offense certainly wasn’t helping to tilt things the other way. That said, Grubi has looked better thus far and was terrific in both shootout wins.
I don’t think any of the results thus far would lend to one or the other being viewed as the #1. The season is long and the coaches will probably skew a bit to ride the hot hand. Both look capable of being #1’s, and thats a good place to be.
I didn’t like Ian calling the game it almost put me to sleep. Through much of the game I was trying to figure out whether the kraken were playing a more boring game or it was just Ian making it seem like that. In the end I decided it was a combination of both, I felt like our game was different and was lacking the more aggressive forecheck that we have seen throughout the season so far, we seemed to be sitting back watching and waiting more.
on that note the Catton line was not that effective, I feel like they need that freedom to be more offensively aggressive to be effective… that or it was just an off night. Wright definitely had an off night, was having tons of trouble along the boards and didn’t seem cohesive with his line mates. I don’t think Wright plays the lockdown defensive game well, he seems to play better with a little more offensive freedom. I’d say let that line go a little more and let’s see what happens, if we really don’t think Wright is a good fit at least his value would improve if we let these kids play. We’ve seen so far that they are a very effective line when given the green light.
Mackie had a nice goal even though it was a total gift. The puck was literally put right on CS’s stick by Detroit then the back check fell down that was supposed to be picking up Mackie… it doesn’t get much easier than that but it was a nice shot. Maybe Mackie is going to work better with CS or maybe CS was just fired up because of the stinker he played the previous night 🤷♂️. They both look better and had some decent chances all game long. Speaking of that line McMann was absolutely invisible all game long, but he got the shootout winner.
Interesting the praise for Gru I felt this wasn’t one of his stronger games. He wasn’t bad but wasn’t worth Praising in this game… just so so. He has been good so far all season. Knock on wood.
We are fortunate to have John Forslund. The best in the business! I’d give Ian some slack. Someone has to do the games in John’s absence.
I will say foir Ian that I loved his tribute to Lane Lambert’s playing days and his recollections of the International League. That was pretty fun.
i dont dislike Ian as a whole, just his call this specific game really stuck out to me. its almost like he was willing the red wings to score which is ridiculous but thats what it came across as to me. and forsland is the standard so i dont expect anyone coming in behind him to do as well.
So Samoskevich got moved to the first(?) line with Stephenson and McMann, and the early returns for the new All-Burners Line are promising. It no doubt helped Samoskevich that Good Stephenson showed up for this game, because, as we saw, Good Stephenson is a hell of player. You know it’s him out there when the top line’s checking at center ice throws the other team into confusion and creates turnovers. Also, Lambert was right–that penalty on Stephenson that led to Detroit’s come-back bid was totally bogus. He was just pushing the guy who was holding him off of him. Stephenson’s hand wouldn’t have slid into the guy’s face, if he hadn’t been bear-hugging him. Hearing that call, I was incredulous. Stephenson got called for roughing? STEPHENSON? Our own Nick Braden? Yeah, nah. Not buying that. And sure enough replay showed the truth of it.
Otherwise, it seems that the Kraken simply cannot keep the McCann/Beniers/Eberle line apart for any long stretch of time. It has been a line that has been around for the best stretches in Kraken history. They just gravitate towards one another in the line-up like a proton, neutron, and electron. Nuclear physics is not chemistry, but I’ll take it.
A big winner for the Kraken in that game was the stadium give-away of fake old-timey goalie masks. My wife never gets excited for give-aways, even bobbleheads, but she was on me about this when she saw them on TV. “Why couldn’t you have gone to the game tonight and got me one of those?” I wish I had.
Another reason I wish I was at the game was the alternate sweaters. John Forslund frequently complains about the back alternate sweaters, because they make it very difficult to read the numbers on guy’s backs. My wife and I strained our eyes trying to figure out who was who on TV. On the other hand, being blind to players’ identities (although I could always tell McMann, Stephenson, and Samoskevich apart by their respective facial hair and lack thereof) does provide a new perspective. I just saw the actual plays and not the expectations attached to individual players. For almost a full shift I was wondering who the forechecker was who was single-handedly keeping the Wings from setting up a break-out in their own zone. At last, when he finally skated to the bench and turned his back square to the camera I was able to read the number “26.” Thanks to the black sweaters, I am now certain that Ryan Winterton is an absolute terror on the forecheck.
Checking was the story of the game. That is how the Kraken held the Wings scoreless through the first two periods. It wasn’t just Stephenson and Winterton; the third pair of Ville Ottavainen and Josh Mahura looked much better along the wall than they did in the disaster in Sunrise, and they managed to rescue the team during a couple extended shifts by winning puck battles. The Beniers line, especially Jared McCann, were hard on the forecheck in the defensive zone all night. Of course, we all saw the tremendous difference that Brandon Montour made despite not being completely healthy. Thanks Monty.
And thanks to Philipp Grubauer. Man, he does that full-splits glove save like old school, and did you see that heads-up play of his to bat the arcing puck behind the net with his blocker? Oh, and the shoot-out. Just dang. Let us never take this run of awesome hockey that he is playing for granted.
Take the 2 points and move on. Bogus call on Stevie. Healthy Grubie is a very, very good goalie.
Between Gru and the shootout I sure hope they’ve got Zulianello locked up for a good long while.
Wow. Surprised by all the “Ian haters” in here. I thought he did fine, and it’s cool to have a local doing the duties. I thought he did a great job announcing the goals. Besides, I am watching a hockey game. I don’t need to hear a lot of talking.
Anywhoo, what a nail biter. Was VERY relieved we pulled it out and got the 2 points. More shootouts, anyone?
I feel like our defensive group is going to be more and more under scrutiny. Dunn literally had a chance to just fire that puck around the boards, but it looked like he thought he was going to control it or something. That sucked. There is a lot of room for improvement here.
That’s fair enough but the point is to break out with possession of the puck. That’s a strong point of Dunns game and although mistakes are with out a doubt going to happen once in awhile it’s still better to try to make those plays whenever possible rather than constantly giving the opponent the puck.
I think there’s an extent to which you have to give players the benefit of the doubt, especially guys with high end puck skills like Dunn. High traffic area of the ice late in the third period means terrible ice conditions and bouncing pucks.
good to know in the dying seconds of OT you can just do whatever
That’s always been the case, provided you don’t do something so flagrantly greasy that Player Safety decides you need a slap. And “the game was effectively over” is definitely something they take into account, but that wasn’t a “supplementary discipline” kind of penalty.
Sound Of Hockey got two shout-outs on Sportsnet.com today in an article on the NHLs Top 12 UFAs. Darren’s interview of Vince Dunn was embedded and a lengthy take on McCann heavily referencing SOH. Both focused on how much those guys like playing in Seattle and implied there’s a good chance they won’t make to free agency.
Oops… Sportsnet.CA
I seriously hope those guys are right and that their contracts get done before the off-season. Botterill is probably holding out to see what possibilities get stirred up at the trade deadline, but I hope that he does not allow false hopes to keep him from getting the task of re-signing the team’s two best players done.