Seattle Kraken coach Lane Lambert wondered aloud on Wednesday if his team’s rally back from a three-goal deficit to steal a standings point at the Florida Panthers on Tuesday could be the “event” that gets the group playing up to its potential again, something it has not done since before the Olympic break. After watching the Kraken play at the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday, there may be something to Lambert’s theory.
Facing long odds in this game, the Kraken played some of the best and most emotional hockey they’ve played in months, sticking up for each other, cutting down on (but not eliminating) defensive mistakes, and capitalizing on their opportunities. They also got a huge game from Philipp Grubauer—in the second half of the contest, especially—and rewarded him with a 4-3 overtime win.
Brandon Montour scored twice, Bobby McMann scored his sixth goal in seven games as a Kraken, Kaapo Kakko finished a dazzling play by Chandler Stephenson, and Berkly Catton had his first NHL fight and was generally awesome in this game.
“We were resilient,” Lambert said. “It was a hard game, and we had some guys get banged up. I thought Berkly Catton stepping up and fighting was a real spark for our hockey team. It just shows his character, and I just thought that we were resilient.”
Meanwhile, the Nashville Predators lost 4-2 at home to the New Jersey Devils, so Seattle is back within three points of a playoff spot with a game in hand.
Here are Three Takeaways from a big-time 4-3 Kraken win over the Lightning.
Takeaway 1: Taking their lumps, playing for each other
As Lambert indicated with his comment about guys getting “banged up,” there were two situations in this game in which I thought a player was about to leave but ended up staying. The first was when Shane Wright took a nasty slam into the end wall after an awkward hit by Charle-Edouard D’Astous. He was hunched over on the bench and talking to head athletic trainer Justin Rogers for several minutes but stayed in the game and ended up making a play to create the game-winning goal.
In overtime, Catton tried to make a cross-crease pass to Montour, but Andrei Vasilevskiy read the play and deflected the puck out of harm’s way… or did he? Wright—who had looked very hurt in the first period—reacted quickly and beat Nikita Kucherov to a loose puck at the top of the right circle, quickly sending it back to Montour at the bottom of the circle. Montour delayed and showed pass before letting a sneaky shot go that slipped through Vasilevskiy’s pads.
“Obviously, Shane [made a great play] on that one with the back check,” Montour said. “[It was] 3-on-2. I tried the five-hole a couple times, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. And with a good goalie like that, you hope to catch him off guard, and luckily, we did.”
MONTY MONEY! 💰 🚨
Great play by Shane Wright to keep the play alive, and Brandon Montour scores his second of the game to WIN IT 4-3 over the Lightning! #SeaKrakenpic.twitter.com/eNMjWOxUiz
Also in this game, Jordan Eberle took a nasty hit from Emil Lilleberg two minutes into the second period and hit his head on the ice. Catton—of all people—challenged the first guy he found, which happened to be J.J. Moser, not Lilleberg, who had actually made the hit.
“Apparently I got the wrong guy. I didn’t even know,” Catton said. “I just kind of was looking for whoever got him, and I don’t know… one of their guys looked at me, so we just kind of dropped them.”
BERKLY CATTON FISTICUFFS?! 🥊
Jordan Eberle hit his head on the ice after a borderline slew foot by Lilleberg.
This was Catton’s first career fight at the NHL level after also dropping the gloves once in the WHL. His inexperience showed a bit, but he did well to take one punch, throw one, and then get to the ice. He said his eye was partially closed immediately after, so although he didn’t know if he got punched, he thought Moser may have caught him.
The timing of Catton’s bout was funny. I had just interviewed him at morning skate on Thursday and asked him which player on the team he looked up to and tried to emulate the most, and he immediately said, “Jordan.” Watch that interview here:
– Featuring an interview with TOP-LINE winger Berkly Catton – Oscar Fisker Mølgaard is back – Shane Wright on wing – Defensive "hesitation" pic.twitter.com/8g8tESrf6G
“It’s your captain,” Catton said after the game. “You’ve got to pick up your captain, that’s just kind of an unwritten rule of hockey. So I did the best I could, but I had to do it.”
Catton’s fight was one of several brouhahas in a game that turned into one of the feistiest and most emotionally charged of the season for Seattle.
Eberle, by the way, went down the tunnel for a while but returned and finished the game. Matty Beniers also looked shaken up for a brief period in the second and didn’t play the first nine minutes of the third. For a time, the Kraken were down to just eight healthy forwards, because Lambert had opted to roll with 11 forwards and seven defensemen for the second game in a row, scratching Jacob Melanson and keeping Cale Fleury in. Lambert said he did this because he liked that it allowed him to move people around and “double-shift” Catton.
But the coach also said with a laugh, “I didn’t like [the 11 and seven lineup] when we had about three injuries and we were down to eight forwards, but it was what it was.
“It’s a huge moment for our hockey team, just guys battling through the adversity,” Lambert said. “So there’s no question that those guys [Eberle, Wright, and Beniers] gutting it out… it was a very, very gutsy win for our hockey team.”
Takeaway 2: Oscar Fisker Mølgaard shows well in first game after call-up
Oscar Fisker Mølgaard, who was recalled on Wednesday from the Coachella Valley Firebirds and replaced Jani Nyman on the roster, was thrown right in on the third line.
I thought he was excellent in the game, looking fast and confident and defending like a veteran center. Lambert, too, raved about Mølgaard’s performance.
“I liked him. He’s quick, he’s fast, he’s smart. He’s a good hockey player,” Lambert said. “You can rely on him in those [defensive] areas. That’s huge for any young player—you have to be able to rely on them defensively—and certainly, you could tell he’s played the game at a higher level, Olympics, elite leagues, and all those things. He’s having a great year in Coachella Valley and well deserving of the call-up. And we’ll continue to use him, and I expect his ice time to grow.”
Mølgaard drew a penalty 13 minutes into the game when he got in first on the forecheck and was body-slammed to the ice by Lilleberg. Just after that penalty ended, Mølgaard was back on the ice for an offensive-zone face-off. The puck came out of the zone, and Mølgaard sprinted after it and used his body positioning to fight Jake Guentzel off the puck. In one motion, he bumped it off the boards to start Seattle’s transition back to offense, and in a flash, Freddy Gaudreau found Montour cutting to the net, and Montour deposited it for his first of two goals on the night.
Takeaway 3: Big game for Philipp Grubauer
The Kraken have been relying heavily on Joey Daccord lately, which Lambert said at morning skate was because of Joey’s puck play and the fact that the organization viewed him as “the guy” at the start of the season. Since Grubauer’s last start—which happened to be a 6-2 loss to these same Lightning (one could argue that none of the six goals scored in that game were his fault) on St. Patrick’s Day—Daccord went 0-2-1 in three consecutive starts with uninspiring stats.
The time was right to get Grubauer back in, and he was up to the challenge against the high-octane Lightning, making 30 saves on the night.
The goals Grubauer allowed in this one came from a blown coverage for a wide-open Anthony Cirelli, a Guentzel breakaway, and Corey Perry marching down the slot and one-timing a power-play goal.
All three of those came in the first half of the game, and from then on, Grubauer shut things down and held on long enough for Montour to find the game-winner.
His most critical save came with two minutes left in the second period when Ryker Evans fanned on a pass at the offensive blue line, which sprung Pontus Holmberg on a breakaway. Grubauer shouldered it away to keep the game tied at 3-3 heading to the second intermission.
“I think at that point, every save is critical because I gave one up on the earlier breakaway there, so if that goes in, it’s a different story, maybe,” Grubauer said.
Added Lambert: “He played an outstanding game. He played a game that we needed him to play, and certainly with some of the ice times were high for the forwards because of guys being out… Grubi made some huge saves, including in overtime.”
What a win. The Kraken have life, folks!
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.
The Seattle Kraken are truly on their last tentacle. The other seven tentacles have been sliced off at this point, and while the rest of the Pacific Division has done everything in its power to keep the Kraken afloat by mostly matching Seattle’s losing pace, the Nashville Predators—sadly—did not get the memo. After selling a couple of fringe pieces at the deadline, Nashville has surprisingly caught fire with five straight wins and a 7-2-1 record in its last 10, including two victories over Seattle.
Meanwhile, the Kraken finally turned on the desperation we’ve been hoping to see Tuesday at the Florida Panthers, but they didn’t do it until they were down 4-1 with six minutes left to play. They rallied back to salvage a point but came up short in a shootout.
It appears the hole the Kraken have dug themselves since the Olympic break—going 4-9-1 in 14 games to fall five points out of a playoff spot—will be too deep to escape, but coach Lane Lambert isn’t ready to write off the season just yet. He indicated he hopes the comeback in the third period against Florida can be the spark that finally gets his team back on track.
“There was a lot of positives to that game, and obviously, the comeback was huge,” Lambert said at an optional practice at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa on Wednesday. “The point was huge. It’s unfortunate we didn’t get two, but to be down like that, mount the comeback like that, hopefully that catapults us here. We kind of always say there has to be some sort of event that happens. Maybe that was our event.”
There are technically three games left on this six-game road trip, but the Kraken will face the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday and the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday, then head home for a day to change their clothes before going back out to Edmonton to face the Oilers on Tuesday. The Lightning are 4-0-1 in their last five games and just embarrassed the Kraken 6-2 at Climate Pledge Arena on St. Patrick’s Day, and the Sabres have lost in regulation just once since Feb. 5. Hold onto your butts.
Top-line Berkly Catton
Being on the road with the team has its benefits, like the occasional opportunity to be the only reporter in a press scrum with the team’s head coach. That’s what happened Wednesday, so I took full advantage and held Lane Lambert “hostage” with a wide range of questions that led to a surprisingly long 1-on-1 presser.
One thing I wanted to dig into a little more with Lambert was his decision to elevate Berkly Catton to the top line in Seattle’s 5-4 shootout loss in Sunrise on Tuesday. Of course, part of that is just looking for a spark, and it worked in a way, as Matty Beniers and Jordan Eberle (Catton’s linemates) both scored, and Bobby McMann—who vacated the line and was replaced by Catton—also potted the game-tying goal to complete the third-period comeback.
“If you watch Berkly play, obviously, on the production side of it, we’d love to have more,” Lambert said. “But at the same time, he’s making plays. He made a couple of extremely elite plays last night. And for me, from an offensive standpoint, we need him, certainly with [Jared] McCann being out and [Jaden] Schwartz being out. I think he’s got some elite vision, elite talent in order to make some plays. And so I thought he played a very good game last night.”
That’s some high praise of the 19-year-old rookie.
Meanwhile, although I didn’t explicitly state it in Three Takeaways on Tuesday, I thought Beniers—who is also the guest on this week’s Sound Of Hockey Podcast, publishing relatively soon—was Seattle’s best player against Florida. His play to drive to the net, deke, and tuck the puck into an open net while falling to the ice was an outstanding individual effort and was representative of the type of desperation this team has needed for several weeks now.
Matty Magic! 🚨
Impressive individual effort from Beniers, but still down by two, likely too little, too late. #SeaKraken
“I do [agree that he’s putting forth an outstanding effort], actually,” Lambert said. “I think that his leadership qualities… they’re coming through, as well, coming through on the bench. There’s different things that he’s doing that maybe people don’t see from that standpoint, and he’s bringing his ‘A’ game, he’s bringing his desperation.”
Oscar Fisker Mølgaard in, Jani Nyman out
Oscar Fisker Mølgaard has been recalled from AHL Coachella Valley, and Jani Nyman has been reassigned. Lambert hasn’t plainly stated that Nyman is a bad fit for his roster right now, but his actions have certainly indicated that.
After Nyman took a minus-four rating in just 8:15 of ice time on the fourth line at the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday, Lambert was so disinterested in putting him back in the lineup on Tuesday that he opted to dress Cale Fleury as a seventh defenseman and play one forward short. All that to say, it was unsurprising when the Fisker Mølgaard swap was officially made Wednesday.
“We’ve been running with four penalty killers here, a little bit,” Lambert said. “Oscar’s a pretty smart player, obviously, a penalty killer, he’s playing well down there. I think, as it stands right now, his game is a little more suited for this time of the year, from that standpoint. So we’ll see where we go.”
How I read this is that Lambert simply doesn’t trust Nyman defensively but does feel more comfortable putting Fisker Mølgaard in, if needed.
Wishing the Winterton family the best
Ryan Winterton has been absent from the Kraken roster for several days, and it was revealed Wednesday that his older brother, Jacob, passed away after a battle with cancer.
The #OHL is saddened to learn of the passing of Jacob Winterton following a courageous battle with cancer at the age of 25.
“Obviously, it’s an extremely difficult time for Ryan and his family,” Lambert said. “We’re obviously always very, very supportive of him. I can’t imagine… And certainly, we just want everyone from [the Winterton] family to be as good as they could possibly be. In terms of his game, when he comes back… We miss him, and we can use him.”
Devastating news. Ryan is such a genuinely nice young man and doesn’t deserve to experience this kind of loss. Wishing peace and love to the entire Winterton family and all those who were close to Jacob.
Other odds and ends
Jaden Schwartz, out indefinitely with an upper-body injury after getting inadvertently kicked in the face in a 7-4 loss to the Ottawa Senators on March 7, has been on the road trip—a good sign that he remains on the road to recovery after that scary incident.
Matty Beniers told me during his SOH Podcast interview that he thinks Seattle tends to get a “bad rap” around the league. I asked why this is, and he said he thought it was mostly related to the weather. He refuted the claim nicely. Give that interview a listen when it comes out; it’s a fun one.
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.
Just when you think they’re 100 percent dead—season’s over, nothing left to see here—the Seattle Kraken rally back from a three-goal deficit in the third period… and still lose in a shootout to the Florida Panthers.
The single point in the standings means Seattle is now five points out of the last playoff spot with just 12 games remaining, two teams to jump, and they’re chasing the Nashville Predators, who are on a five-game win streak and a 7-2-1 heater over their last 10.
Seattle once again did not play with the urgency of a desperate team fighting for its playoff life until it fell behind 4-1 and recognized its season hung in the balance against a very beatable team.
Coach Lane Lambert threw his lines in a blender for this one, moving Berkly Catton to the top line with Jordan Eberle and Matty Beniers and dressing 11 forwards and seven defensemen, with Jani Nyman as a healthy scratch.
“I just felt like from a defenseman standpoint, I felt like Fleury needed to come in, and this gave us an opportunity to move our forwards around a little bit and double up on Catton and a couple other guys,” Lambert said. “So I thought worked out pretty well.”
I guess that tells you what Lambert thinks of Nyman’s performance in Columbus on Saturday.
Anyway, in a weird night for Joey Daccord, in which pucks were finding ways to skip through him, off him, and around him, he came up big in overtime. But his mates couldn’t find the game-winner and ultimately came up empty in the shootout.
Here are Three Takeaways from a wild 5-4 Kraken shootout loss to the Florida Panthers.
Takeaway 1: A furious comeback
This was a miserable game to watch for 54:17 of game time. But an outstanding individual effort by Matty Beniers and two quick strikes from Jordan Eberle and Bobby McMann rallied the Kraken back from the dead and erased a 4-1 deficit in a span of just 2:23.
The comeback started with Beniers catching a high-to-low pass from Brandon Montour and driving hard to the net, then taking advantage of an overly aggressive Sergei Bobrovsky and pulling it around the netminder and into an open net as he was falling to the ice.
Matty Magic! 🚨
Impressive individual effort from Beniers, but still down by two, likely too little, too late. #SeaKraken
“Bobrovsky plays pretty aggressive,” Beniers said. “Earlier, I think in the first, [Berkly Catton], made a nice play to me coming down, and [Bobrovsky] was way out. So, I kind of knew if I could get to the weak side of the ice, I might be able to just tuck it in there.”
That goal, which came less than two minutes after a Shane Wright own goal that made it 4-1, seemed to give the team belief that it could get back in. Sure enough, Eberle stole a puck at the blue line and scored on a breakaway, then McMann did the exact same thing to tie the game just 12 seconds later.
MCMANN CAN! 🚨 TIE GAME! #SeaKraken have erased a three-goal deficit in 2 minutes and 23 seconds.
“I think the guys were doing a good job tracking that one,” McMann said of what led to his goal. “And then I just had to stay on the puck and was able to pull it free, tried to separate with some speed, and was able to move laterally on him and get it in there.”
Now THAT is the urgency this team needs to show from the hop. They just never seem to find it until they’re way behind the eight ball.
“We’ve got to make sure we’re playing with that urgency all the time,” McMann said. “So it’s really good that we found it. But we’ve got to play with that from the drop of the puck, consistent throughout entire games to put those efforts forward.”
Takeaway 2: Kraken pick up Shane Wright
This was a tough night for Shane Wright. Immediately after two separate goals, he could be seen looking skyward and questioning his choices. The first came when he tried to sling a quick pass to Brandon Montour to start a breakout, but he missed his teammate’s stick by a solid two feet and instead put it on Carter Verhaeghe’s tape in the slot. Verhaeghe lost control of it, but scored with a bank shot off Joey Daccord from the corner. That goal made it 3-0 at 7:37 of the third period.
After Ryker Evans got a good bounce of his own—off the end wall, off Bobrovsky, and in—to finally get the Kraken on the board 33 seconds later at 8:10, another Wright miscue ended up in the Kraken net. This one was just a bad bounce that went off his stick and into an open goal, but Wright was once again left looking dejected as the score ticked up to 4-1.
Shane Wright did everything right on this play, except… where he redirected the puck.
“We turned the puck over on their fourth goal at their blue line. We can’t do that,” Lambert said, indicating that Brandon Montour shouldered more of the blame for that goal than Wright. “We pass it right to them in the slot on their third goal. We can’t do that. So, if we can eliminate those mistakes, there’s more positive days ahead than not. But again, this is what’s happening, and we’ve got to cut out those catastrophic errors.”
The Kraken didn’t quit after that, though. Instead, they picked up their young teammate and fought back into the game.
“Things like that happen,” Beniers said. “I can think of five or six off the top of my head that I remember pretty clearly on my mistakes. So everyone makes mistakes; it’s a game of mistakes. He did a good job of brushing it off and going back out to the next shift and playing his game. And that’s a really hard thing to do, especially when it goes off your stick and finds the back to the net. It sucks. He knows we’ve got him.”
Takeaway 3: A night of milestones
It was a big milestone night, with Aaron Ekblad playing his 800th NHL game, all with the Panthers; Paul Maurice becoming just the second coach in history behind Scotty Bowman to coach his 2,000th NHL game; and Adam Larsson skating in his 1,000th NHL game.
That brought lots of good vibes to an optional morning skate on Tuesday, where Kraken players, coaches, and staff donned special Adam Larsson t-shirts commemorating the accomplishment, and he waxed poetic about his time in the league and in Seattle.
“It’s kind of hard to reflect on the whole journey to get here, but it’s been awesome,” Larsson said. “My last five years in Seattle has probably been the most fun I’ve had going to the rink on a daily basis. Obviously, we’ve had some tough seasons, but it’s still been very fun to come to the rink and kind of be around the guys and all that kind of stuff. So to look back all the way to my first year is pretty crazy.”
Considering there’s been some conversation around our Sound Of Hockey community recently about top players not wanting to come to Seattle, Larsson saying these have been some of his best times in hockey is somewhat reassuring.
Larsson has had a lot of support along his way to 1,000 and has endured some difficult times—especially during his Edmonton years, when he lost his father unexpectedly. Robert Larsson, a former pro hockey player himself, died in 2018 at age 50, when Adam was just 25 years old.
But Seattle has given Larsson the change of scenery he needed.
“I was looking for a fresh start. I got that, and I’ve had some just amazing teammates, coaches, support staff, and all that kind of stuff.”
Seeking the opposition’s perspective, I asked the always thoughtful and eloquent Paul Maurice about Larsson’s game and how he’d describe him “as a competitor.”
“That’s the word that you would fire out when you describe him,” Maurice said. “The change of defensemen over the last 30 years is that style of defense would have been a really big, bruising, fighting defenseman 30 years ago. They play just as tough now, but it’s a different style of game. So, he’s hard on pucks, he’s hard in corners, he’s hard net front, he can move the puck, he can get up ice, but his calling is that 1-on-1 battle area. So to be good at that, you have to do it every night. That’s where the strength of his career has been for me is that he’s been very consistent in his compete level.”
Maurice, by the way, got a nice ovation from the relatively light home crowd at Amerant Bank Arena and gave a heartfelt wave when he was recognized for his truly exceptional milestone Tuesday night.
Larsson said the best advice he ever received was, “Believe in yourself. I’ve never doubted myself by any means, but I’ve gone through some tough stretches, tough years, and stuck with it. I’ve had some tremendous leaders, coaches and kind of brings you back again, and that’s been a huge part.”
The Kraken did believe in themselves this night, at least in the third period. But it wasn’t quite enough to make Larsson’s 1,000th game unforgettable.
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.
From the friendly skies, hello and welcome to a WRITTEN version of the Sound Of Hockey Patreon Mailbag. I’m en route to South Florida, where I’ll catch up with the embattled Seattle Kraken for the next two contests against the Florida Panthers on Tuesday and the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday, games from which they desperately need to pick up some standings points.
Last week, we recorded our monthly Patreon Mailbag podcast episode, delivered as one of the benefits of being a Sound Of Hockey Patreon subscriber. We answered the below questions and many more, but those verbal answers are typically off the cuff and intentionally lead to debate between myself and my co-hosts, John Barr and Curtis Isacke.
We always get great questions from our Patreon subscribers, but after spending some time thinking about some of these questions, I wanted to put more thoughtful responses down on paper. I’m offering this written version up to all Sound Of Hockey readers in the hopes that a few more of you may be inclined to join our Patreon community by clicking here.
Either way, enjoy!
John O. – “If you could lock up Bobby McMann before July 1, how much money and term do you think would do the trick, and how much would be too much?”
The Bobby McMann contract situation is such a fascinating one. Despite being 29 years old, he’s really only been a full-time NHLer for the last two seasons, and he’s scored 43 goals in that time, plus 15 more as a part-timer in 2023-24.
With that lack of experience comes a current contract that pays him just $1.35 million AAV. Also bearing in mind that this could be the only time McMann can really cash in on the open market, his salary is set to skyrocket on his next deal.
Will that next deal come in Seattle or elsewhere? How much will it take for the Kraken to keep him around and forgo his one chance in his prime years to hit unrestricted free agency? Is he viewed as a player who will consistently rack up 25-ish goals, now that he’s completed his long and winding journey to the NHL?
My guess is that if he continues producing, even sporadically, the rest of the season, the Kraken will want him back, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they feel the need to go north of $5 million per year over, say, five years. But even then, the opportunity to choose his next playing home could prove too enticing to keep him in the Pacific Northwest. I would be hesitant to offer a player with this short of a track record anything more than the $4-5 million range, and that already feels quite rich.
One other thing to consider: McMann burst onto the scene with four goals and two assists in his first three games with the Kraken. In the two games since—at Nashville and at Columbus—he’s been held off the scoresheet. This aligns with the “streaky scorer” scouting report that we received upon his acquisition from Toronto, so it may behoove the Kraken to wait a little longer and see if he keeps piling up numbers or if his early output was just a “new team” bump.
Anna R. – “It seems like we will either barely make it or barely not make it to the playoffs. I don’t see any of our players in development as a generational talent. How can the Kraken get better if they don’t tank? Right now it seems like we will be perpetually in the middle.”
I don’t blame you for feeling this way, Anna, and I’ve also been struggling to understand the big-picture plan from the organization (you likely heard me complaining about the state of the franchise on the latest Sound Of Hockey Podcast or in this Three Takeaways).
One thing that is encouraging to me is that Seattle has successfully developed several of its players into full-time NHLers. We all would have hoped to see Shane Wright take another step this year—and I do worry that if they end up cutting bait and trading him, he’ll immediately flourish in a different system with more offensive talent around him.
But aside from Wright, Seattle also has Jacob Melanson, Jani Nyman, Ryan Winterton, and Ryker Evans on the current roster after drafting those players and bringing them up through Coachella Valley. Plus, there’s Matty Beniers and Berkly Catton, who made the jump straight to the NHL, and Joey Daccord, who one could argue was “developed” by the Kraken organization after they plucked him from Ottawa in the 2021 Expansion Draft.
So that’s roughly a third of the roster made up of young players who were either drafted and went straight to the NHL or spent time with the Firebirds before ascending. And of course, there are other young players knocking on the door, and it likely won’t be long before we see Jake O’Brien in deep sea blue.
The draft-and-develop plan takes an exceedingly long time, though, as we’re seeing. Now that those young players are starting to arrive, it’s not like they can jump in and dominate the league. We still have to wait for them to mature into veteran players, and even then, there’s no guarantee they will become core contributors.
So how does the front office speed up that process? I see just one possible route: cashing in some of the extensive draft capital the Kraken have built up from being sellers three out of their first four years and finding creative ways to land a couple of star players via trade. General manager Jason Botterill and president of hockey ops Ron Francis have implied at times that they want to make these kinds of moves and that they don’t intend to use all the draft picks they’ve obtained, but aside from a few moves for middle-of-the-pack players, they’ve never made a big swing.
If they’re serious about improving faster than just waiting on the kids to become the core of the team, this is the route they’ll need to take.
Kendall A. – “Should I get a Melanson jersey?”
That’s a fantastic question about a topic I generally enjoy and one I’ve oddly put a lot of thought into over the years: maximizing your jersey selection return on investment.
First, let me say that you can’t really go wrong with any player name/number. (I’m not a big fan of personalized ones with the fan’s name or some random saying or nickname on the back, but I know these are also popular choices, and I don’t dump on people who go this route; it’s just not my personal jam.)
As for narrowing it down and deciding which player’s jersey to buy, there are two factors that make for a “good” selection. The first is landing on a player with staying power. You can maximize your return by choosing a relatively young player you expect to stick with the team for a long time.
But I also find value in some level of obscurity—choosing a jersey that won’t show up on 1,000 of your closest friends when you attend a game. For example, we all expect Matty Beniers to stick with the team for many years, and he’s a big fan favorite. So although No. 10 is probably a safe purchase in terms of long-term relevance, you’ll be but a mere foot soldier in an army of Beniers jersey-wearers. It’s just a bit too “mainstream” for my liking.
Having said all that, although I have strong opinions about what makes a good jersey selection, I’m not a big purchaser of jerseys. I’ve only bought two players’ jerseys over my many years of hockey fandom. One was a massive hit in terms of value, and the other was Chris Driedger, purchased in advance of the Kraken’s inaugural season when I thought he’d be the “1B” goalie to Philipp Grubauer for several years (he played 29 total games for Seattle across three seasons).
The “massive hit” was a Jonas Brodin Minnesota Wild jersey that I bought during his second season in the NHL, when he was just 20 years old. In retrospect, it was a risky bet, because Brodin was so young that there was no telling at the time if he’d stick around long-term. But 12 years later, he still flies under the radar—meaning his jersey isn’t all that mainstream—and he’s still logging 20-plus minutes per night for the Wild.
Now, back to Kendall’s actual question: “Should I buy a Melanson jersey?” There’s some risk there. Melanson has mostly stuck with the NHL team this season and has been a big part of its success when Seattle has strung together wins. But he’s also been a healthy scratch at times and never plays big minutes.
If he sticks as a Kraken for at least five years, you’ve knocked it out of the park by purchasing his jersey. If he doesn’t, you’ll end up with a relic. Relics are also cool (my favorite Kraken jersey I’ve seen in the wild is a Dennis Cholowski jersey), but you have to recognize that this is a real possibility with Melanson.
If you’re comfortable accepting that risk, I say buy the jersey.
Paul W. – “Would you rather play Colorado in the first round or secure the fifth-best lottery odds in this year’s draft?”
That’s a tough call, but I’d rather play Colorado. A fifth-overall pick is great, but realistically, whoever that player ends up being is at least three or four years away from making a real impact. I’d like the Kraken to start accomplishing their stated goal of making the playoffs every year.
Plus, the Avalanche have faced such little adversity this season that you just never know what can happen.
Adam R. – “It seems like Seattle is not a desirable location for a lot of players in the league. Why? Is it just the lack of proven success? We’re a no-tax location (for now), with a state-of-the-art practice facility and a brand-new barn. Winters are pretty mild, though not sunny. What gives?”
I do think it’s a lack of success. Players are treated very well and have first-class facilities, plus an ownership group committed to spending whatever it takes to be considered a top-flight organization. But if a player has a say in where he lands and can choose between the warm, sunny weather of Dallas, Vegas, Florida, Tampa Bay, or even Carolina—five organizations that have either won recently or appear ready to win—versus a team that has so far demonstrated that it is simply waiting for its kids to become the core, why would he choose rainy Seattle?
While fans need a clear vision and direction to get on board and fill the arena, I think this is also true of players. Before they sign a five-year contract to uproot their families and move to a dreary (in the winter) and expensive city, they want to know they’ll be able to win and put up their own personal stats so they can still make good money on their next contract. The Kraken are built to be a defense-first team, and the coaches that have been hired (and fired, in Dan Bylsma’s case) reinforce this line of thinking. Big offensive numbers are hard to come by for Kraken players, aside from Year 2 when everything seemed to click under Dave Hakstol.
The Kraken don’t have a great track record of winning or allowing players to flourish offensively at this point, and that is creating a vicious cycle for them.
Connor D. – “If you had to play a round of golf using only one club, which one would you pick?”
When I read this question on the Patreon Mailbag podcast, I was wavering between a six iron and a seven iron. Now that I’ve thought about it for a few days (and I have thought about it), I’ve landed on a seven iron. I’m obviously sacrificing distance off the tee by choosing a mid-iron, but I want something with enough loft that I can still chip around the green, because I know I won’t be hitting many greens without a full complement of clubs. The seven is the longest club I’m comfortable using for chipping. Plus, I can still hit my seven about 170 yards with decent accuracy, so even on a 500-yard par five, if I hit my first two shots 170 and 170, I’m within range of the green in regulation on my third shot. A long par four will be bad news, but such is life.
So, seven iron is the play. Putting will be hard, but that would be true of any club in the bag other than the putter, and I’m not using the putter as my one club.
(From the SOH Discord) – FMammal: “I think Darren’s too depressed to make a Three Takeaways for the CBJ game.” LoveMonkey: “Do we need a wellness check for Darren?”
I do appreciate the concern. I’m fine, I just couldn’t bring myself to waste another hour or two of my beautiful Saturday writing about that miserable game after I had already invested three hours of agony into watching 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.
The NHL is sending the Seattle Kraken overseas next fall for a two‑game set in Helsinki as part of the 2026 NHL Global Series.
Seattle will face the Carolina Hurricanes on Nov. 12 and 14 at Veikkaus Arena, home of Jokerit and a building that has seen plenty of Finnish hockey history. These will be the first regular‑season games the Kraken have ever played outside North America.
The Kraken currently boast three Finnish players on the roster: Kaapo Kakko, Eeli Tolvanen, and Jani Nyman, though it is worth pointing out that Tolvanen is set to be a free agent this summer if the Kraken don’t sign him to an extension before the July 1 free agency period. In addition to the current rostered players, the Kraken have several Finnish prospects in the pipeline: Ville Ottavainen, Nikke Kokko, Julius Miettinen, Kim Saarinen, and Visa Vedenpää.
Why Finland? Why now?
The NHL has been taking regular‑season games to Europe for more than a decade, to help expand the fanbases that follow the league from afar. Finland, in particular, has become a staple stop, a hockey‑mad country with a deep connection to the NHL and a long list of stars who grew up dreaming of playing in the league.
Carolina, meanwhile, will be making its second trip to Finland for regular‑season play. They bring their own Finnish firepower in Sebastian Aho and Jesperi Kotkaniemi, so expect the locals to have plenty of rooting interests on both sides.
For fans in Seattle, this trip offers a rare and unique chance to see the Kraken play abroad while experiencing a foreign country. If you’ve ever wanted to combine a Kraken road trip with a European vacation, this is your moment.
Game times
Nov. 12: 7:00 p.m. EET / 9:00 a.m. PT
Nov. 14: 8:00 p.m. EET / 10:00 a.m. PT
Fans traveling to Helsinki should also expect a slate of events celebrating the NHL’s presence in Finland. More information is located here, and there’s also a sign-up page for fans looking for information on travel packages.
And really, that’s what makes this whole thing interesting. For a team that’s still figuring out who it is in the grand scheme of the NHL, a trip like this isn’t just a novelty stamped into the schedule, it’s a unique moment to reach fans abroad while creating a fun experience for fans making the trip. A little weird, a little cool, and very on‑brand for a franchise that somehow ended up with a ton of Finns in its prospect pool.
For the Finnish guys on the team, it’s a homecoming. For everyone else, it’s a chance to play in a country where hockey is basically a civic duty. And for fans, whether you’re actually making the trek or just rolling out of bed for a 9 a.m. puck drop, it’s something different, the good kind of different.
This is “Down on the Farm,” your weekly Seattle Kraken prospects update. Believe it or not, we’re nearing the end of prospect seasons around the globe. Several prospects are already done with their seasons entirely, and others are entering their league’s playoffs this week. Where did the time go?
Today, we’ll offer some perspective on goalie Kim Saarinen’s sterling season in the Finnish professional league, and we’ll offer a few data points to consider when evaluating the Kraken’s development track record.
After that, we’ll have additional Kraken prospect news, video, and data updates, the Sound Of Hockey Prospect of the Week, and a preview of the week ahead, as always.
If you have a Seattle Kraken prospect–related question you’d like to see featured in a future column or mailbag, drop us a note below or on X or BlueSky at @deepseahockey or @sound_hockey.
Kim Saarinen’s Liiga season puts him in rare company
Liiga finished its regular season this past week, and Kim Saarinen ended up atop the save percentage leaderboard with a .916 mark. According to shot quality metrics published by NHL.com, Saarinen saved approximately 21 goals above expected in his 38 appearances. (For reference, according to Natural Stat Trick, Joey Daccord and Philipp Grubauer have both saved approximately 15 goals above expected in 41 and 27 game appearances, respectively.)
It’s worth noting again that Saarinen is only 19 years old. The last teenager to lead Liiga in save percentage was Kari Lehtonen in the 2001–02 season.
The last Liiga goalie under 20 years old to finish the season with a .916 or better save percentage was fellow Kraken prospect Nikke Kokko, who finished the 2023–24 season with a .917 save percentage just days before turning 20.
The Kraken’s development track record and the 2021 draft
From my limited vantage point, it appears there has been a narrative making the rounds on the internet that the Kraken have struggled to develop players.
There are many reasons one might legitimately criticize the organization. Their NHL success has not lived up to anyone’s expectations. One can second-guess the transactions they have made or not made, or the players they have drafted or not drafted.
I’m just not sure “development of young players in the organization” belongs on a list of categorical indictments. Developing an NHL player is very difficult, and I’d submit that there is ample evidence indicating the Kraken have succeeded as a development team when measured against fair benchmarks. At the very least, I think we have a more mixed, nuanced question than some would like to admit.
Four-plus seasons on, we are now in the range where we can start to evaluate the Kraken’s first draft class from the 2021 NHL Draft. The development results from that draft are excellent.
Five of the team’s seven picks from that draft have made their NHL debut: Matty Beniers, Ryker Evans, Ryan Winterton, Ville Ottavainen, and Jacob Melanson. This 71 percent pick-to-NHL-player rate is by far the highest in the league. The only other team to have five players from the 2021 draft make their NHL debut is Carolina, and the Hurricanes picked 13 times. No other team has had more than half of its 2021 draft picks reach the NHL. The average rate is 30 percent—about two out of seven.
Overall, the team’s 595 total NHL games played from the 2021 draft class ranks third in the league. Its 99 goals scored ranks fourth. And, despite being an expansion team, this wasn’t an NHL roster brimming with opportunity. The Kraken’s NHL roster has been stuffed with mid-level veterans throughout its existence.
One might be critical that high-end production has been missing from this group. Its .44 points per NHL game played ranks ninth in the league. That said, I think it’s important to consider the draft environment. Only Wyatt Johnston, Dylan Guenther, and Mason McTavish have offered similar or superior goal-scoring production to the players Seattle ended up with. Johnston and Guenther were not considered top-five talents at the time, and McTavish has been benched by the Ducks of late.
For his part, Beniers won the Calder Trophy with a stellar rookie season and has settled in as the player I always envisioned: a 50-to-60 point, defense-first, cornerstone center. Goal scoring was never going to be his calling card, so I don’t view it as a development failure that Guenther and Johnston are putting up higher totals now.
When talking about this era, we should also consider that the team’s sixth-rounder, Semyon Vyazovoi, might be the Kraken’s best goalie not currently in the NHL. It’s also fair to add in the undrafted signing of Tye Kartye on the ensuing free agency day.
One might fairly contend that Kartye’s play stalled out at the NHL level over the last year, leading to his waiver. In the big picture, though, I’d argue Kartye’s case must be viewed as a development success. The Kraken identified and developed an unheralded player and got 180 regular-season and 10 postseason NHL games from him.
Kartye’s case brings us to the key example most would cite for the initial premise: 2022 first-round pick Shane Wright. He is worthy of a separate offseason deep dive, but for today’s purposes, I will say only that it is probably unwise to draw sweeping conclusions from a sample size of one player. He has not taken the step forward many of us had hoped for this season, and it’s certainly fair to ask where to put the “blame” for that. Personally, I don’t have a confident answer to that question yet.
What I am confident in saying is that the Kraken have produced NHL-capable players from the 2021 draft at a strong clip. The team’s more recent drafts are harder to evaluate, but there certainly seem to be some “hits” (and “misses”) in there. The Kraken are still looking for a star performer, but it’s early yet for that and probably not a fair expectation given the “modest” quality of the 2021 and 2022 NHL Drafts.
Notes on six other Kraken prospects
Nathan Villeneuve | F | Windsor Spitfires (OHL)
Nathan Villeneuve was injured on a hit by Kitchener’s Matthew Andonovski on Mar. 8, which resulted in supplemental league discipline for Andonovski. Villeneuve has not appeared in Windsor’s four games since that time. He remains out of the lineup as of Friday, Mar. 20.
Check out his shifts from Windsor’s Jan. 21 game against Kitchener below.
Lukas Dragicevic | D | Coachella Valley Firebirds (AHL)
The Coachella Valley Firebirds announced that Lukas Dragicevic is out week-to-week with a lower-body injury. Dragicevic has one goal and 10 assists in 43 AHL games this season.
An AHL blue line that once looked overstuffed with playable young prospects has been ravaged by injuries this season. Gustav Olofsson, Ville Ottavainen, and Caden Price have all missed long stretches of the season, though Olofsson has returned to the lineup recently.
Ville Ottavainen | D | Coachella Valley Firebirds (AHL)
There is also good news on Ottavainen. He skated with the team in warmups before Coachella Valley’s Wednesday, Mar. 18 game in San Jose. According to Firebirds announcer Evan Pivnick, Ottavainen is on the verge of returning to the lineup. His presence is desperately needed.
Jake O’Brien | F | Brantford Bulldogs (OHL)
According to a survey of OHL scouts conducted by The Athletic, Jake O’Brien has been the best player in the OHL Eastern Conference this season in terms of on-ice intelligence and playmaking ability.
By scoring two goals and adding six assists in three games this week, O’Brien also earned another accolade: Sound Of Hockey Prospect of the Week.
Logan Morrison | F | Coachella Valley Firebirds (AHL)
With an assist against San Jose on Wednesday, Logan Morrison reached 81 career AHL regular-season assists. This mark is the most in Coachella Valley Firebirds history, passing Kole Lind. His 54 total points are the most on the team this season.
Jani Nyman | F | Seattle Kraken (NHL)
With Ryan Winterton out of the lineup due to sickness, the Kraken were down to 11 healthy forwards. This prompted the team to recall Jani Nyman on an emergency basis. He was in the NHL lineup right away again, but only played six minutes against Nashville on Thursday. Nyman, who has 18 goals and 27 total points in 29 AHL games, figures to return to Coachella Valley once the NHL team gets a bit healthier.
Kraken prospects data update
J.R. Avon stepped into Nyman’s spot on a line with Morrison and Jagger Firkus on Wednesday. While the line is not quite the same without Nyman, Avon had a goal on three shots, and the team was plus-one with him out there. With the goal, Avon matched his previous AHL career high in goals (7) and surpassed his previous AHL total points high-water mark—and he has done it in only 31 games. He’s played well for the Firebirds when healthy. He’s a pending restricted free agent.
We’ll return with full-season recaps, likely next week, but in the meantime, it’s worth noting that the NCHC seasons for Zaccharya Wisdom and Ollie Josephson, as well as the ECAC season for Ben MacDonald, all came to an end last week with conference tournament losses. Clarke Caswell and Denver remain alive in the NCHC tournament.
Semyon Vyazovoi had a strong week, posting a .948 save percentage in three starts. Had his team played better around him, he may very well have been the Prospect of the Week. As it was, he won only once—and it was via a shutout.
As the KHL moves toward the playoffs this coming week, Vyazovoi stands fourth in the league in regular-season save percentage.
Sound Of Hockey Prospect of the Week tracker
3 wins: Jagger Firkus, Jake O’Brien, Kim Saarinen, Julius Miettinen
1 win: Alexis Bernier, Barrett Hall, Ollie Josephson, Tyson Jugnauth, Nikke Kokko, Oscar Fisker Mølgaard, Victor Ostman, Zaccharya Wisdom
Previewing the week ahead
This week’s Deep Sea Hockey Game of the Week is the Saturday afternoon NCHC final pitting Denver against Minnesota Duluth on Saturday at 5:07 pm PDT.
Video from the vault
I’m soft-launching a new section here, one that I’m calling “video from the vault.” Each season, I make dozens of prospect videos that I don’t end up sharing publicly. (The goal is that they will have a home and purpose eventually. More on that this offseason. Maybe?) For now, I’m going to start sharing them here. They may be—and likely will be—older videos. So this is for the real film nerds and prospect enthusiasts like me out there.
This week it’s Berkly Catton at the 2024 CHL Top Prospects Game. Enjoy.
Tracking 2026 NHL Draft prospects: Jack Hextall
Jack Hextall is a 6-foot, right-shot center for the Youngstown Phantoms of the USHL. He started his draft season off very well with an impressive showing for Team USA at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup. He plays a high-energy but sound, smart, pro-projectable game. His scoring has not always lit up the boards (53 points in 55 USHL games), but he does many little things right. Scott Wheeler of The Athletic had Hextall No. 33 in his most recent prospect rankings. Hextall was No. 32 on our mid-season Big Board. Hextall is committed to play at Michigan State University next season.
Curtis is a Sound Of Hockey contributor and member of the Kraken press corps. Curtis is an attorney by day, and he has read the NHL collective bargaining agreement and bylaws so you don’t have to. He can be found analyzing the Kraken, NHL Draft, and other hockey topics on Twitter and Bluesky @deepseahockey.
