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.
Surely, the Seattle Kraken would find a way to defeat the Nashville Predators this time, right? Considering the situation entering the game—with the Kraken barely grasping the last wild-card spot and holding a two-point lead over these same Preds, who overcame a two-goal deficit to defeat Seattle just nine days prior—there was just no way the Kraken could lose this one.
But lose it they did.
It wasn’t because they didn’t try hard. They tried. Coach Lane Lambert was complimentary of the effort, in fact. It wasn’t because they didn’t stick to their structure. They defended well in a lot of ways. The Kraken lost, and have continued to lose this month, because they simply don’t have a talented enough group to elevate their game when it matters most. They can’t score when they need a goal, and with their lack of offensive prowess comes close losses to teams they can beat and drubbings by the league’s upper echelon.
Instead, the Predators again rose to the occasion more than the Kraken, drew level in the standings, and knocked Seattle back out of the playoff picture.
Ryan Ufko—who now has two career NHL goals, both against the Kraken—scored first. Freddy Gaudreau tied it, but then a power-play goal by Ryan O’Reilly in the second and an empty-netter from Filip Forsberg were all Nashville needed against Seattle’s paltry offense.
Here are Three Takeaways from an infuriating 3-1 Kraken loss to the Predators in a critical, must-win game.
Takeaway 1: Not good enough
With this latest loss to the Predators, the Kraken—who entered the Olympic break in third place in the Pacific Division and seemed to be riding high toward their second playoff berth in franchise history—have sunk to 4-8-0 in 12 games since returning to action on Feb. 25. Of those four wins, two have come against the last-place-in-the-entire-NHL Vancouver Canucks.
So what’s the problem? Why can’t they start rattling off wins and taking advantage of the fact that they “control their own destiny,” as Lambert has said?
Plain and simple, this team just doesn’t have the players. Sure, there are guys who can put the puck in the net here and there, and Bobby McMann has been a nice addition so far in that area. And when they’re at their best and staying within Lambert’s system, they’re a staunch defensive unit that can steal wins. But if they aren’t at their best, they seem to have no chance—and this team has not been at its best since January.
The lack of top-end players who can generate goals when the Kraken desperately need them—even against what figures to be a non-playoff team like the Predators (well, they were a non-playoff team until they had the good fortune of facing the Kraken twice in nine days)—has plagued this franchise since Day 1.
They must play borderline perfect hockey to win, and now that teams are playing with more emotion and desperation, Seattle’s imperfections are being magnified even more.
By the way, Nashville had its starting goalie get injured in morning skate and was forced to turn to Justus Annunen at the last second. So with their season effectively on the line, what did the Kraken do? They scored one goal against the Nashville backup with a .894 save percentage.
Takeaway 2: Freddy gets off the schneid
This game brought one (1) moment of joy, when Chandler Stephenson set up Freddy Gaudreau for a beautiful goal. It was Gaudreau’s first since Jan. 5, snapping a 25-game goalless drought.
It was a slick play, too. Gaudreau fought his way into the offensive zone and dropped the puck off at the blue line to Kaapo Kakko, then drove to the net. Kakko passed to Stephenson in the left circle. Stephenson delayed, drew two defenders toward him, then threaded the needle back to Gaudreau, who had an open net.
It was a rare glimpse of creativity that tied the game 1-1 at 18:40 of the first period and gave Seattle fans hope that the Kraken could come up with a desperately needed win. That hope was dashed when the Kraken took two penalties in quick succession in the second.
The Gaudreau goal was a nice moment for good guy Freddy, but one goal is not enough to win in the NHL.
Takeaway 3: Rest of division also stinks
What continues to be maddening about this slide is that if the Kraken had just taken a couple more of these winnable games, they’d be in a prime playoff position. But they keep losing and making fans tear their hair out.
Maybe there is something in the universe keeping this team alive, though, because the Pacific Division continues to stink and keep Seattle on life support.
On a night when the Kraken lost their “must-win” game in Nashville, the Vegas Golden Knights lost 4-0 to Utah, the San Jose Sharks lost 5-0 to Buffalo, and the Edmonton Oilers lost 4-0 to the Florida Panthers.
THE KRAKEN PRODUCED MORE OFFENSE THAN THE GOLDEN KNIGHTS, SHARKS, AND OILERS COMBINED?!
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Kings lost 4-3 in a shootout to the Philadelphia Flyers, so Seattle fell one point out of the playoff bubble.
It is still possible that the Kraken could get hot and win the division. That’s insane. How are they even in the playoff conversation at this point?
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 effort wasn’t bad, but the execution was horrendous for the Kraken in a 6-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning that took yet another little nibble out of Seattle’s continuously declining playoff chances.
After handing the Lightning a three spot in the first 21 minutes, the Kraken came alive in the second period and made a game of it heading into the third after goals by Bobby McMann (his fourth goal and sixth point in three games as a Kraken) and Jared McCann.
But the class of the Lightning was too much for a Seattle roster that has to play a borderline perfect game to beat top teams in the NHL, and the Kraken were far from that on this night. Tampa Bay ultimately pulled away, riding massive nights from Nikita Kucherov (three goals, two assists), Brandon Hagel (one goal, three assists), and Anthony Cirelli (one goal, two assists) to what proved to be an easy win.
Here are Three Takeaways from a 6-2 Kraken drubbing by the Lightning.
Takeaway 1: “Catastrophic” mistakes
I’m going to first give the Lightning credit, because there’s a reason that Jon Cooper has lasted as long as he has and had the success he’s had as Tampa Bay’s coach. Sure, there’s a ton of talent on the Lightning roster, but in the five years I’ve watched this team beat up on the Kraken, they have consistently swarmed to pucks as well as any team in the league.
In the first period especially, it felt like every time Seattle got control of the puck in its zone, there would be two or three Bolts on the puck carrier, either forcing a turnover or pressuring the Kraken player into making a loose play and handing it to Tampa Bay.
Case in point: the first goal against, which was ultimately scored by former Everett Silvertip Gage Goncalves. On this one, Seattle won the puck away, and it landed on McCann’s stick at the top of the defensive zone. He initially made a good play to cut to his right and gain some space, but then he should have chipped it off the glass and simply gotten it out of harm’s way.
Instead, McCann tried to do too much and painted himself into a corner. He looked to gain ground up the boards but ran right into Darren Raddysh, so he instead tried to go backward and ran into Goncalves. The puck came right back down the Kraken’s throats and ended up in their net to put them into chase mode at 5:45 of the first period.
#SeaKraken having a hard time getting out of their zone when they've gotten the puck.
Here, McCann tried escaping a few different directions instead of chipping it off the glass. Ran out of space and turned it over in a dangerous spot.
“It started with me. Obviously, the first goal [against] there, I turned the puck over at the blue line, and they scored. So, that’s on me,” McCann said.
The second goal against—Kucherov’s first of three on the night—came when Ryan Lindgren tried to push the play up ice quickly but misconnected with Ben Meyers, and Meyers ended up handing it to Kucherov. He and Hagel came back on a quick-developing 2-on-1, and Philipp Grubauer was hung completely out to dry after a nifty give-and-go play, a theme throughout the evening.
While the #SeaKraken failed to generate much of anything in that 1st period, they were also extremely inefficient at getting the puck out of their zone.
“For the most part, it was a fairly even game,” coach Lane Lambert said. “Our mistakes were really catastrophic, obviously some really, really poor decisions… The turnovers, going backwards in our own zone, the second goal, we can just… we’re changing. We should just stay behind the net, get organized. So we’re making some mistakes here that you can’t make. I’m not even going to say they’re uncharacteristic, because apparently they are at the moment, but you can’t make these mistakes.”
Those plays in the first period, a bad change early in the second that created a 3-on-1, and another turnover by Matty Beniers early in the third were enough to do in Seattle in this game. The Lightning tacked on a couple more just for good measure and pulled away for a lopsided result.
Takeaway 2: Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand make their returns
Former Kraken forwards Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand made their returns to Climate Pledge Arena for the first time since being traded away at last season’s trade deadline.
Both players got brief welcome-back videos and gave cordial waves to the home crowd.
While Bjorkstrand had a quiet night, Gourde showed a couple of flashes of what endeared him to fans during the course of his four seasons in the Pacific Northwest.
In the first minute of the third period, Jacob Melanson—who has, in a way, replaced Gourde as Seattle’s resident pest—laid a heavy hit on Gourde along the half wall. Gourde popped back up, and from the way he was looking around, you could tell he was incensed and out for a pound of flesh.
He got his revenge within seconds, catching Meyers with a high hit and sending him flying. Meyers then chased down Gourde and challenged him to a fight, which Gourde definitely won.
“Just a hit, just kind of heat of the moment,” Meyers said. “I didn’t really see him coming, so it just happened quick.”
Did that sequence reignite Tampa Bay after they lost momentum in the second? It’s hard to say, but plays like that by Gourde certainly made him a fun player to watch at times with the Kraken.
Takeaway 3: Pillow fight to the finish?
It’s wild that the Kraken are still in the last wild-card spot in the Western Conference, despite having won just four games out of 11 since the Olympic break. But that’s the conference they’re in, and while they continue making it harder and harder on themselves, they’re somehow still alive and well, holding on by the hair on their chinny-chin-chins.
They now head out on a two-week road trip through Nashville, Columbus, Florida, Tampa Bay (to face these same Lightning… yikes!), and Buffalo. Then they’ll come home for an off day and go back on the road for one more game in Edmonton.
With the San Jose Sharks and Los Angeles Kings continuing to do their part, the Kraken just need to string a run of wins together, and they can still (somehow) set themselves right back up as a surefire playoff team.
Losses like the one on Tuesday don’t help their cause, though.
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.
