Sure, the Seattle Kraken are in the midst of a playoff race, but you wouldn’t know it from watching their 7-4 beatdown at the hands of the Ottawa Senators on Saturday. Seattle came out flat and—with the exception of a few brief glimmers during the game—remained low on energy throughout the contest.
“We didn’t play very well,” coach Lane Lambert said. “I could try and pinpoint something we did really well, and it’d be very very difficult to do. So I think as a group, coaching staff right on down, we’ve got to be better. It starts with me, moves right on down the line. So there wasn’t any positives tonight.”
NO POSITIVES?! Well, that’s not good.
Here are Three Takeaways from a positive-free 7-4 Kraken loss to the Senators.
Takeaway 1: No relief for Daccord
Growing up as a goalie, I never liked getting pulled out of a game, but I also didn’t like getting lit up. It was embarrassing to get pulled, but in seasons when I was the only goalie on the team, it was even worse to have to stay in a game where I didn’t have my best and was getting torched.
After two great performances in his last two starts against Vancouver and Carolina, this was a tough night for Joey Daccord, no question. In the end, he posted 28 saves on 36 shots for a .806 save percentage—not the ugliest numbers ever, but not great. The seven goals against were the most he’s allowed all season because Lambert has never let him get above five in a game.
The circumstances of this one were strange, though. While Daccord surely would have wanted back the Dylan Cozens goal that made it 2-1 at 13:35 of the first (an unscreened shot that hit his arm and went in), Joey also made plenty of sharp-looking saves in the first two periods.
Meanwhile, Seattle did start to show some life after 40 minutes and had cut the deficit from 4-1 to 4-2 after ratcheting up the physicality. So it didn’t make much sense to pull Daccord after the second, and once things started snowballing in the third, it became an awkward time to turn to Philipp Grubauer.
I asked Lambert if he thought about making a change to protect Daccord’s confidence.
“That’s a good question,” Lambert said. “I think there’s some that he would want back. Certainly, we left him hanging out to dry on a number of occasions. There were mistakes and breakdowns and stuff that we really haven’t seen for a while.
“And in terms of taking him out, I really thought after we went in after the second period, I wanted to give us a good chance to win the hockey game. I felt like some of the saves that he was making, even though we maybe question a couple of goals, I thought he made some good saves to keep it at four. So there was no thought for me of taking him out, and then after it got too late, it’s not fair to Grubauer to put him in there. And certainly, we don’t want to risk injury to him, bringing him off the bench when he’s been sitting there. So it’s just one of those things, one of those nights.”
Takeaway 2: Not enough energy
While Lambert found “no positives,” I did like the game of Jacob Melanson, as I often tend to do. Not only did he score off a 3-on-2 rush to give Seattle a fleeting 1-0 lead that was erased 34 seconds later, he also recognized things starting to get more physical in the second and went to work trying to ignite the team when the Kraken fell behind 4-1.
MELLY CELLY (but then a response goal)! 🚨
Off a 3-on-2, Meyers drove to the net and got a tip on Winterton's shot, then Melanson cleaned up the rebound and celebrated beautifully.
But… Tyler Kleven scored off a great saucer pass by Pinto 34 seconds later.
Indeed, several heavy hits started flying on both sides of the puck, and once that began, the first chance Melanson saw to go after somebody bigger than him, he took it. Melanson slammed into Tyler Kleven behind the Ottawa net, then did everything he could to goad the 6-foot-5, 225-pound defenseman into dropping the gloves.
Kleven wouldn’t engage, so Melanson kept after him in front of the net, creating chaos in front of Linus Ullmark. Meanwhile, Cale Fleury pinched in and dropped Nick Cousins, and Ben Meyers hit Shane Pinto, who coughed up the puck to Eeli Tolvanen. Tolvanen blasted a slap shot through Melanson’s screen and scored to bring Seattle back within two goals.
EELI GOALVANEN! 🚨
Watch Melanson on this sequence. After several big hits in a row, Melanson is actively trying to start a fight with Tyler Kleven, who isn't interested.
“I think that’s how we have to play,” Tolvanen said. “It’s playoff time. We have to start playing like [Melanson] does, go to the net, be physical. That’s why we got the turnover, that’s why I got the puck because he’s playing physical.”
Added Lambert: “I think we had energy in the second period when we started to get a little bit physical. That was really the moment, I guess, there was a little pocket in there where we had what I consider to be energy that’s necessary and required. And other than that, there wasn’t a whole lot of energy.”
Brandon Montour also called the fourth line Seattle’s best line and heaped praise on Melanson for the way he plays. That’s both a great compliment for the fourth line and a bit of a stray for the other three lines, which plainly have not been good enough since the Olympic break.
Indeed, outside of that brief burst of nastiness in the second period, there simply wasn’t enough juice in this one.
While the team and its coach didn’t use it as an excuse, there is an illness going around the room right now that kept Freddy Gaudreau and Ryan Lindgren out of the lineup Saturday. Adam Larsson also skipped morning skate but still played. You have to wonder if that slowed a few guys down, because they definitely looked like something was dragging them.
Seattle needs to start finding its best 60-minute effort on a regular basis, or it will drop out of the playoff bubble within a game or two.
Takeaway 3: Scary moment for Jaden Schwartz
While the Kraken struggled to find energy, things got even tougher when they lost a veteran forward after Jaden Schwartz suffered a scary facial injury. During that stretch of physical play, Tolvanen blasted Nick Cousins into the boards right in front of the Kraken bench. As Cousins was going down, his skate came up and caught Schwartz in the face.
Wow. Scary one there.
Eeli Tolvanen laid a huge hit on Nick Cousins, and Cousins' skate came up and clipped Jaden Schwartz in the face.
Schwartz lay on the ice bleeding for a moment, though replay appeared to show that the blade of Cousins’ skate didn’t actually make contact with Schwartz’s face. It looked like the damage came from the heel of the skate striking him around the nose. Regardless, Schwartz left the game and did not return.
Lambert said Schwartz was being evaluated but didn’t have much of an update after the game. “It could have been worse, I guess, but he’s not— he’s again, like I say, he’s getting evaluated. I think it sapped the energy out of the building a little bit. It got pretty quiet.”
At the other end of the ice, Montour also knocked star defenseman Jake Sanderson out of the game with an apparent shoulder injury. Montour crushed Sanderson into the corner boards and then fell on top of him in the second period. That could be a massive loss for the Sens, who are also pushing for a playoff spot.
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.
Welcome to “Down on the Farm,” your weekly Seattle Kraken prospects update. Sorry we’re a day late this week. As you probably noticed, yesterday was the NHL trade deadline and the Seattle Kraken made two notable moves. The team re-signed Captain Jordan Eberle and traded for winger Bobby McMann. Sound Of Hockey‘s Darren Brown broke down the news here.
Today, we’ll follow up on what the trade means for Seattle’s asset pool and ongoing attempts to secure a premier scorer. We’ll also highlight what the Kraken added to the system in signing undrafted WHL center Ryden Evers earlier this week.
Then we’ll have Kraken prospect news, video, and data updates, the Sound Of Hockey Prospect of the Week, and a preview of the week ahead, as always. (The data in this week’s post was gathered the morning of Friday, Mar. 6.)
If you have a Seattle Kraken prospect–related question you’d like to see featured in a future column or answered in our next mailbag, drop us a note below or on X or BlueSky at @deepseahockey or @sound_hockey.
Kraken trade draft assets for Bobby McMann
Following the McMann trade yesterday, Darren Brown analyzed the context and immediate implications for the Seattle Kraken roster. We plan to return with a deep dive on what Seattle is getting in McMann the player soon. Today, we’ll take a brief look at what Seattle gave up from its asset pool to acquire the speedy, pending UFA winger.
Rewind to December, when the Kraken traded Mason Marchment to the Columbus Blue Jackets for a 2026 fourth-round pick originally belonging to the New York Rangers and the Blue Jackets’ own 2027 second-round pick. As it turns out, this trade nailed—or, perhaps, set—the market for comparable moves at the trade deadline, including the McMann deal.
Following the Marchment transaction, the Kraken had three 2026 fourth-round picks and three 2027 second-round picks. It’s no coincidence that Seattle dipped back into those areas of depth and paid a similar price for McMann that they received for Marchment. Seattle gave Toronto a 2026 fourth-round pick originally belonging to Anaheim (acquired for Brian Dumoulin) and the worse of the 2027 second-round picks originally belonging to Winnipeg (acquired for Brandon Tanev) or Columbus (acquired for Marchment).
All told, this price is just slightly less than what the team obtained for Marchment. The 2026 fourth-round pick given up should be about half a round worse, and the 2027 second-round pick given up will be the same pick or a worse one, depending on next year’s standings. Importantly, the team did not encumber or trade any of its own picks, either. This leaves open the possibility of an offer sheet using those picks in the next two years (since offer sheets must utilize a team’s own pick).
It always seemed unlikely the Kraken would utilize three fourth-round picks in this year’s draft, particularly with the team’s prospect pipeline at full flow. Utilizing one of those picks and a future asset to obtain immediate value makes a lot of sense.
In his most recent 32 Thoughts Podcast, Elliotte Friedman indicated that the Kraken were working toward bigger moves on the level of the Artemi Panarin transaction at the trade deadline but couldn’t get those trades done.
On the Called Up Podcast, Cam Robinson suggested that some inactivity on the high end at the deadline was due to an industry belief that additional big names could come available at or before the NHL Draft, such as Auston Matthews, Brady Tkachuk, or Nico Hischier. Potential buyers were reticent to empty the assets cupboard now for fear of sidelining themselves in those conversations later.
Seattle’s quest for a first-line difference maker will continue this offseason, with four first-round picks and three second-round picks in the next two drafts still at their disposal.
Kraken sign undrafted WHL center Ryden Evers
March 1 is the first day NHL teams can sign players to entry-level contracts that begin the following season. This makes it effectively the “opening day” of undrafted free agency. College and European free agents tend to sign a bit later, when their seasons are over. Junior players can sign immediately, though. Seattle signed Tye Kartye on Mar. 1, 2022, for example, while the Soo Greyhounds were still in action.
History repeated itself this season. The Kraken were the only NHL team to dip into CHL free agency on day one, signing 20-year-old centerman Ryden Evers to a three-year entry-level contract earlier this week. Evers received the CBA-mandated maximum 10 percent of total contract value as a signing bonus. This could indicate there was interest from other teams, but it should be noted that Seattle has given a 10 percent signing bonus to most of its rookie free agent signings—including Kartye and Logan Morrison.
What did the Kraken like in Evers? The first thing that jumps off the page is that he’s a 6-foot-4 center. This size profile is coveted in the NHL, particularly given that he has a real shot to stick up the middle. Evers’ 1,424 total faceoff attempts and 852 wins are both by far the most in the WHL this season. His 59.8 percent win rate is sixth-best among all players with at least 200 draws this season. Add in a hardworking defensive profile, physical puck protection ability, and a sturdy net-front presence in the offensive zone, and you can see the makings of a bottom-six pivot.
Yet it was Evers’ scoring this season in the WHL that elevated him into a legitimate NHL prospect. Until last season, Evers played in the BCHL, a junior league that is a step below the WHL. He topped out at 1.11 points per game in the BCHL in 2024–25, which is an unremarkable figure in NHL prospect circles. This year Evers has actually improved that mark against significantly better competition, posting 1.14 points per game. This baseline of offensive production is an important indicator that he has a chance to bring enough offense at the next level.
Ryden Evers had been committed to attend Clarkson University next year, but signing an entry-level contract means he’ll no longer be going the college route. Penticton sits second in the WHL Western Conference, so, depending on how long his WHL playoff run goes, Evers will either debut professionally late this season or at the beginning of next year.
For more on Evers’ play, check out his shifts from Penticton’s Jan. 31, 2026, game against the Portland Winterhawks above. We’ll plan to circle back with a deeper dive on Evers’ game in an offseason “film room” post once we’ve had the chance to watch some more tape on him.
Notes on three Kraken prospects
Julius Miettinen | F | Everett Silvertips (WHL)
Julius Miettinen exploded with seven goals and four assists in three games last week, which makes him one of the easier choices for Sound Of Hockey Prospect of the Week in recent memory. Miettinen was the WHL Player of the Week as well.
Miettinen’s big week included a hat trick and an overtime game-winner in Kent against the Silvertips’ rival Thunderbirds last Saturday. The celebration made it fairly clear that the sports hate is alive and well between these two Puget Sound WHL franchises. Check it out below. Sound Of Hockey’s Cameron Riggers wrote an (incredibly well-timed) profile on Miettinen last week, too. Give that a read.
🎙️ “JULIUS MIETTINEN COMPLETES THE COMEBACK FOR EVERETT!”
— xy – Everett Silvertips (@WHLsilvertips) March 1, 2026
Kim Saarinen | G | HPK (Liiga)
Kim Saarinen continues to stack strong performances for HPK, even as the rest of Liiga’s top goaltenders have cooled in recent weeks. His .917 save percentage is now seven points clear of the second-best figure in Finland’s top professional league. And Saarinen is doing this at 19 years old. Like Nikke Kokko before him, Saarinen is likely pushing the timeframe for a North American arrival much earlier than the team could have reasonably projected.
The challenge is in finding North American playing time for him, particularly if Semyon Vyazovoi comes to Coachella Valley next season as expected. Saarinen is signed with HPK through 2027–28, per Elite Prospects, so it’s possible, if not likely, he’ll stick around in Liiga at least another season despite his stellar play.
Gustav Olofsson | D | Coachella Valley Firebirds (AHL)
While not exactly a “prospect,” Gustav Olofsson, 31, finds himself within the ambit of these updates for the first time this season as a player signed to an NHL contract. The 6-foot-3 blueliner is an “original Kraken” and in his fifth season with the organization. He had been playing under an AHL-only contract this season, but team and player ripped up that contract, and Olofsson signed an NHL deal on Mar. 2. After passing back through waivers—as is necessary for any non-exempt player on an NHL contract to play in the AHL—he is back with the Firebirds again. He is now available to be recalled to the Kraken should the need arise. Olofsson’s 17 points this season matches his previous AHL career high.
Kraken prospects data update
Alexis Bernier continues to drive positive results when he is on the ice. He is a remarkable plus-17 in just 14 games played.
Jake O’Brien is back atop the heap in the OHL with 1.72 points per game this season. His pace is second in the entire CHL behind only Tij Iginla among those with more than 15 games played. We’ve previously analyzed what junior scoring like this means for a player’s NHL projection.
Saarinen matched his .917 season mark in three starts this week, including a win opposite fellow Kraken prospect Visa Vedenpaa on Friday, Mar. 6.
Vedenpaa earned two Liiga starts last week (plus another today, Mar. 7 not included within this update).
1:Alexis Bernier, Barrett Hall, Ollie Josephson, Tyson Jugnauth, Nikke Kokko, Oscar Fisker Mølgaard, Logan Morrison, Victor Ostman, Zaccharya Wisdom
Previewing the week ahead
This week’s Deep Sea Hockey Games of the Week are two matchups between Saarinen’s HPK and Vedenpaa’s Karpat on Friday and Saturday. Elsewhere the NCHC Playoffs are underway with a Kraken prospect participating in each first-round matchup.
Tracking 2026 NHL Draft prospects: Ryan Lin
Ryan Lin is a five-foot-11 right-shot defenseman who makes up for a lack of size with keen offensive instincts and an efficient skating and transition game. He’s been a bit quiet in overall impact in the couple of games I’ve watched, but that’s a small sample and doesn’t mean a lot. He looks like a right-handed Ryker Evans with a slightly higher talent level to me. His 1.20 points per game are second among first-time draft-eligible defensemen in the WHL. Lin ranked No. 15 on the midseason Big Board.
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.
Just when you thought the Seattle Kraken were standing pat at the NHL Trade Deadline, they swung an 11th-hour deal with the Toronto Maple Leafs for Bobby McMann, sending a fourth-round pick in 2026 and a second-round pick in 2027 the other way.
“We wanted to look and try to add a piece to our group, someone who can play in our top nine,” general manager Jason Botterill said. “We look at Bobby as a player that brings speed to our lineup, gets pucks to the net, gets to the net, and I think can complement the rest of our group very well.”
McMann, 29, is a speedy 6-foot-2, 217-pound forward who can play wing or center, though the Kraken will almost certainly use him primarily on the wing. Following a four-year college career at Colgate University, the Wainwright, Alb., native worked his way up through the Leafs organization after initially signing a free-agent AHL deal with the Toronto Marlies in 2020.
While he has been (mostly) a full-time NHLer since the 2023-24 season, he did play six AHL games that year with the Marlies and appeared in only 56 NHL games.
He solidified himself as a full-time NHL player last season, scoring 20 goals and 14 assists in 74 games. This season, McMann has posted an impressive 19 goals and 13 assists in 60 games while averaging north of 15 minutes per night for Toronto, often in a top-six role.
“You look at Bobby’s history, he’s worked at every level to get his opportunity to be a successful story in the National Hockey League. His ability to play up and down the lineup, we just felt it was something that would fit very well with our group from a skill set standpoint.”
McMann also brings a history of working with Kraken head coach Lane Lambert, who was an associate coach with the Leafs before being hired by Seattle. Botterill said Lambert loved McMann’s work ethic and noted that when he’s not scoring goals—he has shown to be a streaky scorer—he still brings a strong “backup B game.
McMann’s contract situation
One perplexing angle of the trade is that McMann is on an expiring deal that carries a remarkably reasonable $1.35 million average annual value. That’s perplexing because we at Sound Of Hockey did not envision a move for a so-called rental player this season—someone who could theoretically finish the year here and then walk as an unrestricted free agent this summer.
There’s no doubt McMann improves the current Kraken roster, at least on paper. But we were anticipating a swing at a top-six player with term who could help the team both now and for years to come. While McMann could play on one of Seattle’s top two lines, he’s not a bona fide top-sixer, and there’s no guarantee he sticks around after this season.
“We’ll get him to Seattle, get him part of our mix, and just sort of see how he fits in,” Botterill said. “I think it’s a situation of seeing how he fits in with our group and making sure that he likes Seattle, he likes his role here, and then we’ll see where it goes in the offseason.”
Where McMann fits with the Kraken
Adding McMann without moving out a current player only makes the roster logjam more complicated.
Here were the Kraken forward lines in their last game against St. Louis, which also aligned with how they practiced on Thursday:
Jared McCann — Matty Beniers — Jordan Eberle Jaden Schwartz — Chandler Stephenson — Eeli Tolvanen Berkly Catton — Shane Wright — Kaapo Kakko Ben Meyers — Frederick Gaudreau — Jacob Melanson
Assuming Lambert moves a top-nine forward down to the fourth line to make room for McMann, who moves down? And which fourth-line player gets scratched when Ryan Winterton is already out of the lineup?
Botterill repeatedly stated that the Kraken do not want to block their young players from opportunities in the lineup, but getting everyone into games will be difficult if the roster remains healthy. McMann’s addition could also lead to some miscasting of a player like Catton or Wright onto the fourth line.
Due to immigration issues, McMann will not be in the lineup Saturday against the Ottawa Senators, so we won’t get a clear answer on how Lambert plans to deploy him for at least a few days.
Do we like it?
How McMann affects things going forward is difficult to predict. He brings a nice combination of size, speed, and skill, and he shoots the puck—something Seattle has often struggled to do. From that standpoint, he improves the current roster.
But his addition also raises new questions while only marginally addressing the team’s need for more scoring.
Had this been the lesser of two trades made by Seattle—with a bigger, splashier move for a star scorer serving as the primary transaction of the day—we would have loved the addition. But because it’s the only move the Kraken made, it likely isn’t enough to push this roster into a guaranteed playoff spot, and it certainly doesn’t vault them into contender status.
In short, it helps, but I would have liked to see a bigger swing than a (likely) third-line winger who could walk after the season.
Eberle re-ups for two more years
One of Seattle’s four pending unrestricted free agents, Jordan Eberle, signed a two-year extension on Friday just before the trade deadline.
The 35-year-old captain, who leads Seattle in goals this season with 22, received a pay raise from $4.75 million to $5.5 million and a full no-trade clause.
“We’re very excited, obviously, when you have an opportunity to sign your captain for another two years, your leading scorer, a player that exemplifies so much that the Seattle Kraken are about, we are just ecstatic to have Jordan part of our organization for two more years.”
With Eberle back in the fold and McMann added, the Kraken now still have four pending UFAs: McMann, Jamie Oleksiak, Eeli Tolvanen, and Jaden Schwartz.
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.
Here we go! Things do seem to be heating up around the NHL as we barrel toward the NHL Trade Deadline, which hits at 12 p.m. Pacific on Friday. So far, it’s been mostly fringe, secondary, and tertiary players who have moved, with a few notable names like Tyler Myers (Vancouver to Dallas), MacKenzie Weegar (Calgary to Utah), Sam Girard (Colorado to Pittsburgh), and Conor Garland (Vancouver to Columbus) already being dealt.
Perhaps the biggest deal so far came late Thursday when the Anaheim Ducks, one of the teams Seattle is chasing, landed veteran defenseman John Carlson from the Washington Capitals.
The returns for the players that have moved have not been astronomical, indicating that this is truly a “buyers’ market.” So, we could see some more fireworks before midday on Friday.
Meanwhile, all is quiet on the Kraken front, so the team’s players are playing it cool, trying not to pay too much attention to the few rumors that have bubbled up around the club.
“Obviously, we’ve put ourselves in a spot where we have an opportunity to make the playoffs and make a run here,” captain Jordan Eberle said. “Whether that means we add or we stick with the group, I don’t know, those decisions are above me. But at this moment in time, I’m proud of the way that this group has battled to get ourselves an opportunity to hopefully get in.”
Control what you can control
It’s interesting to feel the palpable difference in mood between a team battling for the playoffs (like this season’s group and the 2022-23 team) compared with the three seasons when the Kraken have been obvious sellers on the eve of the deadline. Even after a stinging loss to the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday, the players don’t expect the front office to be selling off veterans on expiring contracts Friday.
“We’ve been here the last couple years where we’ve kind of been selling off guys, and the first year, right? The vibes are not good [in that situation],” Eberle said. “You’re saying bye to friends, saying bye to teammates. It’s always not a fun situation. That’s why at the end of the day, you want to try and play meaningful games all the way to the end.”
Eberle, by the way, is one of four players—along with Eeli Tolvanen, Jamie Oleksiak, and Jaden Schwartz—on expiring contracts. I do not expect to see those players moved simply to collect draft picks like we’ve seen the past two seasons. If any of them are dealt, it would likely be because general manager Jason Botterill receives an offer he can’t refuse and believes the team can still make the playoffs without that player.
Tolvanen echoed Eberle’s sentiments, despite his own contract situation.
“What happens happens. You can’t really focus on that,” Tolvanen said. “I mean, it can be December when you get traded like Kaapo [Kakko] did, or it can be tomorrow, or you can stay. I don’t really care about that.”
While I’ve gotten no indication that Tolvanen is re-signing, my intuition tells me he’ll stick around beyond this season. As Tolvanen himself said, “We’ll see what happens.”
Meanwhile, coach Lane Lambert is likely ready to move past the deadline and eliminate any related distractions for his group.
“There’s always trepidation, I guess, with guys, and it’s not an easy time of the year,” Lambert said. “Most of them, not all of them, but most of them have been through it, a lot of them on multiple occasions. So the bottom line is, in anything—it doesn’t matter if it’s hockey or life—it’s you can control what you can control. And if there’s rumors or there’s outside noise, you’ve just got to not listen to it, because a lot of times that’s exactly what it is, just rumors and outside noise.”
When I asked Lambert if he’s hoping to see moves from the front office, he said there are things about the team that he really likes and would be hesitant to see disrupted. Still, there’s no doubt he’d welcome the addition of a player or two who can put the puck in the net.
“I’ve been on teams in the past where it did kind of mess it up a little bit, but I’ve also been on teams where it helped. So, you just have to make sure that you do your homework, do your research, know what you’re doing and know what you need.”
What happened against St. Louis on Thursday?
With every point in the standings feeling critical right now, it was disappointing to see the Kraken follow up their impressive 2-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday with a 3-2 loss to St. Louis on Wednesday—their second defeat against the underperforming Blues in just eight days.
Eberle gave his take on how that happened, crediting the Blues as a team that’s better than its record indicates.
“I thought we started the game really well, obviously opened the scoring, and then we died off in the first period a little bit. They obviously tied it up. I thought our second period was great. I thought we created some chances, we had opportunities. Third period, we gave up one, and then we were just chasing.”
Added Lambert: “The game for me, could have went either way. We made a couple of mistakes, they made a couple of good plays, and we had some opportunities but failed to capitalize on them. There was a lot of things about that game that I really liked.”
Los Angeles won Thursday night, so now the Kings and Sharks are both within three points of the Kraken, who remain in the final wild-card spot. Getting two points against the Blues would have pushed Seattle back ahead of Edmonton for third place in the Pacific Division.
Tolvanen recalls Olympics
This was my first time chatting with Tolvanen since he and countryman Kaapo Kakko returned from the Olympics in Milan with bronze medals.
Like we heard from Grubauer last week, the event was clearly memorable for Tolvanen.
“I think the whole experience was unbelievable,” Tolvanen said. “The city of Milan was unreal, great weather, just the history behind the city, seeing all the athletes at the village walking around, hockey players, different athletes. It was unbelievable.”
He said the Finnish team stayed in the Olympic Village and spent plenty of time together biking around the city and hanging out in the team lounge.
Tolvanen spoke proudly about winning bronze but admitted he hasn’t yet found a permanent home for the medal. For now, it’s sitting in his closet, though he plans to eventually create a display featuring the medal and his jersey from the tournament.
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 Kraken seem to have a way of rising to the occasion when they know they’re up against a tough opponent—and easing off when playing against squads below them in the standings. After a high-intensity, nearly perfect defensive effort to earn a 2-1 win over the high-flying Carolina Hurricanes on Monday, the Kraken let a long stretch of uninspired play sink them against the fire-selling St. Louis Blues on Wednesday.
“I don’t think it was anything they were doing,” coach Lane Lambert said when asked about his team’s struggle to hold momentum. “We just didn’t continue with our pressure. There’s no excuse for it. I don’t have an answer for you.”
After jumping out of the gates, the Kraken eased off the gas long enough to cost themselves two critical points.
Here are Three Takeaways from a killer 3-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues.
Takeaway 1: A hot start, and then a lull
For the first few minutes of the game, it looked like the Kraken might run up the score on the Blues. They immediately tilted the ice, fired five shots on Joel Hofer before St. Louis generated anything at the other end, and even scored an easy-looking goal when Jaden Schwartz cleaned up a juicy rebound off an Adam Larsson point shot just 31 seconds into the contest.
THE POWER OF THE SCHWARTZ! 🕺🚨
Big, juicy rebound from Hofer, and Jaden Schwartz cleans up the rebound. Larsson picks up another assist after two last game.
But after that, the momentum swung toward St. Louis. The Blues had the better of the play from about the five-minute mark of the first period through the midpoint of the second.
During that stretch, Logan Mailloux tied the game 1-1 at 6:50 of the first after a defensive breakdown (I couldn’t help notice Chandler Stephenson puck watching at the top of the crease) allowed him to wrap the puck around into an open net. St. Louis then took a 2-1 lead at 7:40 of the second on a well-executed rush finished by recent Kraken killer Dylan Holloway.
1-1. Logan Mailloux gets the rebound and wraps it around the other side.
Schwartz downplayed the notion that Seattle went quiet for nearly half the game.
“It was a pretty back-and-forth game. It was right there. It’s a one-goal game, so a save here, a bounce there.”
He’s not wrong—the Kraken were a bounce away from tying it. But easing off the pressure for that extended stretch ultimately did them in.
Takeaway 2: A nice pushback
To their credit, the Kraken mounted a strong pushback, particularly after falling behind by two goals in the third period.
Seattle generated sustained offensive-zone time and, on many nights, would have found the equalizer—especially during a 6-on-4 advantage in the final two minutes when they created several quality chances.
“We had good O-zone time,” Schwartz said. “We obviously could be around the net a little bit more, there’s rebounds, and their goalie played well. So we could have maybe had more traffic, but we had a good push… We had chances.”
Ultimately, though, only Dunn was able to solve Hofer, who came up with a handful of large stops down the stretch.
Takeaway 3: Robert Thomas had a nice game
The Blues appear to be firmly in sell mode with Friday’s trade deadline fast approaching. One name frequently mentioned as potentially available is Robert Thomas, and I paid close attention to him in this game to see how he might look in deep sea blue.
To be clear, I have no indication that the Kraken are actively pursuing Thomas or that he’d have interest in coming to Seattle, but he’s one of the more intriguing forwards rumored to be available.
Based on Wednesday’s showing, I can confirm that I wouldn’t mind seeing him in a Kraken sweater. The 26-year-old, 6-foot, 207-pound center had a strong game, recording an assist on Mailloux’s early goal and scoring what turned out to be the game-winner. On that play, Thomas found a soft spot in the slot, took a feed from Brayden Schenn, and ripped a shot against the grain that beat Philipp Grubauer.
Hmm. Robert Thomas would like nice in deep sea blue…
I’ve always assumed Seattle would be more inclined to pursue a scoring winger than another center. But if a theoretical deal for Thomas involved Shane Wright heading the other way, the roster construction could make sense: Thomas and Matty Beniers as the top two centers, Chandler Stephenson as the 3C, and some combination of Freddy Gaudreau and Ben Meyers filling the 4C role.
I’m convinced that acquiring Thomas would represent a significant upgrade to the roster. I’m just not anywhere close to convinced the Kraken will actually land him.
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.
