The Seattle Torrent joining the fold here in the Pacific Northwest is a move that quickly made history in the sports community, both locally and beyond. For a city whose hockey culture has been steadily growing since the introduction of the Kraken, a professional women’s team has the potential to grow the fanbase even more. The Torrent have had some ups and downs in the early stages of their first season, but they’ve received unwavering support so far, which will hopefully only grow with on-ice improvement over time.
The expansion into the Seattle sports market was a smart one – when you combine the die-hard loyalty of Seattle sports fans with the excitement of a new franchise, you start to see some sports magic happen. This excitement was present when the Kraken were introduced, and the city rallied behind them. That magic continued when the Torrent started off their inaugural season. In their first regular-season game, the fans here in Seattle broke the attendance record for the PWHL, drawing 16,014. They haven’t reached that number in games since, but home attendance has remained strong, giving an early indication that the city’s support of the team is sustainable.
The fact that the Torrent have had three of their four wins come on home ice has definitely helped draw in more fans in the area. But, they are starting to make some progress on the road too, as just last Saturday they got their first win away from Climate Pledge Arena, a 3-2 victory against the Toronto Sceptres in Hamilton, Ont.
Plus, they started off the new calendar year on a good note, which always helps.
The Torrent have a star-studded roster that should continue to bring excitement into the arena as they start to straighten out some of the bumps they have run into in the past few games. The top line will be something to continue to watch, specifically. It includes Captain Hilary Knight, Alex Carpenter, and Julia Gosling who together have scored 10 of the Torrent’s 20 goals this season, with Knight also leading the team in assists. The Torrent’s roster is set up for success (and some exciting hockey) once they solidify their consistency throughout the three periods on the ice.
This success won’t just come from the top lines though, as the Torrent have proven to have some depth to their roster. Young players like Hannah Bilka have shown up in critical moments. The team also has some versatile goaltending options between young Hannah Murphy and veteran Corinne Schroeder. Seattle is set up to grow into a tough competitor, and their strong start with the fans proves that the city is ready for it.
Captain Hilary Knight skates towards the puck. (Photo/Brian Liesse)
The challenge lying ahead…
While everyone hopes that the team will continue to win and improve its chemistry together, the fans will have to take a short break from watching the Torrent to turn their attention towards the Olympics. Luckily for Seattle fans, the Torrent has six players that are set to play at those Games. The USA lineup will include Alex Carpenter, Cayla Barnes, Hannah Bilka, and USA captain Hilary Knight, whose appearance will make this her fifth Olympics. Julia Gosling will join Team Canada’s roster, and Aneta Tejralová will be playing for Czechia.
The Olympic break has the potential to spotlight some of the Torrent players while also giving them some time to play with the most elite in the game. Hopefully the scale of attention and level of play that will be placed on them will follow them back to Seattle for the rest of the regular season and bring added interest in the women’s game. The Olympics coinciding with the start of the Torrent’s introduction to the league makes for an incredibly entertaining first season for Seattle fans.
The Torrent are just at the beginning of their story here in Seattle. Establishing themselves within the Seattle market has already been accomplished with their impressive first turnout of the season, but the next step is to continuing to grow their identity within that space. The Torrent’s performance and fan engagement post Olympics will be the next big step in building up that team identity to further solidify themselves as both a strong competitor in the PWHL and within the market here in Seattle.
[Knock on wood, knock on wood, knock on wood.] At the risk of jinxing them, the Seattle Kraken seem to be getting healthier with every passing day.
Jaden Schwartz returned to the lineup Saturday in Carolina after missing 19 games with a lower-body injury. His return coincided with Chandler Stephenson exiting and being designated as a non-roster player due to the birth of his third child. Stephenson missed two games and is expected to return Wednesday when the Kraken visit the New Jersey Devils. On Monday, captain Jordan Eberle returned from a two-game absence related to an upper-body injury.
Meanwhile, defenseman Brandon Montour—who has been out with a Mason Marchment-related hand injury since Dec. 16—has returned to practice and skated with the team again on Tuesday. Based on this and his original timeline, Montour could be nearing a return within the next few games.
If nobody else gets sick or injured in the next two contests, difficult decisions will have to be made by the Kraken brass as they decide who to scratch—and eventually who to send down to the Coachella Valley Firebirds—to make room for returning regulars.
The immediate conundrum – who to scratch against the Devils?
Stephenson will almost certainly slot back into his second-line center role Wednesday. Without Stephenson, the forward lines for a 4-2 win at the New York Rangers on Monday looked like this:
Kaapo Kakko // Matty Beniers // Jordan Eberle Jaden Schwartz // Freddy Gaudreau // Eeli Tolvanen Berkly Catton // Shane Wright // Jared McCann Jacob Melanson // Ben Meyers // Ryan Winterton
With Stephenson back, who do you scratch if you’re Lane Lambert? Even that is a tough question to answer because the fourth line of Melanson/Meyers/Winterton has been the lynchpin for this team’s turnaround over the last month. But I would be surprised to see any player from the top three lines come out, especially after all three of those lines contributed to the comeback win at Madison Square Garden on Monday.
Entering a back-to-back with travel against the Devils and Bruins, Lambert was unsurprisingly vague on his plans when asked about this so-called “good problem” by Bob Condor on Tuesday in New Jersey. “You take it one [game] at a time, so we’ll see where we’re at and set our lineup for tomorrow and deal with the Boston game when that comes. But certainly, there are some healthy bodies, and we have some numbers and some people that maybe we can put in some fresh legs.”
If it were my decision, I’d probably put Stephenson at 2C, Gaudreau at 4C, and scratch Meyers—only because that feels like the least disruptive option. My second choice would be to move Gaudreau to fourth-line wing and scratch Winterton.
I don’t particularly like either option, but something will have to give.
What happens when Montour returns?
The bigger question—and again, this is all mooted if somebody gets sick or injured in the next couple of days—is what happens when Montour returns. The Kraken are currently at their 23-man roster limit, and that doesn’t include goaltender Matt Murray, who is still on injured reserve.
Once Montour is activated, Seattle will have to make a corresponding move. There are only three players who can be sent to the Coachella Valley Firebirds without being exposed to waivers: Wright, Winterton, and Melanson. Any other candidates—like Kartye, Meyers, Cale Fleury, or even Josh Mahura (yes, I think Mahura could be a candidate)—would have to be exposed to a claim from another team before they could be sent to the AHL. One could imagine a world in which any of those waivers-eligible players gets snatched up by a banged-up team looking for depth.
My preference would be for the Kraken to make a trade or two to clear out their multiple logjams of middle-to-bottom-six forwards and depth defensemen. But if that doesn’t happen, then my pick—and I really hate this call—would be to send Winterton to CV with the expectation that he comes back as soon as a spot opens up.
If that happens (or if Melanson gets sent down), the reasoning surely wouldn’t be because the Kraken front office thinks the player deserves a demotion. Instead, it would be done purely from an asset-management perspective. I do think this is the right approach, because the second the Kraken lose one of their depth guys to waivers, another player will get hurt, and they’ll be kicking themselves for losing a useful replacement.
This is also the exact reason that waivers exist; to protect the more veteran players from being sent haphazardly to the AHL.
The curious case of Matt Murray
Adding another curious wrinkle to all this is the fact that the Kraken still have a third goalie waiting in the wings in Matt Murray. Murray has been on injured reserve since coming up lame against the San Jose Sharks way back on Nov. 15. He’s been practicing in full for quite some time now and is being slow-played by the Kraken, who are no doubt hesitant to activate him and use up a scarce roster spot.
At some point, they’ll have no choice but to activate Murray because according to the collective bargaining agreement, once a player is healthy enough to play, he must come off IR.
One has to wonder whether Murray gets sent to CV for a conditioning stint, which could buy a little more time before another roster decision has to be made. Murray would have to agree to such a loan, however, and may not want to go to the minors.
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These things have had a way of working themselves out so far this season. Every time Seattle has appeared to be getting healthy, somebody else has gone down with yet another injury, and the decisions have made themselves.
But if that doesn’t happen this time, and everyone ends up available at once, how would you solve these conundrums?
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.
Those were two very large points for the Seattle Kraken, who overcame an early 2-0 deficit to escape from New York with a 4-2 win over the Rangers.
After Seattle saw its 10-game point streak snapped with a regulation loss Saturday in Carolina, getting back in the win column against a recently struggling team felt crucial. It wasn’t easy, but the Kraken figured it out.
Here are Three Takeaways from a 4-2 Kraken win over the Rangers.
Takeaway 1: Grubauer and Kraken recover after sketchy start
There are probably some in the Kraken fanbase who still feel spikes in their blood pressure when the Kraken give up an early goal with Philipp Grubauer in net. In a previous version of Grubi, it was something we saw all too often, and the current version of Grubauer—Renaissance Grubi, as we’re calling him—has now given up early goals in his last two starts. The big difference between Renaissance Grubi and the old version of Grubi, though, is that he doesn’t seem to get rattled by early goals anymore.
Just as Grubauer did against Minnesota on Thursday—when the Kraken also rallied back from a 2-0 deficit and forced overtime—he settled into his game as it went on and once again gave his team a chance to complete the comeback, which they did this time.
The Rangers’ first goal was an odd one. Soon after an ineffective early power play ended, Mika Zibanejad missed the net with a shot, then beat Vince Dunn to the loose puck and chipped it toward Grubauer from below the goal line. Grubauer was sliding back toward the net and looking the wrong direction, and he dragged the puck into the net behind him. Give credit to Zibanejad, because it’s a smart play to quickly chip that toward the goalie, but it’s also a strange goal to give up.
The next one was certainly not on Grubauer, but it came just 2:23 later, which made me wonder briefly if the netminder was off his game. Jared McCann tried to one-touch a breakout pass off the wall in the neutral zone backward toward Dunn, but inadvertently fired a missile six inches off the ice that was far too hot for Dunn to handle. That handed the Rangers a quick-developing 2-on-1, and Sam Carrick beat Grubauer from point-blank range.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Quick looked like a world-beater at the other end of the ice, stopping three Grade A Seattle chances in the first period, including a breakaway from Ryan Winterton.
Despite a few good chances, the vibes after that opening frame were not good, especially when the Kraken Hockey Network flashed the stat that the Rangers entered the game 12-0-0 on the season when leading after the first period.
BUT…
Grubauer and his teammates recovered and were visibly the better squad from the second period on, owning a 21-10 shots-on-goal advantage over the final 40 minutes. Grubauer made a few sharp saves the rest of the way, but his biggest stop of the night came with the Rangers pushing for the equalizer in the final 30 seconds, robbing J.T. Miller from about two feet away.
Takeaway 2: Kraken were a different team in the second
The Kraken needed to shake off that first period, and they certainly did, scoring two quick goals to tie the game by the 4:27 mark of the middle frame.
The second line—still without Chandler Stephenson due to the birth of his third child—got things started offensively when Freddy Gaudreau stole a puck in the neutral zone to create a 2-on-1. He made an exquisite backhand saucer pass to Eeli Tolvanen, who chipped the puck up and over Quick to get Seattle on the board.
Three minutes later, the top line of Kaapo Kakko, Matty Beniers, and Jordan Eberle—the captain was back in the lineup after a two-game hiatus—took the baton and went to work. Beniers retrieved a Dunn rebound at the left half wall and worked it low to Kakko. Kakko, making his triumphant return to Madison Square Garden, threaded a perfect pass through three Rangers defenders to Eberle at the top of the slot. Eberle delayed and waited for Quick to drop down, then sniped a perfect shot into the top-right corner to tie the game.
O, CAPTAIN! 🫡 🚨
Kaapo Kakko with a great setup to Jordan Eberle, who dusts it off and snipes the top corner.#SeaKraken have started shooting high on Jonathan Quick, a wise adjustment.
That second line of Schwartz, Gaudreau, and Tolvanen was excellent in this game, by the way, and as BFOP Alison Lukan pointed out on the KHN post-game show, they controlled 98 percent of the shot quality when they were on the ice. That’s especially impressive considering they were deployed heavily against Artemi Panarin, Zibanejad, and Will Cuylle.
Takeaway 3: Third line finishes the comeback
While the top two lines were responsible for pulling Seattle back into the game in the second, it was the third line of Berkly Catton, Shane Wright, and Jared McCann that completed the comeback. Wright carried the puck into the zone and dropped it for McCann just inside the blue line. McCann shoveled it to Ryan Lindgren—also making his triumphant return to MSG—who had activated and was cutting down the slot.
Lindgren made a skilled play to find Berkly Catton open at the backdoor, and although Catton fanned on it, Wright crashed in and helped him poke the puck over the line. The goal was ultimately credited to Catton, though, giving the rookie his fourth goal in four games after being held goalless through his first 27 NHL games. It’s safe to say the floodgates are open for him.
This did get credited to Berkly Catton, so after going 27 games without a goal to start his NHL career, he now has four goals in his last four games. #SeaKrakenhttps://t.co/sZTaYDxa9C
The win was a big one for Seattle. It put things back on track after a brief derailment Saturday and also nudged the Kraken back ahead of the San Jose Sharks for third place in the Pacific Division standings.
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The Kraken are getting healthier. Schwartz returned Saturday, Eberle returned Monday, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see Stephenson rejoin the team for the back half of this road trip. Meanwhile, Brandon Montour skated with the team in a red non-contact jersey at morning skate Monday.
With depth players making such a massive impact over the last few weeks—guys like Ryan Winterton, Ben Meyers, Jacob Melanson, and Cale Fleury all chipping in—very difficult (and potentially unfair) decisions loom.
The Kraken have been rolling for the better part of a month now, riding a 10‑game point streak that finally snapped Saturday night against the Carolina Hurricanes. It was bound to end eventually; you can only white‑knuckle your way through so many one‑goal games before the good luck you’ve been riding runs out. Seattle is back in the playoff picture, though, clinging to the first wild‑card spot. What’s been interesting about this run is that it didn’t just materialize out of thin air. The seeds were planted a little earlier.
Improved special teams
If you zoom out a bit, the Kraken’s course correction really started before the win streak officially began. Dec. 8 against Minnesota, six games before the point streak kicked off, felt like the moment things began to turn. And the biggest driver of that shift has been special teams suddenly clicking.
Before Dec. 8, the power play was converting at 16.9 percent. Since then, it’s been humming along at 32.6 percent. The penalty kill has followed the same arc, jumping from 64.8 percent pre‑Dec. 8 to 80.4 percent since. When both sides of special teams swing that dramatically, it starts to show up in the standings, especially for a team that leads the league in one‑goal games if you strip out empty‑netters.
When your margins are razor thin every night, you don’t need elite special teams to change your season; you just need them to stop actively hurting you. The Kraken have gone a step further and turned them into a strength.
The tightness of the Pacific Division
Of course, all of this is happening inside the tightest division in the NHL. The Pacific Division remains a tightly packed mess, with just three points separating second and fifth place as of Monday morning. Seattle sits fourth, holding two games in hand on both Edmonton (second) and San Jose (third).
For most of the season, I’ve assumed Edmonton and Vegas would eventually pull away and make this a race for third and a wild-card spot. And they still might. But neither has put together the kind of sustained run that slams the door on the rest of the division. The Kings and Ducks have their own vulnerabilities, and the Sharks, well, the Sharks are scoring goals, but they continue to play a Swiss cheese defense.
All of that is a long way of saying the Pacific is wide open. I’m not predicting the Kraken finish top‑two, but it’s no longer a fantasy‑land scenario. A month ago, that felt impossible. Now it feels… plausible. And that’s a testament to how dramatically this team has stabilized.
Everyone is talking about the fourth line
One of the more delightful subplots of the last few weeks is that everywhere I go, people want to talk about the fourth line. And honestly, that’s cool.
The personnel has shuffled a bit with Ryan Winterton and Tye Kartye rotating in and out, but the heartbeat of the group has been Ben Meyers and Jacob Melanson. Melanson gets most of the attention because he plays with wreckless abandon. His forechecking is relentless, his hits are violent, and his energy is contagious.
But the line works because Meyers is the stabilizer. His positional play is so clean, and his skill level is surprisingly above average for a fourth‑line center. He’s been a key contributor in what the team has needed out of that role—reliable, smart, opportunistic—and has chipped in offensively at key moments. It’s also worth noting that he was the only personnel change on the penalty kill when that unit turned the corner in early December.
The Kraken have been searching for a fourth line with an identity for most of their existence. They might finally have one.
Other musings
Saturday’s loss to Carolina added yet another one-goal game to their tally this season. The Kraken have now played 32 one‑goal games (excluding empty‑netters), after logging 41 all of last season.
Here’s another odd one: Seattle leads the NHL in percentage of game time spent tied, sitting at 49.6 percent. Nearly half their season has been played in a deadlock. No wonder every night feels like a stress test.
The overtime frenzy has cooled a bit since the early-season chaos, but the Kraken still lead their brief franchise history with 14 overtime games already. Their single‑season record is 19 (2023‑24), and they’re well on pace to go over that mark this season.
The Kraken finally held a four‑goal lead last Monday against Calgary, their first of the season. It was also the first time my blood pressure dipped below “concerning” since October.
Seattle has also quietly posted a 3-2-2 record and .571 point percentage on the second half of back‑to‑backs. For the first time in franchise history, I no longer feel obligated to type the word “dreaded” before “back‑to‑back.”
A small but interesting wrinkle from Thursday: Berkly Catton logged 51 seconds of TOI in overtime, the most he’s played in OT this season, and notably, it was the first time he started overtime. A tiny detail, but one that suggests growing trust.
Eeli Tolvanen deserves a shoutout as one of this season’s unsung heroes. He leads all Kraken forwards with 46 blocked shots, including three big ones against Minnesota last Thursday. In a season where every game feels like a coin flip, those little moments matter.
The Kraken’s 12 shots on goal against Carolina were the fewest in a single game in franchise history.
Seattle now owns the ninth‑best power play in the NHL. If you had told me in October that this group would crack the top 10 at any point, I would have thought you were crazy. They finished 23rd last season.
Goal(s) of the week
There were simply too many worthy candidates this week, so we’re rolling with three.
The first comes from Anabella Fanale of the Minnesota Gophers, but the real magic is in the setup from Abbey Murphy, who looked like she was screwing around at a Saturday morning stick and puck to make the play happen.
Next up: the two Kraken rookies who scored their first NHL goals this week.
Jacob Melanson gets the nod first. I included the full sequence because it perfectly encapsulates what this fourth line has been doing lately, relentless pressure, smart little plays, and a bit of chaos. Melanson’s skate pass on the entry is delightful, and Winterton’s recovery after Calgary tries to clear the zone is exactly the kind of detail that makes this line so effective.
Then there’s Berkly Catton, who scored three goals this week, all of which could have been goal‑of‑the‑week contenders. This one was my favorite, mostly because he didn’t realize it went in and skated away looking mildly annoyed.
Player performances
Matty Beniers (SEA) – Three goals and two assists across four games. He looks like he’s rediscovering that swagger, and the Kraken need him to keep it going.
Kaapo Kakko (SEA) – Two goals and two assists as he continues to settle back in after missing a big chunk of the season. His confidence is creeping upward shift by shift.
Ben Meyers (SEA) – Not the flashiest stat line of the week, but he’s been a huge part of the fourth line’s recent success and has a knack for scoring at exactly the right moments. One goal, one assist, and a whole lot of impact.
The week ahead
The Kraken have a real opportunity in front of them with a four‑game road swing through the New York Rangers, New Jersey Devils, Boston Bruins, and finally Utah Mammoth.
There are no easy games in the NHL, but Seattle is catching both the Rangers and Devils at vulnerable moments. New York is 3‑5‑2 in their last 10 and just got thumped 10‑2 by Boston. New Jersey is 2‑7‑1 in their last 10 and recently lost 9‑0 to the Islanders. Historically, the Kraken haven’t fared well in either building—one win ever at MSG, none at Prudential Center—but if there were ever a time to steal points, this is it.
Thursday brings a rematch with the Bruins, who have won five of their last six. The lone blemish? Their 7‑4 loss to the Kraken last week. On paper, that’s the toughest matchup of the trip.
But the biggest game of the week might be Saturday in Utah. The Mammoth are tied with Seattle at 48 points but have played three more games. That’s a classic four‑point swing scenario, and the kind of game that can influence the playoff picture down the stretch.
Four points out of eight would be perfectly acceptable. Six, with one coming against Utah, would go a long way toward keeping this momentum rolling.
And finally…
After that brutal stretch from late November through mid‑December, the Kraken have played themselves back into the playoff picture and may still give us what we asked for back in October: meaningful hockey in mid‑March. Would it be nice to see them create a little breathing room in the standings? Absolutely. Is it required? Not yet.
Even with a couple dents showing in the last two games, I feel better about this team now than I did when they were winning early in the season. They look connected. They look committed. And maybe most importantly, they look like a group that genuinely believes it can win. What say you?
Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. The Seattle Kraken’s remarkable point streak that took them from last place to third in the Pacific Division has ended at 10 games (8-0-2). The Kraken grabbed a 2-1 lead in the third period Saturday, but the relentless Carolina Hurricanes pushed back to tie the game and ultimately take a 3-2 regulation win.
While the Kraken got caved in in terms of possession and shot volume, they hung right in and gave themselves a good chance to win this contest. But the class of one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference shone through, and the Canes came out victorious.
Here are Three Takeaways from a 3-2 Kraken loss to the Hurricanes.
Takeaway 1: They had it
The flow of this game felt a lot like the 5-3 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Dec. 16, though the Kraken spent much more of that game on their toes than they did in this one. Facing another elite team Saturday, Seattle took a third-period lead and appeared to be heading toward an unlikely win. But top teams are never out of games—especially when you only have a one-goal lead—and as was the case against Colorado, Carolina turned on the jets late in the third period and simply refused to lose.
The tying goal, scored by Jordan Martinook at 10:37 of the third period, didn’t involve an obvious mistake by any Kraken players. Jordan Staal delayed behind the net, which lured Matty Beniers to him, then snuck his pass between the legs of Adam Larsson onto Martinook’s stick in the slot. Because Beniers had tried to flush Staal out from behind the net, he wasn’t able to get back to the top of the crease in time to take Martinook’s stick away.
Jordan Martinook ties it. Looked like the #SeaKraken had it covered, but Staal snuck it through Larsson.
The winning goal, which came three minutes later at 13:50, was more the result of a Kraken mistake. Cale Fleury—who, by the way, has been awesome in his extended stint filling in for Brandon Montour—tried to chip the puck off the glass to create an offensive rush. But Seth Jarvis stepped up and gloved down the clearing attempt in the neutral zone, and the Hurricanes transitioned quickly. As they closed in on Joey Daccord, Ryan Lindgren shoved William Carrier into Daccord—enough contact to disrupt the netminder, but not self-inflicted enough to challenge for goalie interference—and Jaccob Slavin completed Carolina’s comeback.
Canes take the lead, 3-2. #SeaKraken called timeout to decide whether or not to challenge for goalie interference, but opted against it. pic.twitter.com/YrhQEIGCtP
The Kraken had a shockingly low shot volume in this one—their lowest output of the season—and were nearly outshot by a 3-1 margin, mustering just 12 shots on Brandon Bussi compared to Carolina’s 34. Those numbers don’t tell the whole story, though, because the Kraken did have some good looks either blocked by Hurricanes defenders, while Seattle’s shooters also sent pucks wide and failed to execute on a few rush opportunities.
Considering that paltry volume directed at Bussi, the Kraken did a decent job of making the most of their chances and got two pretty goals from Matty Beniers and Berkly Catton on the night.
Beniers was Seattle’s best player in this game, and his confidence appears to be soaring since being reunited with Kaapo Kakko, who also helped his game take off last season. He was rewarded with a beautiful goal to tie the game 1-1 at 14:13 of the first period, deking Slavin out of his jockstrap at the blue line, racing in, and slipping it through Bussi.
MATTY MAGIC WITH SOME SORCERY! 🧙♂️🚨
What a goal! Jaccob Slavin's jock is in the rafters after that one.
The score remained 1-1 through the first five minutes of the third period, when Catton broke through for his third goal in three games after going goalless for the first 27 games of his NHL career. Ryan Winterton read Bussi’s breakout pass and picked it off, then slung a perfect feed to Catton in the slot, who whipped it inside the left post.
BERKLYYYYYYYY! 🐱 🚨
Ryan Winterton picks off Brandon Bussi's pass and sets up Berkly Catton for his third goal in three games after going goalless in his first 27.
There’s no doubt the Kraken sorely missed Jaden Schwartz during his 19-game absence, which dated all the way back to Nov. 26, when he came up lame and hobbled off against the Dallas Stars. Schwartz finally returned Saturday and looked like his old self. He was fast, physical, and creative, nearly scoring on a breakaway and setting up several chances for his teammates.
He told KHN’s Piper Shaw after the game that his body “held up” well and that he felt good. Getting Schwartz back is a huge boost for this team.
Schwartz’s return coincided with Chandler Stephenson temporarily exiting the lineup, as his wife just gave birth to the couple’s third child. Meanwhile, Jordan Eberle missed his second game in a row with an upper-body injury that has made him day to day, and Brandon Montour continues to slowly work his way back.
Seattle certainly remains undermanned, but the players who were able to go hung right in with one of the NHL’s top teams. It’s a shame they couldn’t pull that one out.
Now Seattle heads to the Big Apple to take on a Rangers team Monday that just lost 10-2 to the Boston Bruins. The Kraken are now behind San Jose again in the standings, so they badly need to take care of business in that game.
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. This week, we’ll have reports on Kraken prospect performances at the 2026 World Junior Championship, two significant junior hockey trades, a couple of key injuries, and some details from the new AHL collective bargaining agreement. We’ll also have weekly and season-to-date data updates, all-shifts videos, 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, drop us a note below or on X or BlueSky at @deepseahockey or @sound_hockey.
Kraken prospect reports from the World Juniors
With another WJC in the books, we’ve passed the unofficial halfway point of the prospect season. Before turning our attention to the draft process, let’s recap what we saw from Kraken prospects at the WJC.
Loke Krantz | F | Team Sweden
Sweden swept through the tournament (seven wins, zero losses) on their way to their first gold medal since 2012. Remarkably, it’s only Sweden’s third in the event’s long and storied history, a relatively modest number for a country that routinely fields a title contender year after year. It had become an annual talking point that Sweden couldn’t break through in the elimination rounds, but they changed that narrative this year.
Krantz, 18, defied public expectations by earning a role on this year’s team. He was active for all but one of Sweden’s games, though the lack of a special teams role kept his ice time modest. He topped out at 9:46 of ice time in the semifinal against Finland (see the video below) and logged 6:52 in the final.
I came away very impressed by Krantz’s speed and physicality on the forecheck, effectively leveraging his 6-foot-2 frame to contest and win possession for Sweden. While he didn’t score, I also found his instincts for locating soft spots in the offensive zone for shot attempts to be quite strong. There is a lot to work with here—much more so than your typical late-round pick. I hope he sticks with his SHL team for the balance of the season and we get a few viewings on FloHockey. His stock is way up for me.
Jakub Fibigr | D | Team Czechia (WJC)
Sweden defeated Czechia and Jakub Fibigr in the gold-medal game. Czechia had a couple of standout forward performances, but the team muscled its way through the tournament on the strength of a dominant top-four group of defenders, of which Fibigr was a part.
Fibigr’s game is not without inconsistencies, but he has taken strides in shoring up the defensive aspects of his game from the player I saw often lost and floating in defensive coverage last year for the Brampton Steelheads. All tournament long, he presented as a level-headed, team-leader type. He wore an “A” on the ice and frequently gave thoughtful remarks before and after games.
Fibigr does not bring any dynamic elements that suggest an above-average NHL projection, but he is now firmly in the mix among Seattle’s group of young blueliners who will be jostling for position over the next couple of years and could be knocking at the door shortly thereafter. Could Fibigr be one that emerges from that group? It’s certainly possible. His stock is up slightly following this event.
Julius Miettinen | F | Team Finland (WJC)
Team Finland avenged its 2025 WJC gold-medal game loss to the United States by downing the Americans in the quarterfinals, but it stalled out thereafter, losing to Sweden and Canada to finish in fourth place. This year’s team was a bit under-skilled when compared with past units and really ran out of steam toward the end (more on that in a moment).
Finland deployed Miettinen as a first-line center and a primary player on both special teams units. He saw more time on the wing on the power play this year, after spending most of his time net-front at last year’s event. He was also a top penalty-killer, taking about half of the draws for that unit. Despite that heavy usage, I didn’t see as many flashes from Miettinen this year as I did at last year’s event. He still worked hard defensively, but I didn’t see as much dynamism offensively or on the forecheck.
This may be attributable to the fact that Miettinen was a bit “miscast” in his WJC role. He projects as a high-end role player or complementary piece, rather than an offensive focal point. His stock is neutral for me.
Kim Saarinen | G | Team Finland (WJC)
For two years in a row, Finland went to Petteri Rimpinen for every WJC start while Saarinen sat on the bench. This diverges from the approach of most nations, which rotated in a second goalie for at least one game. Finland clearly preferred to keep Rimpinen in a rhythm, but you cannot help but wonder if he wore down with a seven-game workload over 11 days.
After Finland was eliminated from gold-medal contention, Finland played Canada for the bronze medal in the second game of a back-to-back. Rimpinen was clearly not at his best, conceding six goals to Canada on 34 shots. You could argue that an ice-cold Saarinen would not have been a better option, but that’s the situation Finland put itself in by not getting its second goalie any time earlier in the tournament. Personally, I wouldn’t manage the goalies this way. I think Finland’s approach cost the team a chance at the bronze medal, at least.
Saarinen’s stock is neutral.
Nathan Villeneuve and Jakub Fibigr traded to the Windsor Spitfires
It is an annual tradition that, as the WJC winds down, CHL trade news steps in to fill the void. With CHL trade deadlines arriving in early January, junior teams out of contention look to move players who are unlikely to return for future assets. With the added uncertainty involving junior hockey players moving to the NCAA ranks (including immediate moves), this year’s deadline was a particularly chaotic period.
Two of Seattle’s top junior players, Nathan Villeneuve and Jakub Fibigr, remained on junior teams that projected to miss the playoffs. Both were traded this week. On Monday, Jan. 5, the Sudbury Wolves traded forward Villeneuve to the Windsor Spitfires. Then, on Wednesday, Jan. 7, the Brampton Steelheads traded defenseman Fibigr to the Spitfires.
These moves should provide a jolt and added development opportunity for the players over the balance of their junior seasons. It also gives Kraken fans (particularly fans who read Down on the Farm) the chance to get multiple prospect viewings on a single team, which is always a welcome development. On the other hand, it may delay Villeneuve’s return to the AHL lineup and, in fact, take him out of the mix for an AHL playoff push, which could be a blow for the Firebirds.
Separately, there were a number of trades involving the local Pacific Northwest teams, including two blockbusters that sent out highly skilled forwards. The Seattle Thunderbirds traded Vancouver Canucks prospect Braeden Cootes to the Prince Albert Raiders in exchange for futures, while the Spokane Chiefs sent draft prospect Mathis Preston to the Vancouver Giants. On the other side of the ledger, the Seattle Thunderbirds brought in skilled Dallas Stars forward prospect Cameron Schmidt from the Vancouver Giants.
Did you know? While the Kraken have never drafted a player from the Windsor Spitfires, Fibigr and Villeneuve are not the first Kraken prospects to play for Windsor. The last elite Spitfires team acquired Shane Wright immediately following his star turn at the 2023 WJC for its OHL playoff push. That team didn’t get as far in the playoffs as it expected (which, bizarrely, created problems for Shane Wright’s AHL eligibility for the ensuing season). The Spitfires hope their playoff luck will be better this time around.
Notes on three more Kraken prospects
Barrett Hall | F | St. Cloud State Huskies (NCAA)
Barrett Hall had the opportunity to play at Acrisure Arena this past week, as St. Cloud State participated in the annual four-team Cactus Cup tournament. The Huskies won this year’s event, which raises the possibility that Hall and the Huskies may return to Coachella Valley again next winter to defend the title. Check out Hall’s shifts from St. Cloud State’s Jan. 3, 2026, game against UMass-Lowell below. Hall is No. 15 in red.
Alexis Bernier | D | Chicoutimi Saguenéens (QMJHL)
When the QMJHL playoff contender Chicoutimi Saguenéens traded for Alexis Bernier a couple of weeks ago, we took it as a sign that Bernier was likely on track to return to play this season following offseason ACL reconstruction surgery. Based on a recent report from the Saguenéens, however, it sounds like we may get to see Bernier on the ice even sooner than might have been hoped. According to the team, Bernier is already back on the ice doing hockey-related activities, and the team projects him to join the lineup during the week of Jan. 20.
Jake O’Brien | F | Brantford Bulldogs (OHL)
On the flip side of the injury coin, Jake O’Brien has been absent from the Brantford Bulldogs lineup since being cut from Team Canada camp. On Dec. 28, 2025, the team announced O’Brien was day to day with a lower-body injury and said he “will return to the Bulldogs lineup soon.” Now, about two weeks later, the star Kraken prospect still has not skated in a game. This is one to monitor. Hopefully it resolves soon.
Highlight of the week
Villeneuve scored two goals in his debut for the Windsor Spitfires, including one nifty move to the backhand on a penalty shot.
Overall, Villeneuve had three goals and two assists in three OHL games this week, which earns him Sound Of Hockey Kraken Prospect of the Week.
J.R. Avon has been out of the Firebirds lineup since mid-December with a lower-body injury. It’s a shame, because he was consistently catching the eye with his pace and finishing his scoring chances during his first 21 games with the Firebirds. A pending restricted free agent, it would be nice to see Avon back on the ice sooner rather than later.
Semyon Vyazovoi had another stellar week. In two starts, he gave up two goals total and won both games. Frankly, if he had not earned Prospect of the Week last week, he probably would have had the best case for it again this week.
Vyazovoi is tied for fourth in the KHL in save percentage and is one of only two goalies in the top five under 23 years old.
Sound Of Hockey Prospect of the Week tracker
3: Jagger Firkus
2: Julius Miettinen, Kim Saarinen, Nathan Villeneuve
We’ll give our Deep Sea Hockey Game of the Week to the Jakub Fibigr’s likely debut with the Windsor Spitfires on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026.
Minor league players agree to a new CBA with the AHL, ECHL
After rumblings of labor issues in both the AHL and the ECHL—and the ECHL players actually initiating a strike—both leagues reached new Collective Bargaining Agreements with the players last week. Most importantly, these deals will keep those leagues operating without any further stoppage for years to come.
That said, two aspects of the new AHL CBA bear monitoring from a player-development perspective. First, the AHL “Veteran Rule” was tweaked slightly. Instead of five veterans and one “exempt” veteran with slightly less experience, teams will be allowed to play six veterans regardless of experience level.
Second, the AHL CBA introduced entry-level contracts for AHL-only players. It appears these contracts may come with an additional year of potential team control through a “qualifying offer” mechanism. The Kraken have used AHL-only deals for some of their draft picks previously (e.g., Kyle Jackson, Justin Janicke), so this contract change could be relevant to the team’s roster management moving forward.
Tracking 2026 NHL Draft prospects: Oliver Suvanto
Oliver Suvanto is a six-foot-three Finnish center with strong fundamentals, physicality, and defensive skills. His offensive game looks a bit less refined, aside from a solid north-south skillset, but the instincts seem to be there to develop more over time. He’s regarded as one of the top international centers in this class and checked in at No. 10 overall on Corey Pronman’s most recent prospect ranking for The Athletic. Suvanto had two goals for Finland at the WJC.
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.
The point streak lives! While Win Streak David—the second named win streak of the season—officially came to a close at four games, the Seattle Kraken rallied back from a 2-0 deficit in the third period and stole a point in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Minnesota Wild on Thursday. It was the 10th straight game in which the Kraken earned a point (8-0-2), and it kept them in third place in the Pacific Division on a night when every team around them in the standings also earned points.
“It was contested, there’s no question,” coach Lane Lambert said. “We knew it would be. I thought both goaltenders played well. We certainly had our opportunities, they had their opportunities. So it was a pretty good hockey game overall, if you’re up in the stands watching it. I don’t know if I loved it overall, standing behind the bench watching.”
After giving up two goals through traffic in the first period, Philipp Grubauer was once again electric the rest of the way and gave Seattle every chance to complete the comeback. But in the extra frame, the Kraken looked as bad as we’ve seen them look in an overtime period, and Mats Zuccarello ultimately finished a 2-on-1 rush with Kirill Kaprizov to give the Wild the win.
Here are Three Takeaways from a 3-2 Kraken loss to the Wild in overtime.
Takeaway 1: Poor start
Minnesota is an elite team in the NHL, no question about it. But man, the vibes of this game—aside from Pride Night happening, which always brings fun energy—were not good. While the Kraken didn’t give up many Grade A chances, they also couldn’t get much going at the offensive end of the ice, and there were shades of earlier games this season where they’d get the puck on their sticks and just hand it over to the Wild’s pesky and skilled forwards.
“The first period was awful, and our execution was probably the main— biggest part of that,” Vince Dunn said. “It’s just tough when you’re chasing the game a little bit to start the game.”
And chase they did, something that hasn’t happened much for this team of late, as they dropped into a 2-0 hole by the end of the first.
Both goals came off quick-up passes from Minnesota defensemen to start rushes, and both were scored on floating wrist shots from distance that found their way through bodies in front of Grubauer.
Ryan Hartman scored the first after Jamie Oleksiak made a solid defensive play to break up the initial attack. But Hartman got to the loose puck and used Oleksiak as a screen to beat Grubauer and make it 1-0 at 5:00.
This hasn't been a great start for the #SeaKraken.
Ryan Hartman uses Jamie Oleksiak as a screen and floats one past Grubauer.
Brock Faber then scored at 15:54 to make it 2-0 on a controversial goal in which Matt Boldy held Dunn’s stick for a longtime, then laid it to Quinn Hughes, who made a fancy-Dan pass back to Faber.
Matt Boldy holds Vince Dunn's stick for about three seconds, doesn't get called, and Brock Faber scores immediately after.
Dunn and McCann were both giving it to the official after that one.
Dunn cleverly declined to comment on the non-call against Boldy after the game.
While the defensive structure appeared mostly sound, it did not feel like Seattle was going to have the juice to get back in this one against a top opponent.
Takeaway 2: Nice rally
BUT! The Kraken adjusted and dug deep in the second period, slowly tilting things back in their favor for stretches.
“I thought we started to really play with about seven or eight minutes left in the second period, where we started to create some zone time,” Lambert said. “We did a really good job there, and I thought it carried over to the third.”
With momentum shifted in the third, Adam Larsson broke through “The Wall of St. Paul” (Jesper Wallstedt) after Dunn’s shot hit the post and ricocheted all the way out to Larsson at the other point.
THE BIG CAT! 🦁🚨
Vince Dunn hits the post, but it skips all the way out to Adam Larsson, who rips it past his countryman.
Then, with momentum fully shifted, the Kraken earned two consecutive power plays. They came up empty on the first but quickly converted on the second, with Matty Beniers finding a Jared McCann rebound and putting it away.
“Give our guys credit. They did a great job to come back,” Lambert said. “It’s a huge point for us, but again, the disappointment for me is that the game started slow for us, and we can’t do that.”
The Wild regained momentum after Beniers tied it, but Grubauer was stellar down the stretch and got his teammates to the extra frame—where they laid a big, rotten egg.
Just when you think they’re out on this point streak, the Kraken pull you… BACK IN!
Takeaway 3: What was up with that OT?
One thing Seattle typically does a good job with is earning and maintaining puck possession in 3-on-3 overtime. That… uh… did not happen Thursday.
Here is a list of mistakes that occurred in just 2:09 of gameplay during the extra frame:
Chandler Stephenson lost the opening draw.
Stephenson won a puck in the neutral zone but then immediately gave it back to Quinn Hughes.
Vince Dunn gained control in Seattle’s zone but passed it backward to nobody, handing possession back to Minnesota.
Matty Beniers gained full possession and rushed up the ice while his teammates changed. Instead of circling back or dumping the puck all the way back to restart, he tried to force a 1-on-2 and lost the puck.
Beniers almost turned it over again at the defensive blue line, but that created a 3-on-1 opportunity when the Wild got overzealous.
On said 3-on-1, Ryker Evans failed to get a pass through Brock Faber, which created the fatal 2-on-1 the other way, leaving forward Freddy Gaudreau—who astutely pulled up on the 3-on-1, recognizing the Kraken were overcommitted—as the lone player back against Kaprizov and Zuccarello.
Lambert summed up the OT mishaps nicely.
“We started off with a lost face-off, couldn’t get the puck back. They’ve got some dynamic players over there, there’s no question about it. So they had a couple of really good opportunities, but I thought our goaltender was excellent. And then what we’ve been really good at this year in overtime, is possessing the puck and making plays when we get it, and we weren’t good at that tonight. We gave it back to them, we had an opportunity to catch them tired, and we were changing so that we could have had that puck on our stick a long time. And we tried a 1-on-1 move, lost the puck, and then we didn’t execute on a 2-on-1. So that overtime was not one of our better ones, that’s for sure.”
—
One additional note: Kraken captain Jordan Eberle did not play in this game due to an upper-body injury. Lambert had called him a game-time decision at morning skate. After the game, Lambert said, “I’m hoping it’s more of a day-to-day thing. Certainly, that’s a hole and a blow for us to have our captain out. We’ll see where we go from here. We miss him out there.”
Lambert did confirm that Eberle is going on the team’s five-game road trip, which begins Saturday in Carolina.
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 riding a nine-game point streak, going 8-0-1 in that stretch. On Dec. 19, just before the streak began, Seattle was tied for last in the NHL with 30 points after matching a franchise-worst stretch at 1-9-1. Since then, the Kraken have collected 17 of 18 possible points and now sit third in the Pacific Division.
As fans suffered through Losing Streak Camille and Losing Streak Darren, there were still reasons for optimism. All but two games, both against Edmonton, were one-goal losses once empty-net goals were removed. The Kraken were competitive but consistently finished on the wrong side of the result. Interestingly, by the eye test, Seattle has not played as clean during the current points streak as it did during the losing stretch.
To explore that discrepancy, I compared game-level data from three segments: the current point streak, the losing streaks, and the games prior to Camille and Darren. With the point streak at nine games, the losing stretch at 11, and the pre-Camille segment at 21 games, all comparisons use per-game averages. Data is based on all situations and sourced from MoneyPuck.
Pre-Camille: 21 games from Oct. 9 to Nov. 22
Losing streaks: 11 games from Nov. 23 to Dec. 18
Points streak: nine games from Dec. 20 to Jan. 6
Expected and actual goals
On Nov. 22, just before Losing Streak Camille, the Kraken ranked third-to-last in the NHL in goals scored. With only 2.58 expected goals for per game, Seattle relied heavily on defensive structure and low-event games.
Several trends stand out in the data. During the pre-Camille stretch, expected and actual goals for and against tracked closely. As Seattle pushed for more offense during the losing streak, expected goals for increased by 16.9 percent. The results did not follow. Actual scoring fell to two goals per game, while expected goals against jumped 27.4 percent to 2.91.
That trend reversed during the turnaround. Expected goals for climbed again to 3.16, but the finishing finally arrived. Over the past nine games, the Kraken have averaged 3.89 goals per game while allowing just 1.89.
There are also red flags. During the point streak, expected goals against sit at 3.69 per game. Across the season to date, a 3.69 xGA would rank last in the NHL. Vancouver currently holds that honor at 3.52. As the eye test suggested, Seattle often posted higher expected goals for than expected goals against during the losing streaks, but the scoring support was not there.
Goaltending
For this section, the focus is on team-level goaltending rather than individual performances. Team save percentage shows a strong relationship with goal support, particularly when Seattle scores first.
Pre-Camille: 13 of 21 games with the first goal, 61.9 percent
Losing streaks: three of 11 games, 27.3 percent
Point streak: eight of nine games, 88.9 percent
Goaltending has been a major strength during the point streak, after dipping below .900 during the losing stretch.
Playing with the lead also continues to set this team up for success. Seattle has scored first in 24 of 41 games this season.
Despite expected goals against reaching their highest point of the season, the goaltenders have delivered. Over the last nine games, the Kraken have posted 16.2 goals saved above expected. Across the rest of the season, including pre-Camille and the losing streaks, they sit nearly even at minus 0.4.
Shots
Before the losing streak, Seattle generated only 24.4 shots on goal per game. If that pace held through Jan. 6, the Kraken would rank last in the NHL. During that stretch, there was a clear shift toward urgency and putting more pucks on net.
Shots on goal increased from 24.4 to 28.3 per game, a 16 percent jump that closely mirrors the 16.9 percent increase in expected goals for. Shot attempts rose even more sharply, up 19.5 percent.
That increase came with tradeoffs. Missed shots rose 23.1 percent and blocked shots climbed 21.9 percent. Both exceeded the growth in overall shot attempts, meaning a larger share of shots failed to reach the net.
The point streak tells a different story. Shot attempts are at their lowest point of the season, driven in part by Seattle frequently playing with the lead.
During the point streak, the Kraken have trailed for just 3.1 percent of total game time, or 17:03.
Even with fewer shot attempts, shot quality and efficiency have improved. Missed shots are down 39.5 percent and blocked shots are down 33.1 percent. Shots on goal have dipped by only one per game, to 27.3, and remain 11.9 percent higher than during the pre-Camille stretch.
Kraken can’t rest on their laurels
The Kraken continue to benefit from the current point streak, but there is little margin for complacency. Offensive progress is real, and goaltending has been the anchor. The balance between offense and defensive structure remains a constant tug-of-war. Limiting high-danger chances and bringing expected goals against back down should be a priority as Seattle looks to sustain its scoring gains.
The Kraken will look to extend their point streak to 10 games Thursday against the Minnesota Wild at Climate Pledge Arena. The Wild are coming off two losses to the Los Angeles Kings (one regulation and one shootout loss).
Feel free to leave any comments or questions below, and Go Kraken.
Blaiz Grubic
Blaiz Grubic is a contributor at Sound Of Hockey. A passionate hockey fan and player for over 30 years, Blaiz grew up in the Pacific Northwest and is an alumni of Washington State University (Go Cougs!). When he’s not playing, watching, or writing about hockey, he enjoys quality time with his wife and daughter or getting out on a golf course for a quick round. Follow @blaizg on BlueSky or X.
As the PWHL season marches on, now almost a third of the way through the season, it’s becoming clear that the vibe of the Seattle Torrent fandom is fun and whimsical. Yes, the fans enjoy high quality hockey and will cheer on the team no matter what, but they are too busy exchanging trinkets during intermissions and kissing anytime they get on the twins to be taking things too seriously. I love it, hockey is a game, after all.
International Updates
USA Hockey announced their Olympic roster, and four Torrent players made the cut: Hilary Knight, who will be headed to her fifth Games, Alex Carpenter, Cayla Barnes, and Hannah Bilka who will be making her Olympic debut. Seattle has the second-most US Olympians on their roster; only Minnesota has more. Aneta Tejralová, as expected, was named to the Czechia Olympic roster. Canada’s roster announcement is expected on January 9.
Goalie Gear (and more) Corner
Murphy’s mask has big Seattle landmark energy. (Photo courtesy of the PWHL)
During the last few weeks, we got to know a few of the Torrent goalies a little better.
Rookie Hannah Murphy admitted to having chills when she stood in goal and heard the crowd chant her name for the first time. Her roommate, Jenna Buglioni, who also roomed with goalies in college, shared that all goalies are weird but “[Murphy] is the least weird one.”
CJ Jackson spoke to us about their new Torrent mask. They said their vision for their gear was a minimalist pad setup, with the mask as the centerpiece. Being a fantasy fan (the Throne of Glass series is a favorite) CJ turned again to a knight-themed mask, but with a sparkly, grungy, Seattle twist. They love what knights symbolize, the idea of people who commit their lives to something greater than themselves.
The backplate is their all-time favorite, and got a little emotional when speaking about it. The art is based on a photo from their hometown of their dad’s rowboat. The boat was named after the family’s childhood cat, Maggie, and that’s what was on the initial design. But CJ’s cat Fiona passed away right before they moved to Seattle, so they decided to change the name—last minute— in her memory. The art reminds them of all the people who have loved them along their journey. In all a cool mask, but a great story behind it.
Notes and Notions
After Saturday’s game against Toronto, Alex Carpenter became the third player ever—and the first American—to reach 50 points in the PWHL.
Injury Update: Prior to the Montréal game, Coach Steve O’Rourke confirmed rookie center Jenna Buglioni, who went down the tunnel during the previous game, is on concussion protocol and is day-to-day.
Suspension Update: Defender Aneta Tejralová was suspended for two games after her game misconduct penalty against New York was reviewed by the player safety committee. She will be eligible to return for the Jan. 11 game at Minnesota.
Game Recaps
12.23 vs. Victoire @ Home
First off, the winner of the (unofficial) walk-in ugly sweater contest was undoubtedly Corrine Schroeder.
Montréal came into the game hot, on a four game winning streak and perched at second in the league standings.
Period 1
The Torrent started the game at higher execution and performance level than previous games, with a concerted effort to send more pucks to the net. Even so, the game started out pretty evenly matched. The Victoire had more time in their offensive zone, but the Torrent had more shots on goal. With one minute left in the period, Montréal’s star first line connected on a pretty passing play, Poulin to Stacey to Roque, and Roque finished past Murphy to put them up 1-0 in the first.
Period 2
The Torrent even the score early in the second period. On a 2-on-1 Alex Carpenter put away a rebound off a shot from Julia Gosling. The Torrent then had some good shots and possession on a delayed penalty, but the resulting power play was lackluster. Megan Carter got called for roughing with five minutes left, and Hannah Murphy came up with some big saves. The rest of the period saw the momentum shift towards the Victoire, and the Torrent had trouble getting the puck out of their end.
Period 3
Three minutes in, the Torrent made good on another delayed penalty situation, and a Julia Gosling one-timer from Hilary Knight put the Torrent up 2-1. There were good chances at both ends, but more chances for Montréal, as they finished the period putting up 15 shots on goal to the Torrents paltry three. Murphy shut the door, though, and preserved the win, even when a second Carter penalty and a pulled goalie led to a 6-on-4 in the dying minutes of the game.
12/28 vs. Sirens in Dallas, Texas
The Torrent fell 4-3 to New York in their first Takeover Tour game in Dallas to a crowd of 8,514.
Dallas is the furthest south the PWHL has ever played, and the game featured the league’s only two Texans: Seattle’s Hannah Bilka, and New York’s Allyson Simpson. The pair dropped the puck at the Dallas Stars game the night before.
This game marked the start of the team’s first real road trip, playing four games over 16 days. Their only other away game this year was the season opener in Vancouver.
New York’s win snapped a four-game losing streak (which started these teams last faced off in Seattle).
Alex Carpenter surpassed 100 faceoff wins this game, the first to reach that milestone in the PWHL this season.
The Torrent starting lineup on the ice at the American Airlines Center. (Photo courtesy of the PWHL)
Period 1
The Torrent started with some good pressure, and both teams took early penalties. Danielle Serdachny scored her first of the season on a chance she created purely with speed. Hannah Murphy notched her first point on the goal.
Aneta Tejralová took down Sirens star Sarah Fillier with a check to the head and received a well-deserved game misconduct. The Torrent then had to kill a five minute major for the first time, and Murphy came up with some clutch saves. With a minute and a half left in the first, New York rookie Casey O’Brien scored her first professional goal. One minute later, Grant-Mentis crashed the net and put away her first goal with the Torrent. New York had 21 shots to Seattle’s 11 in the first frame, but Seattle held a 2-1 lead.
Period 2
The second period was more sedate. A Carpenter slashing penalty led to a second O’Brien goal. The end of the period had chances back and forth, but New York seemed to have most of the momentum. The teams ended the second tied 2-2.
Period 3
A Lexie Adzija goal came early off some great work behind the goal by Grant-Mentis. The momentum never fully shifted, and Maddi Wheeler scored coming out of the penalty box for New York. A Serdachny hooking penalty led to another O’Brien goal, giving her a hat-trick in the same game she scored her first career goal (You don’t see that every day). The Torrent had some good possession with the goalie pulled, but nothing came of it. Murphy made some good saves throughout, but this was the first game where there were a couple she would probably like back.
1.3 vs. Sceptres in Hamilton, Ontario
The Torrent notched their first road win, but took only two standings points in a 3-2 shootout victory against the Sceptres.
This was the Torrent’s second straight Takeover Tour game and the first-ever PWHL game in Hamilton. The game was definitely less of a neutral site than other Takeover Tour games, as Hamilton is about an hour and a half drive from Toronto proper.
The game was the first hockey game played at TD Coliseum after large scale renovations, and boasted over 16,000 fans. Although the quality of the ice seemed sub-par, there was a takeover tour logo at center ice!
With this game, Seattle is no longer a newcomer and has officially played against all the other PWHL teams.
Cayla Barnes battling hard against the Sceptres. (Photo courtesy of the PWHL)
Period 1
Out of the gate the Adzija—Snodgrass—Grant-Mentis line was forechecking well and playing heavy on the puck. Five minutes in, Grant-Mentis backhanded the puck to Adzija, who kept at it until horn sounded for her second goal in two games. Seattle did a great job of breaking up Toronto’s zone entries through the period and dominated overall, out-shooting Toronto 14 to 6.
Period 2
The second period started shakily though. A loose puck in the neutral zone led to a Natalie Spooner goal to tie the game. Schroeder came up big with some highlight-reel saves to keep the Sceptres at one for the period. This game was the first time I really noticed how much more involved the goalies in the PWHL are without the “trapezoid rule”, and Toronto’s Raygan Kirk stood out as noticeably mobile.
Period 3
The Torrent dominated possession to start the third, and had a lot of good, dangerous chances. Daryl Watts got a goal against the run of play to put Toronto ahead 2-1. The Torrent turned the pressure up again, until Alex Carpenter put away a deflection with ice in her veins to tie it up with four minutes left and send the game to overtime.
Overtime & Shootout
Seattle defended well in OT and had some quality possession, outshooting Toronto 4-0, despite an initial struggle to get the puck out of their zone.
Hannah Bilka scored on the first shootout attempt in Torrent history, and Anna Wilgren showed off some sick hands to get Seattle’s second goal of the shootout. Corrine Schroeder stopped all of the Sceptres attempts, to record her first win with the Torrent.
Up Next
The Torrent play away again on Wednesday at 4:00 PST against the top of the table Boston Fleet.
…And in his 28th NHL game, Berkly Catton was officially off the schneid. The 19-year-old rookie connected with his teammates for his first and second career goals on Tuesday, helping the Seattle Kraken to a head-spinning 7-4 win over the Boston Bruins.
The victory extended Seattle’s win streak to four games (the win streak is hereby named Win Streak David, per the National Win Streak Service, named after David Pastrnak) and their point streak to nine games, improving to 8-0-1 over that stretch. It also meant they swept their third back-to-back in their four recent tries, picking up an almost unfathomable 15 of 16 possible points in those pairs of games.
The two teams ahead of the Kraken in the standings, Edmonton and Vegas, both won Tuesday. So, Seattle didn’t leapfrog into first place as they could have if those other teams lost, but they did hold serve and also gained two points of breathing room on fourth-place Los Angeles. It was a big win.
Here are Three Takeaways from a 7-4 Kraken win over the Bruins.
Takeaway 1: Catton’s big night
For as good as Catton has been in his first NHL season, you just knew it was eating him up that he hadn’t put the puck in the net yet. After scoring a combined 92 goals in 125 games over his last two seasons in the WHL, and considering he’s been playing on good lines with good players throughout the season, it was shocking that he hadn’t even gotten a fluky one to go in.
That is, of course, until the dam finally broke for Catton on Tuesday.
At 2:48 of the second period, with a delayed penalty coming, Jared McCann fed Catton in the right circle off a rush. From a sharp angle, Catton let it rip. The puck pinballed off the inside of Jeremy Swayman’s blocker and in. Jubilation and relief swept across the young winger’s face as he celebrated with McCann, who Catton later referred to as a “mentor.”
BERKLYYYYYYYYYYY! 🐱 🚨
Berkly Catton FINALLY does it! With a delayed penalty coming, Jared McCann sets him up, and he rips it through Swayman.
Gotta love that smile! 1st career goal at long last.
“A lot of weight off the shoulders for sure,” Catton said. “I dreamed of that for a long time, so that was awesome… I kind of just blacked out there. I don’t even know where it went in, to be honest.”
“It’s the best,” McCann said. “I said ‘finally’ [when I celebrated with him]. He’s been working really hard, and we were due. Just keep plugging away. I’m really happy for him.”
Once he got the monkey off his back, what did Catton do? Score his second one, of course.
With the game seemingly out of reach for Boston—although it did get a hair close for comfort in the end—at 5-2, Catton came out with the second power-play unit. He made a ridiculous play to pass to Freddy Gaudreau at the blue line and then slice his way through four defenders, suddenly getting behind all of them at once. Gaudreau threaded a beautiful pass back to him, and Catton deked to his backhand and banked it off the post and in to make it 6-2.
“I figured maybe if I get one, they would start to come a little bit more,” Catton said. “So, that one felt good too… Great pass by Freddy. He kind of gave me a breakaway, and I just got it up, and it went in.”
Coach Lane Lambert also had some nice words about Catton when I asked him what it meant to see his young rookie break through.
“I thought it was awesome,” Lambert said. “I’ve said a few times… that once he scores, I think he’ll score a few. Obviously, he scored another one tonight as well, beautiful goal, by the way, and it’s huge. He’s a well-liked teammate, he works, he’s learning, he’s growing. And I’ve said it many, many times, I love the way he wants the puck.”
Takeaway 2: Critical power-play goal
Something that could get lost in the shuffle of everything that happened in this game is that it was anybody’s contest, tied 2-2, until the final two minutes of the second period. At that point, Jordan Eberle had scored on a 5-on-3, Catton had gotten his first, and Pastrnak had scored two bangers.
Wow, what a goal by David Pastrnak!
Tempers then flare after Ryker Evans throws him into the end boards.
The fourth line, which was altered for this game (more on that in the Bonus Takeaway), connected yet again when Tye Kartye found Ben Meyers for a bang-bang goal at 18:23 of the second to make it 3-2.
Then, with the clock winding down, McCann scored a critical buzzer-beater that I believe was the most important goal of the contest. With seven seconds left, McCann whistled a one-timer off the glass that nearly went all the way out of the offensive zone. But Vince Dunn saved it at the blue line and fed McCann again higher in the zone. This time, McCann’s shot was perfectly placed, and it appeared to beat the horn, even though the green end-of-period light had come on behind Swayman, not the red goal light.
MCCANN CAN! 🚨
It's a power-play goal with 0.5 seconds left on the clock! The green light came on, but the puck was already in. #SeaKraken take a 4-2 lead to the dressing room after 2 periods. pic.twitter.com/M7sdTUeOLw
Review showed that the puck crossed the line with 0.5 seconds left—a massive break for the Kraken that sent them to the room with a two-goal cushion.
“I saw the [green] light on, so I didn’t know if I got it in in time,” McCann said. “So I looked at the bench, and everybody’s like, kind of looking at me dumbfounded, and I don’t think they did, really, either. So, yeah, luckily it went in [in time].”
In the third, Seattle ran up the score enough that the Bruins’ late push was—albeit slightly scary—ultimately too little and too late.
Takeaway 3: The Kraken are a scoring machine
The Kraken have been dumped on by many throughout this season for being one of the lower-scoring teams in the NHL, but if those naysayers watched only these last two games, they would think Seattle is an elite offensive club. In just over 24 hours, the Kraken racked up 12 goals in two contests after potting five in Calgary on Monday and then seven against Boston on Tuesday—the most they’ve scored in a game this season.
“Pucks are going in for us,” Lambert said. “I mean, we had some opportunities in those games when we were low scoring where we maybe couldn’t quite find the back of the net. But things are going in right now. Sometimes it has a way of ebbs and flows of the season, that kind of thing.”
Added McCann: “It was kind of a run-and-gun type of game tonight, not something we’re used to kind of playing. We showed that we could score goals, but we know we can be a bit better defensively.”
It was a nice stat-padding night for a lot of players, with Kaapo Kakko getting two goals and an assist, Catton scoring twice, McCann posting a goal and an assist, and Vince Dunn and Matty Beniers each recording two assists.
I do want to ring a very small alarm bell, though, related to that last comment from McCann. Sometimes when a defense-first team suddenly has a big offensive outburst, it can lead to bad habits and cracks in structure. The Kraken have gotten to this point by playing “the right way,” so look for them to get back to that against an outstanding Minnesota Wild team on Thursday.
Bonus Takeaway: Kartye returns, fourth line changed
Eeli Tolvanen was a late scratch due to illness, replaced in the lineup by Kartye, who had been a healthy scratch for three games. Considering how well the trio of Ryan Winterton, Meyers, and Jacob Melanson had been clicking, I was surprised—and frankly didn’t like—that Lambert chose to move Winterton up the lineup instead of keeping that line together and slotting Kartye into Tolvanen’s spot.
But to Lambert’s credit, the fourth line once again came through, and it was Kartye who picked up the assist on the goal.
“I liked Tye tonight,” Lambert said. “The hard decision [to scratch Kartye] came [a week] ago. I thought he played really well in Anaheim, I thought he played well in LA, and then we had some numbers, so he came out of the lineup. It wasn’t like he was playing poorly. And him and Meyers and Melanson were playing well in those games too, so I put that line back together. I just thought Winterton was a better fit to go up there with [Chandler] Stephenson and playing sort of a top-six role that plays against the Pastrnak line.”
Lambert could have even tougher decisions coming soon, if Tolvanen comes back next game and Jaden Schwartz is also ready to go.
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.
