“Down on the Farm” is your weekly Seattle Kraken prospects update. This week we’ll focus on new Firebirds defender Tyson Jugnuath, catching you up on his recent development steps and his early play in Coachella Valley. After that, we’ll pass along thoughts on Berkly Catton’s status, check back in on the Firebirds, and get you updated on an eventful week elsewhere in the Kraken system. As always, if you have a Kraken prospect-related question you’d like to see featured in a future column, drop us a note below or on X or BlueSky @deepseahockey. Let’s dive in.
Jugnauth’s hard work pays off with a top-four role in Coachella Valley, but development hurdles remain
Tyson Jugnauth is a unique player in the Kraken organization. “You don’t teach a lot of the things he has,” Firebirds vice president of hockey and business operations Troy Bodie told Judd Spicer in an interview on the Fire & Ice Podcast. “He moves the puck very well. Reads and scans the power play well. Moves the puck quick[ly]. Very smart defender as well.”
“We’re excited to see him on the backend, what he can do for our power play, and hopefully put some points up right away,” Brodie said.
Yet, Jugnauth’s progress to this point was not pre-ordained. For years, a professional future of any kind was not guaranteed for the 2022 fourth-round pick. Hard work, a unique bet on himself, and a prolific-scoring age 20 season with the Portland Winterhawks last year earned him an entry-level contract with the Kraken.
It’s clear Jugnauth wants more, though. As a slight-framed, 5-foot-11 defenseman, he knew there were steps he needed to take to succeed as a professional. So, he rented an apartment in the Seattle area on his own dime this past summer and worked out at the Kraken Community Iceplex with Seattle’s strength and conditioning staff to add muscle.
“It’s always been a weak spot for me; I’ve never been the strongest or biggest guy,” Jugnauth told reporters at Kraken rookie camp. “I knew I needed to get my body in a place where I could absorb the [professional] game. Once I signed my entry-level contract, it was like ‘I’ve got three months to do this.'”
“The best way for me to do that was to stay in Seattle. Nate [Brookerson] and Jake [Jensen] are great at what they do. I think now I’m ready. I feel good on the ice. I think it will be a big step for me.”
“Tyson has committed himself to improving his fitness and his strength,” Brodie explained. “For a young player to come to us and tell us he’s going to forego his summer with his friends and family because he’s committed to playing better hockey and developing properly is a huge step in the right direction.”
“It is something that he will benefit from greatly. We’re very impressed with his maturity,” Brodie said. “It’s not something that is taken lightly.” Indeed, it’s clear the Kraken want Jugnauth’s commitment to serve as an example for the team’s other prospects. “Hopefully it’s something that other players understand he’s going to get rewarded for this year.”
The “reward” Jugnauth earned was evident on Firebirds Opening Night as a 21-year-old rookie stood near the blue line at puck drop. Jugnauth played heavy minutes in the early going alongside Ty Nelson at even strength and quarterbacked the first-unit power play. He was clearly ahead of fellow rookies Lukas Dragicevic and Caden Price (who formed the Firebirds’ third pair) and Kaden Hammell (who was scratched).
That said, the AHL has a way of humbling young players, and there were rough spots for Jugnauth in this one, particularly in front of his own net. On the first goal against, Jugnauth lost track of the puck and stopped skating instead of engaging a forward during a scramble at the net front.
On the second goal against, Jugnauth didn’t help pick up a net front player, instead holding the back post on a play in the opposite corner. This may have been his textbook proper positioning, but a lack of awareness of the positioning of his opponents (and teammates) left the net front player to make a play while Jugnauth was guarding air.
On the fourth goal against, Jugnauth was caught in between in defensive transition. He didn’t move to take away the cross-seam pass (perhaps thinking Goyette had the pass covered, which he did not), and the young blueliner did not step up to block or take away the shooter.
These goals were not entirely on Jugnauth, of course. One can point to other errors and breakdowns as well. And, even when Jugnauth was off the ice, the Gulls still tilted the ice toward the Firebirds net. But, it is clear there were a number of lessons for the AHL rookie in this one.
If history is any indication, Jugnauth will take the challenge seriously and come back better for it.
Coachella check-in
Revisiting my projection from before the opener, I had every sit-start decision and player position correct except for one: Ian McKinnon started the opener over the newly-acquired J.R. Avon. And I hedged when it came to McKinnon, noting that I expected him to be in the lineup more than half the time for the Firebirds.
On the other hand, my pregame line projections were not close at all. To begin the night, the Firebirds staff distributed their forward veterans throughout the lineup rather than consolidating them on one line. Those plans shifted after the team lost one of it’s key players just over 20 minutes into the game (more on that in a moment). Across the second and third periods, we often saw two of the veteran leaders together.
The opener was a tough 5-0 loss. There were a few good things from the Firebirds young players, but there is no sugar coating the outcome. As I implied last week, I do think that this season will be an enormous challenge, particularly early, due to the youth on the roster. The team needs to find new point producers up front and develop sound defensive play from a very young blue line. This will take time.
The challenge will be even tougher in the short term with the Kraken recalling John Hayden to the NHL club on Friday, Oct. 17, following Freddy Gaudreau’s placement on injured reserve. Only two AHL “veterans” remain on the team: Mitchell Stephens and Gustav Olofsson.
The Firebirds should receive solid play in net from Nikke Kokko and Victor Ostman. That said, I wouldn’t be surprised if the raw goaltending stats take a step back in the early going as the Firebirds struggle to suppress shot quality.
If, by the end of the year, the arrow is pointing up and the Firebirds make the playoffs at all, I’ll count that as a successful season. I’m not ruling out more. The AHL team in Palm Desert, California, has exceeded my expectations every season so far. But development is the priority in the early going.
The Catton conundrum
I have made no secret that I am high on Berkly Catton’s potential to help the Seattle Kraken this season. After the first two Kraken home games, though, I was on board with the vision of utilizing Ryan Winterton’s defensive talents as the team looked to establish a sound defensive structure and details in their breakouts and transition game. As we discussed on the last Sound Of Hockey Podcast, I think this was the right call.
I suspect we’ll see movement on the Catton situation shortly though. Freddy Gaudreau’s placement on injured reserve suggests he’ll miss at least a week. Plus, Winterton has taken minor penalties in each of the last two games and Jani Nyman’s usage continues to be minimal. (After trending up for a while, Nyman was back down to 6:19 TOI on Thursday, Oct. 16, in Ottawa.)
Catton could enter the NHL lineup on Saturday in Toronto in place of Gaudreau, Winterton, or Nyman. If not that, the team has back-to-back games in lower-exposure spots Monday and Tuesday of next week. That may be a natural chance to rest a veteran and get Catton into the lineup over John Hayden, for example.
There is also the possibility of a conditioning loan to the Coachella Valley Firebirds. The team’s injury situation and decision to carry three goalies in the early going may make that difficult at the moment though. (A player loaned to the AHL for a conditioning stint still counts against the NHL roster limit.)
Regardless, if you are in Berkly Catton withdrawal like I am, here are his shifts from Seattle’s September 29, 2025, preseason game against the Calgary Flames—i.e., the game during which Catton scored his first (preseason) NHL goal. Do I have more of these videos? Yes. Will I keeping posting them until Catton makes his way into the NHL lineup? As a bit of harmless fun, sure. Why not?
Notes on five more Kraken prospects
Oscar Fisker Mølgaard | F | Coachella Valley Firebirds (AHL)
Speaking of the young Firebirds, Mølgaard left the ice for Coachella Valley in the first minute of the second period and did not return. Mølgaard did not take any contact on the shift but skated straight for the bench and down the tunnel at his first opportunity. Mølgaard had a slightly awkward fall on his last shift in the first period, but it was not obvious that he suffered an injury as a result. I did not notice any other potentially injurious contact on any of his other shifts. (You can watch his time on ice here.) This is one to monitor, as Brodie called Mølgaard “a big part of our team” before the game.
Nathan Villeneuve | F | Sudbury Wolves (OHL)
Now recovered from an injury sustained during Kraken training camp, Villeneuve took the ice last Friday for Sudbury as the team’s captain. Who did he square up against for the opening face-off? None other than fellow Kraken prospect Jake O’Brien. The two went head to head frequently that night, with O’Brien’s Brantford Bulldogs holding the advantage. O’Brien had a goal, two assists, and was plus-three in a 6-0 Bulldogs win. Though Villeneuve was held scoreless that night (with a minus-two on-ice plus-minus), he rebounded with three assists in two additional games last weekend.
Jake O’Brien | F | Brantford Bulldogs (OHL)
O’Brien and the Brantford Bulldogs didn’t slow down after their win over Sudbury. O’Brien had a hat trick and two assists on Sunday, Oct. 12, to lead the Bulldogs to an 8-5 win over the Ottawa 67’s. O’Brien’s eight points in two contests earned him the Sound Of Hockey Prospect of the Week. As of Thursday afternoon, O’Brien is tied for first in the OHL in points per game (2.17) and tied for fifth in points overall (13).
Clarke Caswell | F | Univ. of Denver (NCAA)
Following a productive junior career, Clarke Caswell made his college debut playing for David Carle and the University of Denver last weekend. The 2024 fifth-round pick scored a goal last Friday in his first game versus Air Force off a hard-working net front battle. Overall he compiled a team-high seven shots on goal in 19:47 time on ice—which was one second short of the most on the team among Denver forwards. The next night Caswell once again assumed a top-six forward role and recorded two assists in Denver’s game versus Bentley. He’ll look to keep the production going this weekend with two games at Lindenwood University. Both contests will be available to stream on FloHockey.
On Saturday, Oct. 11, Loke Krantz made his debut in the SHL, Sweden’s top level pro league, for Linköping HC. He played just over eight minutes and wasted no time getting on the scoresheet either, recording an assist. The under-the-radar 2025 seventh-round pick has stuck with the SHL club since then, getting into his second pro game on Thursday, Oct. 16. Krantz is the seventh-youngest player in the SHL to record a point this season.
Kraken prospects data update
Karl Annborn has had an eventful few months since departing Kraken development camp in July. He played three games for Sweden’s U20 team and 14 club games for three different teams in three different Swedish leagues. Most recently he has played three games for Västerås IK of HockeyAllsvenkan. Despite all of that activity and change, his last game, on Wednesday, Oct. 15, brought another first: His first point of the season (an assist).
There were a number of league debuts this week, including Jugnauth and Price in the AHL, Annborn in Allsvenskan, Krantz in the SHL, and Caswell and Ollie Josephson in the NCAA.
Jakub Fibigr is third in the OHL in points per game (1.4) among defensemen. The baseline for offensive success has been there for Fibigr, even if the raw point totals haven’t yet followed. Over the summer we predicted this might be the year his production ticks up. So far, so good for Fibigr.
For his part, Julius Miettinen is tied for second in the WHL in points per game (2.0) among all players.
Semyon Vyazovoi posted his first quality game of the season last week, stopping 26 of 27 shots in a 40-minute relief appearance. Hopefully, this is the springboard Vyazovoi needed.
Nikke Kokko was in net for the Firebirds in what was a tough team effort. As mentioned above, he could play better this year and his stats could take a minor step back. I wouldn’t worry too much about that in the abstract.
Sound Of Hockey Prospect of the Week tracker
2: Kim Saarinen, Julius Miettinen
1: Jake O’Brien
There were a number of strong candidates this week, but O’Brien’s eight points in two games could not be denied.
Previewing the week ahead
The Deep Sea Hockey Game of the Week is a Friday, Oct. 17, 4:00 pm PDT OHL tilt between Jake O’Brien’s Brantford Bulldogs and Jakub Fibigr’s Brampton Steelheads. Will our OHL Correspondent John Barr be in attendance? (If you miss this one, the two teams have a rematch set for Saturday at 1:00 pm PDT.)
Tracking 2026 NHL Draft prospects: Ivar Stenberg
Swedish winger Ivar Stenberg tops most international player lists for the 2026 NHL Draft. After logging 25 games in the SHL in his draft-minus-one season, he has moved into a prominent scoring role for Frolunda this year, scoring two goals and adding seven assists in 11 games. He will likely hear his name called in top-10, if not top-five, come draft day.
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 Seattle Kraken rolled into Ottawa on Thursday night for Game 2 of their six-game road trip. The Ottawa Senators were on the second game of a back-to-back, having lost the first leg to the Buffalo Sabres 8-4 the night before. The Kraken got some respect from Ottawa, as the Senators started their No. 1 goaltender, Linus Ullmark, after opting for backup Leevi Meriläinen the previous night. Ottawa was also without captain Brady Tkachuk, who is out six-to-eight weeks with a hand injury.
With Shane Wright’s grandparents in attendance, the Kraken got off to a quick start with Wright scoring in the first five minutes. The Senators and Kraken then traded goals before ending regulation tied 3-3.
Seattle dominated puck possession in overtime but couldn’t find the winner, ultimately falling in the shootout. Shane Pinto and Tim Stützle scored for Ottawa to seal the 4-3 victory. Still, the Kraken earned a point and improved to 2-0-2, maintaining a .750 points percentage through their first four games.
Wright and Chandler Stephenson both scored their first goals of the season, with Stephenson lighting the lamp twice. The forward lineup stayed the same, but Ryan Winterton and Eeli Tolvanen swapped spots. Neither recorded a point, but their lines contributed offensively, and we all know scoring from all four lines will be needed for Seattle to have success this season.
Stephenson’s first goal came from an aggressive forecheck and takeaway by Jaden Schwartz and Tolvanen, followed by a laser shot that hit the post, bounced off Ullmark, and in. Both Wright and Stephenson scored on rebounds—a good sign that the Kraken are getting pucks to the net with support to clean up the scraps.
The Chan Chan man can! 💥 Great stick lift and steal from Schwartz, who feeds Stephenson for his first of the year. Shot rings off the bar and bounces in off Ullmark. Game all tied 2-2! #SeaKraken#GoSensGopic.twitter.com/1xPwI4dFjc
After starting the first three games, it was nice to see Joey Daccord get a full day off. This is one benefit of carrying three goalies—a situation I’m not advocating for—but it allowed Philipp Grubauer and Matt Murray to share the workload.
Grubauer wasn’t perfect, but only one of the three goals (the tying goal) against felt like one he should have stopped. To the naked eye, it appeared Grubauer just whiffed on it, but Jamie Oleksiak may have screened him on the shot from Dylan Cozens, who fired quickly off the boards before Grubauer could track the puck. Regardless, this one came at a tough time, with the Kraken trying to secure a regulation win deep in the third period.
The first Senators goal came off an unlucky bounce that went right to Pinto, who buried his league-leading sixth of the season just seconds after a power play expired. Ottawa’s second goal came on the man advantage, with Claude Giroux threading a cross-ice pass to David Perron, who fired it home short side.
Grubauer did enough to keep Seattle in the game, earning the team a point. Just a hunch, but we could see Murray in net when the Kraken face the Philadelphia Flyers on Oct. 20, the first leg of back-to-back games.
Takeway #3: No quit
The season is young, but in both games of this road trip, Seattle has trailed at times and battled back. In both contests, they also held a third-period lead—a positive sign. Unfortunately, they surrendered late goals in each that forced overtime before losing, but they still earned points both nights. The Kraken aren’t folding, and that resilience has them collecting points in all four games this season. If they keep competing like this, the points will keep rolling in.
The Kraken improved as the game went on. After trailing 2-1 in the first period, they outshot the Senators 25-16, including a 5-1 edge in overtime. Although they left with a shootout loss, Seattle outplayed Ottawa and, on most nights, would likely come away with a win.
Beniers with two great looks in overtime. Would’ve liked to see him fire on the first one, but a solid sequence by the #SeaKraken. 🐙 pic.twitter.com/nAwjLfoREo
The Kraken are off to a strong start but will need to dig in as the road trip gets tougher. Next up is the Toronto Maple Leafs, a team Seattle has struggled against, going just 1-7 all time. After that, they face their first back-to-back set of the season.
Freddy Gaudreau left in the second period after going awkwardly into the boards. There was no update on his status, but he did not return. Of course, Berkly Catton is still on the roster and waiting in the wings for his NHL debut.
When we think of elite players in the NHL, we tend to think of individuals who are especially good at obvious things; the types of things that get highlighted in an NHL Skills Competition, like fastest skater, hardest shot, and most accurate shooter. And when you ask what makes a skilled player elite, these are often the first attributes that come to mind.
This makes sense intuitively because the NHL’s elite players usually fall into one or multiple of these categories. McDavid is fast, Ovechkin shoots the puck hard, and Crosby is pinpoint accurate.
This line of thinking makes a player like Matthew Tkachuk a uniquely interesting case study. Tkachuk is one of the preeminent wingers in the NHL. His combination of physicality, verbal sparring, and high-end scoring skill is a rare combination. His NHL Edge stats, hilariously, paint a confounding picture.
These NHL Edge stats suggest that Tkachuk is slow, doesn’t cover much ice, and has below-average velocity on his shot. And yet, he’s elite at driving offensive zone time (92nd percentile) and goal scoring (81st percentile).
Tkachuk is known for his physicality, goal-scoring, and antagonism, but in my opinion, the skillset that works as his proverbial glue is his elite wall play. His smarts and top-notch ability to get the puck off the wall, combined with his other traits, make him a maddeningly effective player, which can extend possession sequences and create scoring chances like few can.
What does any of this have to do with the Seattle Kraken? The last article I wrote for Sound Of Hockey highlighted how simple habits with the mid-lane drive can produce high-quality scoring chances. This article has a similar theme – how the subtle skillset of strong wall play is the foundation of driving play effectively.
Jaden Schwartz and Jordan Eberle – a case study in fundamentals
Jordan Eberle playing in a game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. (Photo/Brian Liesse)
The first time I watched either Jordan Eberle or Jaden Schwartz play was the IIHF World Junior Championship in 2009. For many players, the World Juniors are their first foray into the bright lights of national recognition.
Eberle seemed to rise to the occasion for big moments. He scored the game-tying goal and a critical shootout goal for Canada in a semifinal against Russia (more on that later). The next year, he scored twice in the final three minutes of the gold medal game to send Canada to overtime against USA (a game where the Americans eventually prevailed).
Schwartz played for Canada in 2011 and 2012. Those Canadian teams were less successful, and I’ll confess that as a younger hockey fan, I felt a little underwhelmed. I think I expected Schwartz to be a flashy winger, but that type of performance didn’t materialize. Looking back, I think one of the reasons why I felt underwhelmed was that I personally didn’t understand what really good hockey fundamentals looked like.
With the benefit of hindsight, we can see how both Schwartz and Eberle have evolved from junior hockey stars to highly successful NHLers. In a lot of ways, Schwartz and Eberle share a lot of similarities. They’re both on the slightly smaller side, and they are skilled offensive wingers but high-end speed isn’t their calling card. Their games have also aged gracefully, and I believe one of the reasons why is that they’re both masters of wall play. Show me a player skilled on the wall, and I’ll show you a key play driver on your team.
An underappreciated skill
First, let’s set the stage for what makes wall play so challenging and important. Former NHL coach and player Dallas Eakins once observed that within NHL games, the puck is within three feet of the boards about 80 percent of the game. The boards serve as a natural outlet for many plays when direct tape-to-tape passes are not an option.
Handling pucks off the wall is difficult because rimmed pucks are often moving fast, and the boards can cause the puck to bounce unpredictably. You often need to be able to pull the puck off the wall with the toe of your stick, which is less than ideal for puck control. When you add the element of pressure and the fact that lingering too long on the wall with the puck leads to repeated hits, you can see why wall play is challenging.
At the same time, successful wall play leads to defensive-zone exits and transition play. Successful wall play keeps pucks in the offensive zone, allowing your team to wear down the opposition with extended offensive-zone sequences. Players that can consistently make plays off the wall help tilt the possession battle. You simply cannot be an effective play driver in the NHL without mastering the fundamentals of wall play.
In the offensive zone
Let’s look at some key moments from last season where skill on the wall led to a positive outcome for the Kraken.
Excellent wall play can force unexpected turnovers on the forecheck, leading to prime scoring chances. In this sequence, Schwartz is the first forward (or F1) on the forecheck. After the Kraken dump it in, Montreal defender Arber Xhekaj is first to the puck. Schwartz correctly reads that Xhekaj does not have an option to move it up the strongside boards and moves to cut off the rimmed puck behind the net.
In almost one smooth motion, Schwartz is able to pick up the rimmed puck and move it out front to a wide-open Oliver Bjorkstrand. It’s a great shot by Bjorkstrand, but that play is only there because Schwartz is able to pick up the rimmed puck and move it quickly.
The ability to pick the puck off the wall quickly also allows you to move the puck faster, opening up passing lanes. This next clip illustrates how Eberle is able to retrieve the puck off the wall and find a streaking Jani Nyman before the defense can react.
Eberle enters the zone on the power play and is forced down the wall to the corner before sending it back up high to the blue line. Montour is a right-handed shot, so moving the puck from east to west is risky. He opts to rim the puck back low to Eberle. Eberle is able catch the rim and immediately move it to a wide-open Nyman for his first career NHL goal. It looks like a routine play, but it’s not. If Eberle needs to take an extra second to pick up that puck, that passing lane gets shut down either by the defender Matheson (No. 8) or a well-timed poke check from the Montreal goaltender.
More recently, Eberle displayed his mastery by one-touching a back-hander between his own legs to Matty Beniers, who finished off a beautiful power-play goal against Vegas last week.
The Kraken had a lot of trouble transitioning the puck last year, likely contributing to their less-than-stellar results for offensive- and defensive-zone time. Making successful plays on the wall is a key ingredient to moving the puck out of your zone in an organized fashion. The following two plays show how making a wall play in transition leads to offensive-zone possession and a goal.
Eberle finds himself with the puck in tight against the wall attempting to break it out. His options are somewhat limited. He doesn’t have much speed, and he’s about to take a hit from a back checker. The lateral pass to teammate Chandler Stephenson is unavailable due to a well-positioned stick from Montreal’s Brendan Gallagher (No. 11). However, he remains poised and is able to make a skilled play and find Vince Dunn sprinting up the middle, which opens up more breakout options.
The Kraken ultimately dump the puck in, and the Montreal goaltender, unable to handle the rimmed puck,allows it to go to the other side where Eberle is ready to make a play. He one-touches the rimmed puck to Eeli Tolvanen, who makes no mistake scoring. That last play wasn’t a fortuitous deflection. That was the subtle art of wall play.
This next example features neither Eberle nor Schwartz but is simply too good not to share. Kaapo Kakko takes a breakout pass along the wall. Although he has to receive this pass with his back turned to the middle of the ice, limiting his vision, he pre-scans prior to getting the puck, knowing that Beniers is skating up the middle. He makes a skilled play, simultaneously protecting the puck and finding a clever outlet to Beniers.
Because Kakko is able to move the puck to an already-moving Beniers, the Kraken are able to get the zone entry and create an initial scoring chance. That chance doesn’t go in, but the Oilers fail to recover the puck, and Kakko is able to make yet another skilled wall play, catching a rimmed pass on his backhand and walking out in front of the net to set up Beniers for a backdoor tap-in goal.
Defending
Being great at wall play doesn’t just mean you’re on the ice for key offensive situations; it also means that coaches will put you out when your team is defending a lead. When the trailing team is pressing, making plays off the wall is crucial to clearing pucks and relieving pressure. If you can’t make those plays, the puck can end up in the back of your net very quickly.
In the above, a good play on the wall prevents a clean zone exit, and the Oilers are forced to rim the puck back behind their own net. Jake Walman has the next chance to pull the puck off the wall and clear it, but under pressure, he ends up putting it right on the stick of Schwartz, who scores his second goal of the evening.
In this next clip, the Oilers go from having clear possession to pulling the puck out of the back of their net within a matter of seconds. The culprit? A botched clearing attempt.
Oilers defender Ty Emberson has difficulty handling the puck behind his net and, under pressure, rims it hard to his partner Troy Stecher, who is positioned near the hash marks. Stecher is unable to handle the hard rim, leading to a turnover at the blue line. Ryker Evans sends it the other way, and Andre Burakovsky finishes the scoring chance from the top of the crease.
Strong wall play is critical in the NHL
Let’s revisit Eberle’s famous goal against Russia in the 2009 WJC semifinal. Russia defends pretty well here, keeping the puck on the wall and staying in shooting lanes. The entire sequence prior to the goal is a slog along the wall.
Ultimately, the Canadians win enough small wall battles to find a fortuitous opening, and that makes all the difference in the game that sent them to the final.
In hockey, all these little moments add up to one bigger one. This is winning hockey – the ability to win the hard pucks along the wall in critical moments.
Wall play is a subtle and underappreciated skill. It’s not really sexy, and it’s equal parts hard work and talent. It’s also hard to highlight on TV because the typical broadcast angle doesn’t give a full view of the nearside boards. But players who master it have staying power in the NHL.
The next time you go to a Kraken game or even an open practice, I would encourage you to keep an eye out for players working on their wall skills. They might partner off and work on it individually or you might see it baked into a puck retrieval drill. For some of you, it may be a whole other dimension to the skill game waiting to be discovered.
The Seattle Kraken came out of the gates HOT to start the 2025-26 season, racking up five points in three games with 2-0-1 record. As such, the vibes are high for this episode of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast.
TONS of Kraken talk this week, including a breakdown of Seattle’s first three games, Game Ops updates at Climate Pledge Arena, and some “big topic” discussions.
Segments include Weekly One-Timers, Bad Boys, and What’s Good?
My first impression of PWHL Seattle’s general manager Meghan Turner was that she’s a whip smart, confident leader who prioritizes culture and fit in the way she’s building Seattle’s first-ever professional women’s hockey team. Tessa Bonhomme called Turner “a brilliant hockey mind who’s gonna be a problem.”
I am still relatively new to hockey myself, but the job of general manager seemed pretty straightforward: build a successful organization by winning trophies and making money. Turner’s duty as an expansion team general manager, though, is to build that team and culture from nothing.
Turner used an analogy to explain the intricacy of her job to me, which is not as cut and dried as I had assumed. “I’m a big puzzle nerd, and so that’s how I view it. How do I, as a GM, find the right pieces that complement each other to work in concert together?” As a fellow puzzle nerd, her explanation helped me make sense of what she has been up to for the past few months, and the task ahead as we inch our way toward PWHL Seattle’s inaugural season, which officially starts Nov. 21.
A winding road back to hockey
Turner’s route to PWHL general manager was circuitous, but it helps give perspective to how she views the ‘puzzle’ before her. She jokingly gives both blame and credit to Boston Fleet general manager Danielle Marmer for where she’s ended up. Marmer and Turner grew up playing against each other, since Turner is from New Hampshire, and Marmer was in Vermont. The pair then played together for four years at Quinnipiac University, where Turner graduated with a BS and an MBA.
After graduation, Turner got a consulting job at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Boston. On top of working 55 hours per week at PwC, she played professional hockey, first in the CWHL and later the PWHPA. She told the Boston Globe that she’d often leave her house at 7 a.m., work all day, head to practice, get back home at 10 and work some more. Eventually it came time for Turner to hang up the skates.
“I pretty much decided that I was gonna move forward in my consulting career, and that’s what the next 30 years of my life would be,” Turner said. She was happy and loved her job and coworkers, and she had signed up for service in the Army National Guard. When the PWHL was announced, Turner was excited but didn’t expect to be involved. During our conversation she laughed at her past naivete. “You make a decision, and life just throws a total curve ball at you.”
This particular curve ball was thrown by her old friend Marmer, who had also moved to Boston to work in player development and scouting for the Bruins. The week before Turner was set to ship off to basic training, Marmer, who had been offered a job as PWHL Boston’s inaugural GM, asked Turner to come with her. Though Turner described her decision as “a leap,” she felt supported in her transition. From her family, from Marmer, and from her colleagues at PwC who pushed her out the door, telling her, “You’ve got to do this. This is like a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”
Does she regret her decision to return to hockey? “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said.
OTTAWA, CANADA – JUNE 25: Turner and PWHL Seattle head coach Steve O’Rourke at the 2025 PWHL Draft (Photo/Arianne Bergeron, courtesy of PWHL Seattle)
Turner worked two years for the Boston Fleet as assistant general manager. When expansion was announced, league executives asked the current GMs, including Marmer, if there was anyone they would recommend to lead the two new teams. Marmer told the Boston Globe that in her mind, Turner was not only the obvious choice, but the only choice. “They were like ‘Great, glad you said that, because we were going to talk to her anyway.’ ”
Building the puzzle
Now that we have the context, we can get back into how Turner has approached building the puzzle that is PWHL Seattle. She starts, as many of us do, by looking at the picture on the box. For her, this means deciding on an image of how a successful PWHL team looks. Unlike the inaugural six PWHL general managers, who built their teams with no real knowledge of what the league would become, Turner has the benefit of looking back at the past two years of the league.
With hindsight, she sees that picture clearly. Turner was not shy to admit that it looks a lot like back-to-back league champions, the Minnesota Frost. “There’s a lot to pull from in terms of what they’ve done in [both] seasons. They weren’t the clear front-runner, but they got hot at the right times, and they pushed through playoffs. They had speed, and they had endurance and stamina, and some of the things that they do more tactically on the ice to spread teams out and make it difficult for teams to play against them.”
The picture of a successful team is a championship-winning team, yes, but Turner knows that isn’t the whole story. “Beyond that, for me, it’s making sure that we are building a good culture.” For Turner, it’s not just the results that make a successful team, but it’s also how they get there. “I want to win in a way where I feel good about us winning and feel like we are jelling as a group. That means a lot to me, too, just to make sure that the culture is good, and players want to come to Seattle and they want to stay in Seattle.”
From our discussion, the image that the finished puzzle will show became clear: Turner is planning on building a winning team with a great culture.
So how does she go about figuring out which pieces will fit? “Hockey’s a unique sport,” Turner said. “You really need your full roster to play their parts. You can’t just rely on a few good players, you need everyone to step up and fill in the capacity that they’re put in to fill.”
Drafting and signing to create a team from scratch
Turner had three main opportunities to find the right pieces for her puzzle: the initial/exclusive signing window, the expansion draft, and the entry draft.
“The initial signing window was interesting,” Turner said. “I was confident going into it, and I knew the players… But it was a really fast pace, and I knew it was going to be, but I maybe underestimated just how competitive it was.”
After a “crazy” Day 1, Turner felt more confident moving forward with the rest of the process and felt she knew what to expect. And why wouldn’t she be confident? The first player she signed to PWHL Seattle was Hilary Knight, one of the greatest hockey players ever. She then rounded out the window by signing the maximum five players and was praised for her work during the window.
For Turner, the initial signing period was about getting her core pieces together, and then she went about building around them, making sure the additional pieces were a good fit with the foundation she had started. She went into draft day with multiple different strategies, prepared to “play off of what Cara [Gardner Morey] is doing in Vancouver, in literally five minutes or so in the moment.” She was happy with the plan they ended up using, and with the outcome, telling me that her team crafted the roster in the way that she had hoped.
Then, in the entry draft, unlike the NHL conventional wisdom of drafting the best prospect available, Turner said she and her staff “drafted with specific needs in mind,” and felt good about where they ended up. They pulled some surprising moves, like drafting a goalie in the second round, but the plan was the same. They selected “who we thought was the best available and also fit what we needed.”
When asked if there was a consistent thread that tied all her selections together, Turner said: “The first one that pops into my head is just competitiveness, and then maturity.” They looked for athletes who are willing to learn and grow and fill different roles. Turner thinks that she has that with her current roster. “A lot of the personalities from my perspective are just gritty and competitive. They want to win every single day, and they’re going to push each other.”
Some hiccups still expected
Turner knows the road to success will not be smooth 100 percent of the time.
“It’s difficult when you put a player that’s been on the top line their whole life and try to retrofit them into maybe a third- or fourth-line role and vice versa, so sometimes you have to ask players to kind of reinvent themselves and then help them with that process. So to me, It’s a big puzzle, and all the pieces fit together. And in many different ways, just finding the right way that fits and understanding that there’s no one way that that’s going to work.”
It seems, then, that hockey is a bit different from a puzzle in some key ways. For one, you can change the pieces slightly to fit what you need. You can also find a different solution and end up with a different picture than what you thought you were building. This type of flexibility is crucial for a team that has never played together.
Throughout our interview, Turner showed that she has the keen eye and instincts of a great leader, but at the end, her answers showed a bit of her heart. With her experience in two other failed leagues, I had to ask her what made the PWHL different. “Oh gosh,” she told me, smiling, “It’s everything about it, I guess.” She described the PWHL as “leveled up.” Players, investors, leadership, the people behind the scenes who don’t get the credit they deserve, are all 100 percent in… They didn’t dip their toes in. It was, ‘We’re doing this, and we’re going to make it good.'”
Turner is no stranger to Seattle. She told Daily Faceoff, “My wife lived out there for a year after college, and then her twin sister joined her after college. Her sister ended up staying there for about nine years. So, we would go out there a lot to visit. So, it’s still kind of a secondary home base for my sister-in-law, who I’m really close to. It’s cool to kind of go back in a different capacity.”
“I really want to make this great for Seattle. I say it all the time… how excited [the fans] are, and I am genuinely so excited to bring the women’s side of the sport to Seattle. And I am really excited to meet people and meet fans and be out in the community. So I’m just excited to see everyone, I’m excited to meet everyone, Excited to be at [Climate Pledge Arena], see the fans and everything, so I’m just very excited. And it comes from a genuine desire to make Seattle the best market for our league and obviously hoist a championship trophy at the end of the year.”
Her excitement was infectious and made us Sound Of Hockey feel ready to run through a wall. It’s clear that Turner is ready to lead Seattle into a bright future.
When asked about Turner moving on, her friend and former boss Danielle Marmer told the Boston Globe “she’s going to have something really special in Seattle.” And I agree.
Bad news, gang: The Seattle Kraken will not go 82-0-0 this season. However, 81-0-1 is still on the table!
Yes, the Kraken took their first loss of the season Tuesday, 5-4 in overtime against the Montreal Canadiens. But considering the way the game started, it was again encouraging to see Seattle push back on a night when the home team seemed to have far more jump initially, and still come away with a standings point.
“We were playing hard right from the get go,” head coach Lane Lambert said. “If you look at the chances in the game, we have out-chanced them at 5-on-5. So I thought we did a great job of coming prepared, understanding what we needed to do, certainly in the first 10 minutes when they came out hard. We battled. I give our guys full credit for battling.”
Jared McCann scored for the third straight game, the power play connected for the second straight game, and the outcome easily could have gone the other way if it weren’t for some outstanding plays by Montreal’s stars—another encouraging sign in the early going of the season.
MCCANN CAN! 🚨
Montour's shot gets blocked, but it drops right for Jared McCann, who spins and snipes his third goal of the season. #SeaKraken grab their first lead of the game, 4-3. pic.twitter.com/KrRO84hF7W
Here are Three Takeaways from a 5-4 Kraken overtime loss to the Canadiens.
Takeaway #1: Competitive every night
I wrote about this recently—Lambert has said that if the Kraken stick to his systems, they won’t win every game, but they’ll be competitive every night. Watching the opening period Tuesday, it felt like Seattle was getting caved in by a high-flying Montreal team.
Indeed, the Habs opened the scoring after a rare odd-man rush against, in which Ivan Demidov made an elite cut to the top of the right circle and an even more elite pass to the backdoor, where Alex Newhook redirected it over Joey Daccord.
Alex Newhook scores off a rush and a great pass by Ivan Demidov, and the #SeaKraken are chasing for the first time this season.
That goal came amidst some sloppy puck management that looked similar to what we saw from Seattle on Opening Night, when the Anaheim Ducks appeared a step faster and hemmed the Kraken in for much of the opening 20 minutes.
But…
As Lambert promised, even when the Kraken were again on their heels in the first period, they still stayed within striking distance, getting to the intermission down just 1-0 with a 4-4 shots-on-goal count.
It was no surprise to see them get things back on track in the second and start to take some control of the game.
Takeaway #2: Costly penalty, other mistakes
Mason Marchment took a penalty at a very bad time, and it came back to bite the Kraken. Minutes after Jamie Oleksiak had given Seattle its only lead of the game with a seeing-eye shot through a double-layer screen set by Matty Beniers and Jordan Eberle, Seattle went shorthanded, clinging to a 4-3 lead.
The PKers appeared to have an outstanding kill in the books, but before Marchment could rejoin the play, Demidov made his second all-world move of the night. With Oleksiak tangled up with Brendan Gallagher in the crease, Daccord was shielded from getting to his angle. Demidov waited, and waited, and finally lofted it into an open net to tie the game 4-4 and send it to overtime.
🤦♂️ Just as the #SeaKraken PK appeared to have gotten a monster kill, Ivan Demidov makes his second elite play of the game and ties it 4-4. pic.twitter.com/0kPaijxklp
There were other mistakes in this game—like a turnover by Chandler Stephenson that led to Cole Caufield’s first of two goals—but that penalty definitely hurt Seattle’s chances in this one.
“We made some mistakes, and those mistakes ended up in the back of our net tonight, whereas maybe in Games 1 and 2, they didn’t,” Lambert said. “[They were] structural and systematic mistakes that we have no business making those mistakes.”
Takeaway #3: Montreal’s skill wins out
The Kraken deserve plenty of credit for making this another close game and, even though it was different from the previous two (Seattle allowed five goals instead of one), for earning another point in the standings.
But I have to say, the Canadiens have some very skilled players. Demidov, Caufield, and Lane Hutson all made their respective presences known, with Demidov (1-1=2) and Caufield (2-0=2) each notching two points.
Caufield put an exclamation point on Montreal’s late comeback after Nick Suzuki beat Beniers on an offensive-zone face-off, pulling it back to Hutson, who danced around and created a cross-and-drop opportunity for Caufield.
Caufield streaked down the flank, Daccord dropped down and gave him a sliver of net to hit, and Caufield picked the corner from a sharp angle.
You gotta tip your hat… Outstanding play by Lane Hutson on the cross-and-drop, then Daccord gives Cole Caufield just a sliver of net to work with, and he takes it.
It was a beautiful goal to cap off a night full of highlight-reel plays by a talented Montreal squad—a scary team, indeed.
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.
As the Seattle Kraken’s fifth season gets underway, the Strive for 95 series returns. Most teams that reach 95 points qualify for the playoffs, making it a strong benchmark to track Seattle’s progress.
Like last season, the Kraken begin with a new coaching staff, but this year’s focus is on regaining their defensive identity. Last year, Seattle ranked 16th in goals scored (247). Among teams that made the playoffs, the Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, and New Jersey Devils actually scored fewer goals than the Kraken. Defense was the issue—the Kraken ranked 24th with 265 goals against. Head coach Lane Lambert was brought in during the offseason and is focused on tightening the team’s defensive structure.
Team tiers
For those new to this series, we at Sound Of Hockey split NHL teams into three categories: Playoff Bound, Bubble, and Tankers. To reach 95 points, a team needs a .579 points percentage. No game in the NHL is a gimme, but tiering teams helps gauge the difficulty of the Kraken’s schedule and level-sets expectations.
Playoff Bound – Teams expected to comfortably make the playoffs, generally among the league’s top performers last season.
Bubble – Teams fighting for a playoff spot, most likely battling for wild-card positions.
Tankers – Teams likely to miss the playoffs, making them Seattle’s most favorable matchups.
The biggest category is the Bubble teams, which includes 17 clubs. With a new season underway, many are still finding their footing as offseason moves settle in. I expect a few Bubble teams to slip into the Tankers category as the season progresses, and perhaps a couple will rise to the Playoff Bound tier.
These tiers are fluid and will update as the season progresses. In the NHL, only 16 teams make the playoffs—eight from each conference. Currently, 10 teams fall into the Playoff Bound category, leaving six playoff spots up for grabs: three in the East and three in the West.
Breakdown of point percentages
The NHL schedule consists of 82 games. When aligned with the team tiers, the Kraken play 27 games against Playoff Bound teams, 41 against Bubble teams, and 13 against Tankers. While no matchup is an automatic win, victories against Tankers should be more attainable than those against elite teams. Therefore, we can expect higher point percentages against Tankers, moderate against Bubble teams, and lower against Playoff Bound opponents.
These projections will adjust throughout the season based on Seattle’s pace. For now, the projected breakdown looks as follows:
October targets
After two home wins to start the year, Seattle is off to its best start in franchise history. The vibes are high, but perspective matters—it’s only two games. The Kraken now embark on a six-game road trip that will give them an early-season test. The trip includes their first of 13 back-to-back games this season, meaning a backup goalie will see action. Seattle went 0-12 in second legs of back-to-backs last year, a glaring area for improvement. This trip ties for their longest of the season, with another six-game swing coming in March.
Seattle plays 10 games in October: five against Playoff Bound teams, four against Bubble teams, and one against a Tanker. With two wins already under their belt and eight games remaining, Seattle has set the stage for a potentially bountiful October.
Playoff Bound teams (four-point target) – Seattle has already defeated the Vegas Golden Knights in an overtime thriller on Oct. 11. Remaining opponents in this group include Toronto (Oct. 18), Washington (Oct. 21), Winnipeg (Oct. 23), and Edmonton (Oct. 25). The Capitals game will be an early measuring-stick game, as it’s the second leg of a back-to-back against a strong opponent. Target: four points. With two already secured, the Kraken have a chance to build momentum.
Bubble teams (five-point target) – Seattle opened with a win over Anaheim despite getting heavily outshot in the first period. The target here is five points. The Kraken face Montreal twice this month (Oct. 14 and Oct. 28) and Ottawa once (Oct. 16). Ottawa has struggled early, allowing an average of 4.67 goals against through three games.
Tanker teams (two-point target) – Seattle’s lone game in this group is Oct. 20 against Philadelphia, the first leg of a back-to-back. This could be a good spot to start one of the backup goalies.
Overall, the bar to stay on pace is 11 points, and with four already secured, October is shaping up as an opportunity to get ahead of schedule.
Monthly updates
Each month, I’ll update this series to track Seattle’s progress toward the 95-point goal. After an offseason with no flashy additions, the Kraken have quickly reignited optimism with only two games played. This road trip comes at a perfect time—it’s long enough for the team to jell and provides a chance to evaluate the backup goaltending situation. Plus, Seattle’s 2024 first-round pick, Berkly Catton, remains with the team and could make his debut this month (perhaps on the road trip?).
The Kraken’s best October to date was 11 points last season, though that came in 11 games. With 10 this year, matching or surpassing that total would put them ahead of pace as they strive for 95.
Comment below with your thoughts on the Kraken’s start and your expectations for October and the season ahead.
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.
With two wins in two games, both against Pacific Division opponents, it was a strong opening week for the Seattle Kraken. It wasn’t perfect, but honestly, I don’t think anyone could’ve scripted a better start to the Lane Lambert era.
For the first time in franchise history, the Kraken not only won their season opener but their home opener as well, taking down the up-and-coming Anaheim Ducks 3–1. The first period was rough; Seattle was outshot 17–5, but Joey Daccord was stellar, and the game was tied 1-1 after 20 minutes.
To Seattle’s credit, most of Anaheim’s shots came from the outside and were low-danger looks, but that kind of shot differential still jumps off the page. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t at least a little worried after that first period, even with the score level.
Things turned around in the second. The Kraken tilted the ice when Brandon Montour stole a puck with some slick stick work, battled to keep possession, and set up Mason Marchment for Seattle’s second goal. At that moment, shots were 20–5 for Anaheim. The rest of the way? 25–16 for Seattle.
A different kind of game against Vegas
The matchup with Vegas had a completely different vibe, more balanced, but still a strong showing. The Golden Knights are loaded up front, so holding them to just one power-play goal (after they scored nine in their first two games) was no small feat.
Heading into overtime, Vegas had a 24–15 edge in shots, but the Kraken dominated the extra frame, controlling play and outshooting the Knights 7–3.
“On the game as a whole, in 5-on-5 play, the Kraken generated 43.8 percent of all shot volume but 57 percent of all shot quality. In regulation, the first period was the team’s strongest in each metric.”
And that doesn’t even include overtime, where the Kraken clearly built on that shot-quality advantage.
Speaking of overtime… let’s relive that winner that was buried with just 3.4 seconds left on the clock.
The Kraken have one power-play goal in five opportunities, not a big sample size, but there’s plenty to like so far. They’re working the puck below the goal line more, setting up options in the slot, and finding cross-ice seams for dangerous looks.
Here’s a look at the power-play time on ice so far:
Chandler Stephenson is logging heavy minutes while Kaapo Kakko remains out of the lineup. One name missing from the mix, though, is Jani Nyman, who was used in the one-timer spot late last season.
Other musings
The Kraken’s win over the Anaheim Ducks marked their 10th all-time victory against Anaheim, the most they’ve recorded against any opponent.
Conversely, heading into the Vegas game, the Kraken were just 3–11–1 all-time against the Golden Knights. But over the past three seasons, Seattle has flipped that script, going 3–0–1 against Vegas, including that memorable first-ever win at the Winter Classic.
The Kraken scored first in both games to open the season. That’s notable, considering they struck first in just 43 percent of their games last year, the third-lowest rate in the league. They also won less than 30 percent of the games in which they gave up the first goal, so playing from ahead is huge.
I’d really like to see Shane Wright get going on this upcoming road trip through eastern Canada. The opportunity is there, and a little momentum early could do wonders for him.
The ice has felt tilted in Seattle’s favor whenever the Jared McCann-Matty Beniers-Jordan Eberle line has been on together. That trio looks sharp and seems to be finding its rhythm again.
Ryan Winterton has also really impressed me through two games. He’s been noticeable breaking up plays and playing a strong two-way game. The coaching staff clearly trusts him too, as he didn’t miss a shift in the third period of the Vegas game.
On the flip side, Jani Nyman has averaged just 8:14 of ice time with no power-play minutes over the first two games. It’s not anything to panic about, but it’s quite a contrast from last season, when he averaged 14 minutes a night and played in almost half of Seattle’s power-play opportunities during his 12-game stint.
I’m also glad to see the Kraken organization welcome Joel Quenneville back to the league in the right way.
As much of a slog as that third period was against Vegas, that’s probably the kind of grind-it-out hockey the Kraken will need to play to beat elite, high-skill teams.
Overseas, 2025 seventh-round pick Loke Krantz made his SHL debut for Linköping HC and notched an assist in his first game.
Meanwhile, down in the desert, the Coachella Valley Firebirds got off to a rough start, dropping their home opener 5–0 to the San Diego Gulls. It could be a challenging season ahead for the Firebirds; they’re one of the youngest teams in the AHL.
Goal of the week
There were plenty to choose from with the Kraken this week, but this whole sequence was just too good to pass up.
Matty Beniers (SEA) – Has a goal and two assists on the Kraken’s four goals so far this season.
Joey Daccord (SEA) – Sporting a .968 save percentage through the Kraken’s first two games and came up big in key moments of both. According to MoneyPuck.com, he ranks fifth in the league in Goals Saved Above Expected.
Jake O’Brien (BFD/SEA) – The Kraken’s first-round pick in the 2025 draft exploded for four goals and four assists in two games over the weekend.
The week ahead
The Kraken hit the road for a six-game road trip, starting Tuesday in Montreal for the Canadiens’ home opener. When the schedule came out this summer, this stretch jumped out as a tough early-season test, especially with players learning new systems under a new coaching staff.
Getting two wins at home probably helped accelerate the buy-in from the group which should be valuable heading out on the road. This week, Seattle faces Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto. It’s still tough to gauge how good any of these teams really are and all three of these opponents already have losses. I’d be fine with three points out of a possible six, though four sure would feel nice.
What I’m watching:
Goaltending: Joey Daccord has started the first two games, but it’s hard to imagine the team wants him playing all three this week while Philipp Grubauer and Matt Murray gather dust.
Berkly Catton: I’m guessing Catton gets into a game after being a healthy scratch for the first two at home. I don’t mind the scratches, but you’d think he gets a look soon. Not sure if it means anything, but Beniers, Wright, and Winterton all made their NHL debuts on the road.
This trip should be another solid test for the Kraken. As I mentioned during the Kraken Roundtable, I just want to see them compete and be in every game.
Final thoughts
It’s early, but the vibes around the Kraken feel good — structure, effort, and a couple of new faces already making an impact. There’s still plenty to clean up, but two wins out of the gate and some promising trends under Lane Lambert? You’ll take that every time.
Look, I’m not saying the Seattle Kraken will go 82-0 this season, but… it remains on the table after they defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 2-1 in overtime at Climate Pledge Arena on Saturday.
Matty Beniers had an outstanding performance, earning both a crucial goal and an even more crucial assist, while Jared McCann banged home the game-winner to cap an incredible weekend for Seattle sports.
Speaking of which, who was in the building on Saturday, cheering on the Kraken? The legendary HUMPY! After Humpy’s performance shocked the world at the Mariners game on Friday, he appeared at CPA on Saturday—where the Kraken promptly came away with an impressive win over an excellent opponent. Coincidence? I think not.
Here are Three Takeaways from a big 2-1 Kraken overtime win against the Golden Knights.
Takeaway #1: Matty looks different
Beniers had a notably slow start to last season but seemed to find himself once Kaapo Kakko arrived and started creating some space for him. So when Kakko broke his hand in training camp, I wondered how big of an impact that would have on the start of Matty’s season.
Through the first two games—especially Saturday against Vegas—Beniers has looked fast, confident, and downright crafty. Even before he scored, I was commenting to others in the local media about how he looked.
When I asked him if he’s feeling good about his game Saturday, he said, “Yeah, I feel good.” (It was a funny exchange that’s worth watching below.)
There’s a determination in his game right now that we haven’t always seen from him over the past couple of seasons. The way he’s dangling through the neutral zone, the way he’s defending, and even the way he’s carrying himself with the media—it all suddenly looks and sounds like a veteran NHLer.
Against the Golden Knights, he was the beneficiary of an unbelievable between-the-legs pass from Jordan Eberle from below the goal line to set up a power-play goal seven minutes into the second period. But he also made an elite play on his own, pulling the puck to his backhand and sliding it around Adin Hill’s outstretched left pad.
“It was an awesome pass [by Eberle],” Beniers said. “He’s an extremely gifted passer, we all know that, and he put that on display right there by going between his legs. I’m right in front all alone, so he set that whole thing up.”
He’s still just 22 years old, but it feels like it’s time for Matty to become Seattle’s best player. If that happens this season, the Kraken could go a long way.
(By the way, I missed Matty’s goal in real time, because I was busy looking up how many career shutouts Adin Hill has. So, you’re welcome for that.)
Takeaway #2: Overtime dominance
After Pavel Dorofeyev sent the game to an extra frame with his fifth (!!!) goal in three games, Seattle showed it knows how to play at 3-on-3—despite not practicing it much.
The Kraken won seemingly every battle and held the puck for nearly the entire five minutes of overtime. When the Golden Knights did manage to get possession, they’d rush up ice, take a shot from distance that Joey Daccord confidently kicked away, and then Seattle would go right back to work. It was an impressive display.
“Very good,” coach Lane Lambert said of the overtime performance. “Watching [Kraken teams] in the past, there’s a pretty good understanding there, and I thought we won some battles, and I thought we did some really good things in 3-on-3. We reorganized with the puck, we didn’t— we took shots that we felt were good opportunities, which you have to do. So we managed it very well.”
Of course, it’s all for naught if you don’t ultimately score. But with the clock ticking down and Beniers dancing around at the top of the slot, he finally pushed his way down Lenny Wilkens Way and snapped a shot into Hill’s chest. The rebound popped out and landed right on McCann’s stick, and he won the most important battle of the night, sending the crowd home happy.
“I knew there wasn’t much time on the clock,” McCann said. “Matty made a great play, obviously, turned back and created space from the guy, and I just tried to do the same at the net.”
Takeaway #3: All aboard the Lane Train
After practice on Friday, Lambert reflected on the third period of Seattle’s season-opening win against Anaheim. “We feel like if we play like that, we’re going to give ourselves a chance to win. Are we going to win all the time? No, but if we play like that, we give ourselves a chance to win. And I thought that period was good.”
The Kraken played three of those periods (four, if you count OT) on Saturday. Sure, the game against Vegas could have gone either way, but Seattle had victory well within its tentacles all night.
Of course, Daccord has been very solid in both of these first two games, and the puck management in the opening frame against the Ducks was atrocious. But there have been very few defensive breakdowns so far, and against Vegas, odd-man rushes almost never happened. Even Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy commented on that after the game.
“They had a game plan, and they weren’t going to lose D up the ice,” Cassidy said. “Even though I think they did a pretty good job of getting involved in the offense, it didn’t allow us a lot of odd-man rushes to get through the neutral zone clean. So I think it took us a while to figure that part out.”
Lambert doubled down on his earlier sentiments after the game.
“It’s important for our team to understand that what we’re doing is a formula to have success,” Lambert said. “You’re not always going to win, and that’s the way it goes. The outcome was great, but had it been slightly different, I wouldn’t have been unhappy with our hockey team’s effort.”
For all the talk about tighter defensive structure from the Kraken, I’m not sure I believed we’d see it this early in the season. But Seattle just totally shut down a Vegas Golden Knights team that has dominated them throughout their four years of existence.
All aboard?
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.
“Down on the Farm” is your weekly Seattle Kraken prospects update. This week we’ll dig in on the 2025-26 Coachella Valley Firebirds as they prepare for their AHL season opener, while also passing along news and notes, data updates, and scouting video from across the Kraken prospect landscape. As always, if you have a Kraken prospect-related question you’d like to see featured in a future column, drop us a note below or on X or BlueSky @deepseahockey. Let’s dive in.
Firebirds to take the ice with young, exciting roster, and lineup questions
The Coachella Valley Firebirds will drop the puck on their fourth season on Friday. Remarkably, in each of the team’s first three years of existence, the Kraken AHL affiliate’s final loss has come in the playoffs to the eventual Calder Cup champion.
In the team’s first two seasons, that success was built on a veteran lineup that ranked among the oldest in the league. Powered by proven AHL players like Andrew Poturalski, Kole Lind, and Cameron Hughes, and guided by Dan Bylsma and his staff, the team went to the Calder Cup Finals each year.
Last season was one of transition. The team integrated a new bench boss in Derek Laxdal and a number of younger Kraken drafted players, including Ty Nelson, Jagger Firkus, and David Goyette. Notwithstanding all of that change, the season was a success as the Firebirds advanced to the second round of the playoffs before falling to Abbotsford.
This year, the youth movement is complete. With a wave of drafted prospects on entry-level contracts reaching the professional ranks, the Firebirds will rank as one of the youngest teams in the AHL, if not the youngest.
Data compiled by Elite Prospects has the current Firebirds roster as the third youngest and third least experienced in the AHL. Yet, this does not account for the season-ending hip surgery for veteran captain Max McCormick. Removing McCormick from the equation, the Firebirds Opening Day average age dips to 23.04, which would be—by far—the lowest in the AHL.
The challenge ahead to repeat the team’s previous success is evident. “It is a young roster,” Firebirds vice president of hockey and business operations Troy Bodie conceded in an interview on the Fire & Ice Podcast, but “it’s a talented group.” Bodie noted “the team has drafted well,” before calling out forward Oscar Fisker Molgaard and defenseman Tyson Jugnauth as new players primed for important roles. “They’re going to be fan favorites quite early.”
The current Opening Day lineup projects to have only three players that qualify toward the five veteran player limit: Forwards Mitchell Stephens and John Hayden and defenseman Gustav Olofsson. Beyond that group, forwards Ben Meyers and Ian McKinnon figure to be influential figures, but, as Bodie conceded, leadership and high-leverage minutes are going to have to come from elsewhere too.
The team is going to lean on a group of second- and third-year players who “are going to step into highly offensive roles and important shutdown roles. We’ve been preparing for this in the last few years,” Bodie said. “It will be interesting to see how things shake out in terms of line combinations and roles, power play time.”
Just hours before Opening Night, we know more about what the roster will look like than we did a month ago, but the specific groupings will likely evolve in the early going. Here’s one potential look at how the team could line up:
The loss of McCormick is felt by the team because Coach Laxdal may like to have a veteran forward line he can rely upon in crunch time. With no other strong veteran candidate for the first-line left wing role, I moved Ben Meyers—who can play center or on the wing—up to the top line. Ideally, he’d bring his talent and savvy to the center position on the second line, and perhaps they start that way. But if Meyers does move into a wing role, at least in crucial situations, we could see rookie Andrei Loshko at center. Loshko—who played center and wing in his junior career—was utilized at center during Kraken training camp and in the Firebirds preseason game.
In this construction, the second line would trade on skill, while the third line would represent an intriguing blend of speed, grit, and goal scoring. The fourth line is not your standard grinding unit, but it is comprised of three center-capable forwards with plenty of forechecking speed on the wings. It is possible McKinnon could sub in for Goyette on Opening Night. I’d expect that McKinnon plays at least 40 games.
On the blue line, Ty Nelson seems primed for heavy usage at 5-on-5 and on special teams—particularly with Cale Fleury in the NHL for at least the season’s first month. Ville Ottavainen is more NHL ready than Nelson—he was among the last reassignments from NHL camp—but it makes sense to separate him from the team’s other best stay-at-home blueliner, Olofsson.
Jugnauth could be a newcomer in the top-four defensemen group and add a power-play role, which would make him an important player from the jump.
What are Bodie’s expectations for this young squad? “I’d like to see our players adapting to pro hockey quickly. There’s going to be some learning curve, some mistakes made along the way. I understand that.”
“I want to see our players compete, work hard, not give up an inch. Competitive nature is a non-negotiable for the Firebirds. We work hard here. That’s not something we take lightly.”
Notes on four more Kraken players
Ryan Winterton | F | Seattle Kraken (NHL)
Winterton is a player fans may have reasonably expected to slot into the top six of the Firebirds lineup discussed above. Instead, he skated with the NHL team in Seattle’s season opener, logging 12:02 time on ice, including one penalty-kill shift. Jason Botterill told Winterton he would be up with Kraken for “the foreseeable future,” so we should expect the young forward to remain on the NHL roster at least through Kaapo Kakko’s return, if not longer.
Nathan Villeneuve | F | Sudbury Wolves (OHL)
When Nathan Villeneuve left Kraken camp with an injury, the team said only that Villeneuve would miss the remainder of camp. Left to speculate about worst-case scenarios, it was a pleasant update to hear that Villeneuve will be back on the ice for his OHL team, the Sudbury Wolves, as of Friday. He will also be the Wolves’ captain for the 2025-26 season. I’m curious to see if this causes him to change his play-on-the-edge style that has led to heavy penalty minutes and a fighting-related suspension in the past.
Visa Vedenpää | G | HPK (Liiga)
Visa Vedenpää earned his first Liiga win on Saturday, Oct. 4, stopping 32 of 33 shots in a game against Kiekko-Espoo. Recognizing the moment, the team feted the young goaltender postgame. Some highlights and Vedenpää’s locker room speech were captured by the team-issued video below.
Karl Annborn | D | Västerås IK (HockeyAllsvenskan)
On Thursday, Oct. 9, HV71 loaned defenseman Karl Annborn to Västerås IK of HockeyAllsvenskan. It is likely that the team and player determined Annborn was too advanced for the Swedish U20 league, yet he could not establish himself as a regular in Sweden’s top pro league, the SHL, either. HockeyAllsvenskan is the second-level pro league in Sweden, which may be a good developmental home for Annborn at this stage. (We’ll update the schedule below to include Västerås IK‘s games by next week.)
Kraken prospects data update
Fresh off signing an entry-level contract with the Kraken, Julius Miettinen scored four goals and added three assists in three WHL games over the last week. This earns him his second-consecutive Sound Of Hockey Player of the Week.
Jake O’Brien left Brantford’s last game during overtime, but the team quickly reported that O’Brien was dealing with cramping and should not miss any additional time. O’Brien has one goal and four assists in his four OHL contests so far and should be out there for the Bulldogs tonight in their matchup with Villeneuve’s Sudbury Wolves.
Semyon Vyazovoi earned a KHL start for the second week in a row, which is good to see. Given his track record, I suspect the results will start trending in the right direction soon.
Kim Saarinen continues to perform amongst the best Liiga goalies as HPK’s clear starter.
Sound Of Hockey Prospect of the Week tracker
2: Kim Saarinen, Julius Miettinen
1: None
Seattle’s Finnish prospects are now four-for-four, giving the small hockey-playing nation a commanding early season lead in its quest to bring home one of the sport’s most prestigious awards.
Previewing the week ahead
We have two Deep Sea Hockey Games of the Week this week. Villeneuve’s return to the OHL lineup will come at 4:00 pm PT on Friday, against O’Brien’s Brantford Bulldogs. Should be a fun matchup of two of Seattle’s very best prospects. After that, at 7:00 pm PT, the puck drops on Coachella Valley’s AHL season. Great off-day content for a Kraken fan. Both games are on FloHockey.
Tracking 2026 NHL Draft prospects: Keaton Verhoeff
Defenseman Keaton Verhoeff is widely regarded as one of the top prospects in the 2026 NHL Draft not named Gavin McKenna. Verhoeff played his 2024-25 season with the Victoria Royals of the WHL, scoring 21 goals—by far the most among 16-year-old WHL defensemen—and adding 24 assists in 63 games. Verhoeff will play college hockey this year alongside Kraken prospect Ollie Josephson after both enrolled at the Univ. of North Dakota following the NCAA rule change that rendered CHL players eligible. Verhoeff’s draft season starts with a home game against the University of St. Thomas.
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.
