Data Dump: Seattle Kraken goals against over 2024–25

[Seattle Kraken]

Data Dump: Seattle Kraken goals against over 2024–25

Last week I posted a deep dive on the Seattle Kraken’s goal scoring over the 2024–25 season. Several of you asked to see the other side of the equation, so this week I’m doing another deep dive, this time into goals against. The publicly available data and tools are limited, so this breakdown will be a bit basic and theoretically incomplete, bur it gives us an idea of how the Kraken have trended.

Establishing a baseline​

If there’s a broad area you can point to as the reason for the disappointing 2024–25 season, it’s the goals against. Without any high-end talent, the Kraken have had to lean heavily on team defense to be competitive. But this past season saw the Kraken allow the most goals per game since their inaugural year.

They finished 22nd in the league, giving up 3.20 goals per game. Compared to last year’s 2.83, that’s an increase of +0.37 goals per game.

Goals against by situation​

Just like we approached Kraken goals for last week, let’s break down how teams scored against the Kraken.

Maybe a little surprising: the Kraken’s goals against while shorthanded were relatively low, just 0.54 per game. Here’s how the goals against by scenario compares across the league in 2024–25.

Clearly, the Kraken need to improve their defense on their 5-on-5 play which is a large percentage of their even-strength time on ice.

Penalty kill performance​

From a goals-against-on-the-penalty-kill perspective, the Kraken look… alright. They allowed the 10th-fewest total power-play goals against, despite ranking 27th in the league on penalty kill percentage. It turns out that encouraging total is propped up by the fact Seattle was one of the most disciplined teams in the league.

Seattle was fifth in the NHL for fewest times shorthanded. So while the raw total looks fine, the percentage was below average, and we’ve already talked about how offseason additions should help improve that. Here’s how the Kraken’s PK volume and efficiency stack up league-wide.

Shots against volume​

Now let’s look at the Kraken’s shots against per game.

Seattle ranked 17th in the league in shots against, which is again a little surprising, given their 27th-place finish in the standings. But as we all know, not all shots are created equal. So let’s dig into the quality of shots against: high, medium, and low danger.

Like the overall shot volume, the Kraken were right around the league average in high- and medium-danger shots allowed. That’s not bad at all, especially considering several 2025 playoff teams allowed more dangerous chances per game. The Kraken did allow more low-danger shots than most, but that’s not terribly concerning.

Team goaltending​

Of course, the other critical element of team defense is goaltending. So let’s check in on team save percentage, broken out by strength.

As you might expect, Seattle’s team save percentage was on the low side, but still (somehow) above two playoff teams: Montreal and Carolina. Still, there’s a lot of room for improvement.

Here’s a look at the Kraken’s save percentages by shot danger level, per NaturalStatTrick.com:

Interestingly, the Kraken’s save percentage got worse relative to the rest of the league as the shots got easier. Spot-checking other teams reveals a lack of consistency. For example, Anaheim was 22nd in high-danger save percentage, fourth in medium-danger, and first in low-danger save percentage.

We can theorize that there’s something systemic at play here, maybe Anaheim’s defensive structure prevents cross-ice passes in medium- and low-danger areas but leaves low-danger shooters more open for cross-seam chances. The inverse might be true for the Kraken’s 2024-25 system implemented by Dan Bylsma.

Individual goalie save percentage​

We all know Philipp Grubauer struggled this past season, and the numbers back that up. But let’s put it in context by looking at save percentages for all goalies who played 25+ games.

Yeah… no sugarcoating that one.

Just for good measure, let’s look at Grubauer’s save percentage by shot quality.

It’s a pretty poor performance across the board.

Outlook for 2025-26​

Aside from the obvious need for improvement from Grubauer, the Kraken are actually middle of the pack in a lot of defensive categories. As mentioned before, the additions of Ryan Lindgren and Fredrick Gaudreau should help the penalty kill.

There’s also hope that Lane Lambert can implement systems that reduce both the volume and quality of shots the Kraken face, which, in theory, should cut down on goals against.

Final thoughts​

All in all, the Kraken’s goals against story in 2024–25 is a mixed bag. Some areas, like overall shot volume and penalty kill goals allowed, aren’t as dire as the standings might suggest, while other areas, like 5-on-5 goals allowed and backup goaltending, clearly have room for improvement. With some key roster tweaks already in place and a new coaching staff behind the bench, there’s at least some reason for cautious optimism heading into 2025–26 that things will get better. The defense doesn’t need to become elite overnight, but if the Kraken can bring the goals against down even a little, they’ll give themselves a much better shot at turning things around.

The post Data Dump: Seattle Kraken goals against over 2024–25 appeared first on Sound Of Hockey.

Source: https://soundofhockey.com/2025/08/05/data-dump-seattle-kraken-goals-against-over-2024-25/