RSS Kraken Team Notes

[Seattle Kraken]

Kraken Notebook – With NHL Trade Deadline heating up, Kraken players play waiting game

Here we go! Things do seem to be heating up around the NHL as we barrel toward the NHL Trade Deadline, which hits at 12 p.m. Pacific on Friday. So far, it’s been mostly fringe, secondary, and tertiary players who have moved, with a few notable names like Tyler Myers (Vancouver to Dallas), MacKenzie Weegar (Calgary to Utah), Sam Girard (Colorado to Pittsburgh), and Conor Garland (Vancouver to Columbus) already being dealt.

Perhaps the biggest deal so far came late Thursday when the Anaheim Ducks, one of the teams Seattle is chasing, landed veteran defenseman John Carlson from the Washington Capitals.

The returns for the players that have moved have not been astronomical, indicating that this is truly a “buyers’ market.” So, we could see some more fireworks before midday on Friday.

Meanwhile, all is quiet on the Kraken front, so the team’s players are playing it cool, trying not to pay too much attention to the few rumors that have bubbled up around the club.

“Obviously, we’ve put ourselves in a spot where we have an opportunity to make the playoffs and make a run here,” captain Jordan Eberle said. “Whether that means we add or we stick with the group, I don’t know, those decisions are above me. But at this moment in time, I’m proud of the way that this group has battled to get ourselves an opportunity to hopefully get in.”

Control what you can control​

It’s interesting to feel the palpable difference in mood between a team battling for the playoffs (like this season’s group and the 2022-23 team) compared with the three seasons when the Kraken have been obvious sellers on the eve of the deadline. Even after a stinging loss to the St. Louis Blues on Wednesday, the players don’t expect the front office to be selling off veterans on expiring contracts Friday.

“We’ve been here the last couple years where we’ve kind of been selling off guys, and the first year, right? The vibes are not good [in that situation],” Eberle said. “You’re saying bye to friends, saying bye to teammates. It’s always not a fun situation. That’s why at the end of the day, you want to try and play meaningful games all the way to the end.”

Eberle, by the way, is one of four players—along with Eeli Tolvanen, Jamie Oleksiak, and Jaden Schwartz—on expiring contracts. I do not expect to see those players moved simply to collect draft picks like we’ve seen the past two seasons. If any of them are dealt, it would likely be because general manager Jason Botterill receives an offer he can’t refuse and believes the team can still make the playoffs without that player.

Tolvanen echoed Eberle’s sentiments, despite his own contract situation.

“What happens happens. You can’t really focus on that,” Tolvanen said. “I mean, it can be December when you get traded like Kaapo [Kakko] did, or it can be tomorrow, or you can stay. I don’t really care about that.”

While I’ve gotten no indication that Tolvanen is re-signing, my intuition tells me he’ll stick around beyond this season. As Tolvanen himself said, “We’ll see what happens.”

Meanwhile, coach Lane Lambert is likely ready to move past the deadline and eliminate any related distractions for his group.

“There’s always trepidation, I guess, with guys, and it’s not an easy time of the year,” Lambert said. “Most of them, not all of them, but most of them have been through it, a lot of them on multiple occasions. So the bottom line is, in anything—it doesn’t matter if it’s hockey or life—it’s you can control what you can control. And if there’s rumors or there’s outside noise, you’ve just got to not listen to it, because a lot of times that’s exactly what it is, just rumors and outside noise.”

When I asked Lambert if he’s hoping to see moves from the front office, he said there are things about the team that he really likes and would be hesitant to see disrupted. Still, there’s no doubt he’d welcome the addition of a player or two who can put the puck in the net.

“I’ve been on teams in the past where it did kind of mess it up a little bit, but I’ve also been on teams where it helped. So, you just have to make sure that you do your homework, do your research, know what you’re doing and know what you need.”

What happened against St. Louis on Thursday?​

With every point in the standings feeling critical right now, it was disappointing to see the Kraken follow up their impressive 2-1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday with a 3-2 loss to St. Louis on Wednesday—their second defeat against the underperforming Blues in just eight days.

Eberle gave his take on how that happened, crediting the Blues as a team that’s better than its record indicates.

“I thought we started the game really well, obviously opened the scoring, and then we died off in the first period a little bit. They obviously tied it up. I thought our second period was great. I thought we created some chances, we had opportunities. Third period, we gave up one, and then we were just chasing.”

Added Lambert: “The game for me, could have went either way. We made a couple of mistakes, they made a couple of good plays, and we had some opportunities but failed to capitalize on them. There was a lot of things about that game that I really liked.”

Los Angeles won Thursday night, so now the Kings and Sharks are both within three points of the Kraken, who remain in the final wild-card spot. Getting two points against the Blues would have pushed Seattle back ahead of Edmonton for third place in the Pacific Division.

Tolvanen recalls Olympics​

This was my first time chatting with Tolvanen since he and countryman Kaapo Kakko returned from the Olympics in Milan with bronze medals.

Like we heard from Grubauer last week, the event was clearly memorable for Tolvanen.

“I think the whole experience was unbelievable,” Tolvanen said. “The city of Milan was unreal, great weather, just the history behind the city, seeing all the athletes at the village walking around, hockey players, different athletes. It was unbelievable.”

He said the Finnish team stayed in the Olympic Village and spent plenty of time together biking around the city and hanging out in the team lounge.

Tolvanen spoke proudly about winning bronze but admitted he hasn’t yet found a permanent home for the medal. For now, it’s sitting in his closet, though he plans to eventually create a display featuring the medal and his jersey from the tournament.

Darren Brown​

Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email [email protected].

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The post Kraken Notebook – With NHL Trade Deadline heating up, Kraken players play waiting game appeared first on Sound Of Hockey.

Source: https://soundofhockey.com/2026/03/0...-heating-up-kraken-players-play-waiting-game/

 

[Seattle Kraken]

10 for 10: 10 data points from Seattle Kraken games 51–60

The Seattle Kraken’s signature win on Monday against the Carolina Hurricanes marked Game 60 of the season, which means it’s time for another 10 for 10. If you’re new here, this series pulls together 10 data points from the last 10 games to help show where the Kraken are trending, what’s working, and what still needs attention as the playoff race tightens.

Let’s jump in.

Data Point 1: How they fared​

The Kraken went 7-3-0 over their last 10 games, beginning on Jan. 25 against the New Jersey Devils. When you compare that stretch to the other Pacific Division contenders and the wild-card hopefuls, you can see how they’ve positioned themselves firmly in the playoff race.

Data Point 2: Change over the season in the Pacific Division​

One fascinating trend this year is the shifting landscape of the Pacific Division. The top five Pacific teams from last season have all seen significant dips in points percentage, while the bottom three have taken major steps forward and are now in playoff contention. No other division has seen a swing this dramatic.

Data Point 3: Holding on to leads​

This chart is a bit of an eye-sore, but I stumbled across it over the weekend and couldn’t look away. The Kraken have won 100 percent of the games in which they held a two-goal lead at any point. They’re one of just three teams with a perfect record (23-0-0) in that situation.

If you look one column to the left, their 69.0 percent win rate when holding a one-goal lead is right around league average.

Data Point 4: Goals against (minus empty-net goals)​

We knew in the offseason that new head coach Lane Lambert would bring a more defensive mindset and structure to the 2025–26 Kraken. That was on full display early in the season as Seattle squeaked out low-scoring wins by minimizing goals against. Things slipped a bit in Games 21–30 and 41–50, but the last 10 games have been outstanding in terms of limiting goals allowed.

Data Point 5: Goals for (minus empty-net goals)​

Goal scoring remains an area of opportunity for the Kraken. They’ve struggled for much of the season, and it’s been a recurring theme in national media skepticism about their playoff chances.

Their 2.9 goals for (minus empty-net goals) over the last 10 games is still in the bottom half of the league, but it’s encouraging to see improvement.

Data Point 6: Goals by player (excluding empty-net goals)​

Digging deeper into the scoring, Shane Wright and Matty Beniers led the way over the last 10 games with four goals each, excluding empty-netters. Jordan Eberle scored five goals in that span, but two came into an empty net.

Data Point 7: Home is where the wins are​

If you’ve been attending games this season, you’ve probably felt a little extra pep in your step walking out of Climate Pledge Arena.

It gets better: in calendar year 2026, the Kraken are 8-2-1 at home.

Data Point 8: Winning in the division​

The Kraken are also showing up against their Pacific Division opponents, posting the best points percentage within the division.

Data Point 9: Expected to lose​

It’s no secret that much of the national media is betting against the Kraken making the playoffs. With so many analysts based in the Eastern time zone, I’m guessing they’re not staying up late for Kraken games, and if they are, they might be more inclined to watch the flashier West Coast teams like the Sharks or Ducks. I’ve got no problem with that, but it does mean they lean heavily on publicly available advanced analytics.

One category they often rely on is “expected goals” models. For those unfamiliar, expected goals (xG) estimates the likelihood that a given shot becomes a goal based on factors like shot location, shot type, pre-shot movement, game state, and more. They’re useful directional indicators of how well a team played, regardless of the actual result.

In a single game, the sum of expected goals for minus expected goals against is often used to determine who “should have” won. Over the season, these accumulate into an expected goal differential.

The Kraken rank 29th in expected goal differential but 17th in actual goal differential (excluding empty-net goals). Knowing how these stats are used, it’s easier to understand the national pessimism.

Public models are great tools, I use them all the time, but they’re incomplete and can sometimes be misleading. I’m not declaring this a playoff team with certainty, but I’ve long believed the Kraken do something different that public models don’t fully capture.

Data Point 10: Signature win and shot suppression​

This 10-game segment closed with a signature win in Game 60, when the Kraken beat one of the NHL’s best teams, the Carolina Hurricanes. Some fans expressed concern about the shot count, but I felt comfortable with how Seattle was playing. After the first period, I thought they had a formula to win. Sure enough, they scored twice in the second (and had a third goal negated by an offside challenge) and held on for a 2–1 victory.

The reason I believed they had a shot was the way they limited Carolina’s quality opportunities. To illustrate, look at the Hurricanes’ shot attempts over their last four games.

It’s clear Seattle did the best job of limiting high-danger attempts in front of the net. Don’t get me wrong — it wasn’t easy, and Joey Daccord still had to play a terrific game, but it was a full-team effort to suppress Carolina’s chances.

Taken together, these 10 games showed a team sharpening its defensive identity, finding just enough offense, and banking points at the right time. There’s still plenty to prove, but the Kraken continue to hang around and make things interesting.

The post 10 for 10: 10 data points from Seattle Kraken games 51–60 appeared first on Sound Of Hockey.

Source: https://soundofhockey.com/2026/03/04/seattle-kraken-games-51-60-10-for-10/