Kraken looking good

 

To those who don’t follow hockey closely, the Seattle Kraken are off to a better start than some might suspect.

After winning their first two home games of the 2025-26 season, the Kraken lost their next two games – one in overtime and another in a shootout. But under the NHL’s curious way of figuring things out, Seattle received a standings’ point in each game for being deadlocked after three periods.

This week started on a sour note as the Kraken lost their first two regulation games to the Philadelphia Flyers and the Washington Capitals. But the Kraken rebounded last night with a solid road win over a good Winnipeg Jets team, 3-0.. Goaltender Joey Daccord, who was relieved after two periods against the Flyers on Monday night, rebounded with his first shutout of the season, 3-0.

The Kraken improve to 4-2-2 on the season, finishing a six-game road trip against some good teams with a 2-2-2 record. This marks the best start in team history (the Kraken had never won their season opener in the teams’ first four seasons) and now return to Climate Pledge Arena to begin a six-game homestand. Seattle’s first road trip of the season encompassed 6,000 miles over two countries.

Winnipeg, a team that brings honor to the Jets’ nickname unlike a certain New York football team, had won five consecutive games, after losing their season opener and boast arguably the best goalkeeper in the league- Connor Hellybucyk.

Playing their third game in four nights, fourth in six days, the Kraken reverted to the type of game that new coach Lane Lambert has stressed, structure, attention to details, and winning the one-on-one battles.

“Obviously, it’s nice to win, but for me it was about the level of battle, the level of compete,’’ said Lambert. “I talked about the fact that we got away from that a little bit in Washington. And give our guys credit. They did a great job. They got the message and they stuck together and they won as a team.”

Along with facing tough competition, the Kraken have been plagued with injuries. Heading into last night’s contest, Seattle was missing forwards Kappo Kakko and Freddy Gaudreau and defenseman Ryker Evans with long-term injuries. Defenseman Brandon Montour missed his third straight game due to a personal matter. Mason Marchment returned from an injury, but Jared McCann, who was injured throughout the pre-season, missed last night’s contest.

Jaden Schwartz scored two goals for the Kraken and captain Jordan Eberle added another. Schwartz and Eberle both recorded empty-netters, 23 seconds apart, to secure the victory.

The Jets, went on the offensive trying to tie the game in the early stages of the third period. At one point, Winnipeg outshot their guests, 10-2. Daccord finished the night with 32 saves for his sixth career shutout a Kraken team record.

Daccord made his best play on what wasn’t credited as a shot on goal. After a Winnipeg shot rattled off the crossbar, the Kraken goalie batted the puck out of harm’s way, with Jets’ forwards storming the net.

After the game, Daccord credited his defense, particularly in the third period, when the Kraken had several blocked shots and got their sticks in the way of some Winnipeg shots.

``We executed,’’ said Daccord, who also recorded his first assist of the year on Eberle’s goal. ``There are going to be breakdowns and mistakes. But it was a top level effort. We executed great in the last, five ten minutes. I could see the puck, and we were clearing it out of the zone.’’

Schwartz opened the scoring when he fired home a rebound of Shane Wright’s shot at 2:26 of the second period. With three minutes remaining, the Jets pulled Hellebuyck and shortly after, Schwartz intercepted a pass by Jets’ All-Star defenseman Josh Morrissey, and rushed down the ice for an empty net goal.

``I thought we just did a lot of little things right,’’ Schwartz said. “We checked hard – they’ve got a lot of skill over there. So, we were tight. We were moving our feet. Our D-men were good with gaps and were defending hard in our own end and letting Joey see the puck. And we had good shifts in the offensive zone.”

The Kraken’s homestand begins tomorrow night against the Stanley Cup finalist Edmonton Oilers, 4-3-1, on the season.