Kraken begin the year in the win column.

The Seattle Kraken began 2026 the way they ended 2025- with a home victory. This time the Nashville Predators were the victim. Actually, the Kraken lost their final 2025 game to Vancouver in overtime, but chalked up five wins prior to that game.

Jamie Oleksiak and Matty Beniers scored goals ten seconds apart (the second fastest two goals in Kraken history) in the first period after Beniers’ earlier goal had given Seattle a 1-0 lead. Jared McCann added an empty-netter in the final three minutes to lead Seattle to a 4-1 win over the Predators last night at Climate Pledge Arena.

Seattle improves its record to 17-14-7 (Kraken fans would have taken that record at the start of the season as the team heads into a new year) and are remarkably back in a playoff spot after a 1-9-1 skein in late November and early December. Since then, the Kraken have rattled off a 5-0-1 mark. The Predators are 18-18-1, three points behind Seattle in the Conference logjam.

Philipp Grubauer, who’ll represent Germany in the upcoming Winter Olympics, stopped 24 of 25 shots in the Kraken net. Grubauer has allowed only one goal in each of his last two games earning a victory in both contests.

``We started the game well,’’ said Kraken coach Lane Lambert. ``They had some good chances and Grubauer made some big saves. I thought our penalty kill right off the bat was huge for our hockey team.’’

Beniers scored only 3:48 into the contest when he tipped home a drive by defenseman Ryker Evans. Jamie Oleksiak shot from the point didn’t touch anyone, it went straight into the net. Beniers and the Kraken to make it 3-0, 10 seconds later. Beniers scored on a scramble in front.

In 2024, Jordan Eberle and Shane Wright scored only eight seconds apart, the Kraken record. Berkley Catton almost scored on another scramble in front less than a minute later but couldn’t get a shot off with a briefly open net.

Speaking of fast starts, the Kraken inserted their so-called `fourth line,’ of Ryan Winterton-Ben Meyers-Jacob Melanson into the starting lineup. Seattle’s 5-0-1 mark has coincided with the recall of Melanson from Coachella Valley of the American Hockey League.

``They play a hard game,’’ said Oleksiak, ``and make it difficult for the other team.’’

Oleksiak and Ryan Lindgren both `took one for the team’ in the third period. Oleksiak caught a slap shot on the ankle and had to be helped to the dressing room. A few minutes later, Lindgren blocked a shot and caught it in the face. Both missed a couple of shifts, but remarkably returned to the game.

Along with Grubauer, Kaapo Kakko and Eeli Tolvanen have also been selected for the Olympics with Team Finland.

The Kraken travel to Vancouver tonight and have a game at Calgary on Monday. They return to Seattle on Tuesday to face the Boston Bruins.

Earlier this week, a sports talk show host (don’t even know his name) criticized the Seattle Kraken and the National Hockey for scheduling games on Jan. 1 against college football bowl games. The idea that a Georgia-Mississippi State football game would cut into Kraken attendance figures is dubious at best.

If the University of Washington was competing in the Rose Bowl, it would probably affect Kraken TV ratings, but the NHL schedule is obviously made months before Bowl game matchups are decided.

Generally, teams and leagues don’t schedule games by what other teams and leagues are doing. The one exception of course is the Super Bowl, America’s national holiday and biggest excuse for a late January house party.

When the NFL started showing a Sunday night game, they usually pre-empted one week to avoid a conflict with the World Series. That seemed to change around the time Jerry Jones became involved with the TV contracts. Jones seems to be a proponent that nothing’s bigger than the NFL, up to and including the end of the world.

Young people might be surprised to discover that the NBC didn’t show some AFL games if they conflicted with the World Seres back in the good old days when World Series games were played on Sunday afternoons (they were played on weekday afternoons as well), but local stations had the option of picking up games NBC dropped.

A trivia question: the last NFL regular season game that wasn’t televised anywhere was a 1975 Week Four game between the New England Patriots and Cincinnati Bengals. Local stations in Boston and Cincinnati figured there wasn’t much interest in the game because the Boston Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds were playing game 2 of the World Series.

First Period

S- Matty Beniers 5 (Ryker Evans 12) 3:48.

S- Jamie Oleksiak 3 (Ryan Winterton 4, Jacob Melanson 2) 10:41.

S- Beniers 6 (Eberle 12, Kakko 7) 10:51.

Second Period

N- Roman Josi (Ryan O’Reilly, Luke Evangelista) 17:54’

Third Period

S- Jared McCann 7 (Ryan Lindgren 5) EN, 17:47.

Saves- S: Philipp Grubauer 23. N: Juuse Soras 19.

Three Stars- 1. Matty Beniers 2. Philipp Grubauer 3. Jamie Oleksiak