…And just like that, the Seattle Kraken have vaulted into third place in the Pacific Division. It’s wild to think that coming into Thursday’s game, the Kraken (24-19-9) and the Toronto Maple Leafs (24-20-9) had nearly identical records and the same number of standings points. Yet Seattle entered the night right on the cusp of re-entering the playoff picture—which they did, thanks to their win and some coinciding losses around the division—while the Maple Leafs have all but packed it in and appear ready to go into seller mode.

That’s how big the gap is right now between the Eastern and Western Conferences. Now sitting at 59 points, Seattle jumped over Los Angeles, San Jose, and Anaheim to move into the all-important third spot in the Pacific Division. Meanwhile, the Maple Leafs—at 57 points—slid to last place in the Atlantic, a whopping 10 points out of the final Wild Card position.

The jump up the standings came thanks to a solid 5-2 Kraken win over Toronto, a game in which Shane Wright scored twice, Brandon Montour and Jared McCann each had a goal and an assist, and Matty Beniers set a franchise record with his 10th goal in a single month. It also helps that Seattle has now won four of its last five games.

“We’re dialed into playing the right way,” coach Lane Lambert said. “It’s not always perfect, but when you try and play the right way, I’ve said it all year long, often times you end up on the right side of it, and you give yourself a good chance to win. And that’s what we’ve been doing lately, so credit to our guys.”

Here are Three Takeaways.

Takeaway 1: Shane Wright night

We saw last season that when Shane Wright starts putting the puck in the net, his game looks different. His confidence seems to balloon with production, perhaps because he starts believing in his shot and no longer hesitates to show off his quick release.

Wright’s two-goal night against Toronto snapped a 12-game goalless drought and gave him his eighth and ninth tallies of the season.

The first came off a simple play by Jaden Schwartz, who sent the puck toward the net from distance and created a juicy rebound off Anthony Stolarz’s pad. Wright jumped on it and chipped it home at 6:23 of the second period to restore a 2-1 lead after Nicholas Robertson had tied the game late in the first.

WRIGHT AS RAIN! ☔️ 🚨

Schwartz returns to the game and creates a rebound for Shane Wright, who goes BarrDown Studios™️.

2-1 #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/d9BIyVBjZF

— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) January 30, 2026

His second goal was even more critical—and it was a beauty. Wright was whistled for a questionable holding penalty at 4:57 of the third, and Morgan Rielly scored on the ensuing power play to cut Seattle’s lead from 3-1 to 3-2. (Thankfully, Montour had added an insurance goal earlier in the period off a fantastic rush by Freddy Gaudreau.)

If Wright felt any guilt over the soft call, he wasted no time making up for it. The Kraken were pressuring on the forecheck when Montour read Matias Maccelli’s breakout pass, disrupting the outlet and nudging the puck into open ice for Wright. Wright skated into it, rotated his body into shooting position at the top of the right circle, and snapped a perfect shot into the top-right corner.

WRIGHT AS RAIN x ✌️! ☔️ 🚨 🚨

It’s going to take a LOT to get Shane Wright out of Seattle. His second of the night is a snipe. 🎯

4-2 #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/drsgbWMr11

— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) January 30, 2026

“He can shoot, and it was very evident [tonight],” Lambert said. “I liked his first goal when he went to the net. And that was a huge goal for us when he came off the wall there [in the third]. He’s had opportunities, he’s hit posts, he’s hit cross bars. He finally got rewarded tonight for that one.”

Added Wright: “The coaches always tell me to shoot a little more. I think I can always put a few more pucks on net. And, yeah, nice to [get a couple tonight].”

Now we’ll see if the two-goal night sparks something bigger. It took Wright a long time to really get rolling last season, but once he did, he became one of Seattle’s best players down the stretch.

Takeaway 2: First line still clicking

The top line delivered again Thursday, with Matty Beniers opening the scoring on Seattle’s first shot of the game and Jared McCann sealing it with an empty-netter late in the third.

On the opening goal, McCann found Beniers slicing through a leaky Toronto defense just a minute into the contest. Beniers glided down the slot unmolested and snapped a shot that hit Stolarz’s left pad before popping into the net.

MATTY MAGIC! 🚨

Beniers gives the #SeaKraken an early 1-0 lead and sets a new franchise record for goals in a month.

The top line keeps clicking. pic.twitter.com/yd115atKii

— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) January 30, 2026

The goal gave Beniers his 10th of January, setting a new franchise record for most goals in a single month. The previous mark of nine, held by Jordan Eberle, dates back to November of the inaugural season. It’s worth noting that the Kraken have played 16 games this month, while Eberle’s nine-goal stretch came in just 13.

BUT…

Beniers is absolutely rolling right now. Lambert has been praising the work Beniers has put in to improve his offensive game, and he echoed those sentiments again Thursday.

“I just continue to talk about the fact of his evolvement since the beginning of the year, offensively,” Lambert said. “Again, Chris Taylor and Justin Rai have done a great job of working with him on offensive concepts, putting himself in position to— whether it be spacing or whatever. The goal he scored tonight, he found that late spacing, so to speak.

“He did a real good job of driving to the net, and McCann made a great play. So I think he’s being rewarded for his efforts, but also, there’s a lot of good philosophies that have come out of our coaching department, from that standpoint, and not from me.”

Meanwhile, McCann is right on Beniers’ heels with nine goals in the month. He followed his four-point night Tuesday with another two-point effort against Toronto and now has nine points in his last five games.

This top trio looks dangerous right now.

Takeaway 3: Schwartz recovers, but Catton leaves

There were two separate injuries to Kraken forwards in the first period. First, Jaden Schwartz went knee-on-knee with Nicolas Roy, appearing to hurt the same knee that kept him out for more than a month.

I fully expected the Kraken to announce Schwartz was done for the night—and perhaps longer—but instead, he returned to the Seattle bench a few minutes later and immediately resumed playing. He did limp back to the dressing room again late in the period, but he was back for the second and helped create Wright’s first goal.

Oh, boy. Jaden Schwartz goes knee-on-knee with Nic Roy and needs help down the tunnel.

That looked bad. #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/zXvn3dr4Qm

— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) January 30, 2026

“I can’t say enough about [Schwartz’s performance], actually,” Lambert said. “There was a point in time when we were down to 10 forwards. I think that Jaden showed us what veteran leadership and a guy who’s been around the game a long time can do. He knew what position and what situation we were in, and he came back.”

The reason Seattle was briefly down to 10 forwards was that while Schwartz was trying to shake off the injury, Berkly Catton was leveled at the Toronto blue line by Oliver Ekman-Larsson at 12:04 of the first. The 20-year-old forward stayed down for a moment before eventually gathering his belongings and exiting the game.

To be clear, I don’t think Ekman-Larsson intended to deliver a head shot. Catton leaned in and made contact face-first with Ekman-Larsson’s shoulder. That said, I still believe there needs to be an immediate response from the Kraken. Accidental or not, teams shouldn’t be able to lay a finger on No. 27.

There wasn’t much of a response beyond Jacob Melanson hitting Ekman-Larsson in the second period and exchanging a few words with him.

The players didn’t seem particularly heated about the hit after the game.

“I wanted to obviously make sure ‘Cats’ was good,” Montour said. “It wasn’t necessarily one that I’m probably going to jump in necessarily. I’ve got a few issues going on myself right now, so I can’t really do much there, but ‘Cats’ was all right. [Somebody] said it was somewhat clean, just a hard hit. You don’t like to see that. Obviously, I spoke to [Ekman-Larsson] a little bit, he thought it was clean.”

Montour added that he also checked in on Ekman-Larsson’s young family. So, keeping things nice and friendly, I guess.

When I asked Lambert if he would have liked to see a stronger physical response, he said: “It was pretty incidental. There was a couple of guys reaching for the puck, and Ekman-Larsson’s a little bit bigger than Berkly. I thought he got sort of stretched and exposed. But it was a—in my mind—it was a little bit of a hockey play. So, I liked our game overall.”

Now, is it a coincidence that after the Kraken didn’t retaliate, Brandon Carlo went head-hunting on Eeli Tolvanen in the third period?

—

Seattle has now closed out its long pre-Olympic homestand and will head on the road for three absolutely massive divisional games against Vegas, Anaheim, and Los Angeles. We won’t see the Kraken back at Climate Pledge Arena until Feb. 28.