Just when you think they’re 100 percent dead—season’s over, nothing left to see here—the Seattle Kraken rally back from a three-goal deficit in the third period… and still lose in a shootout to the Florida Panthers.

The single point in the standings means Seattle is now five points out of the last playoff spot with just 12 games remaining, two teams to jump, and they’re chasing the Nashville Predators, who are on a five-game win streak and a 7-2-1 heater over their last 10.

Seattle once again did not play with the urgency of a desperate team fighting for its playoff life until it fell behind 4-1 and recognized its season hung in the balance against a very beatable team.

Coach Lane Lambert threw his lines in a blender for this one, moving Berkly Catton to the top line with Jordan Eberle and Matty Beniers and dressing 11 forwards and seven defensemen, with Jani Nyman as a healthy scratch.

“I just felt like from a defenseman standpoint, I felt like Fleury needed to come in, and this gave us an opportunity to move our forwards around a little bit and double up on Catton and a couple other guys,” Lambert said. “So I thought worked out pretty well.”

I guess that tells you what Lambert thinks of Nyman’s performance in Columbus on Saturday.

Anyway, in a weird night for Joey Daccord, in which pucks were finding ways to skip through him, off him, and around him, he came up big in overtime. But his mates couldn’t find the game-winner and ultimately came up empty in the shootout.

Here are Three Takeaways from a wild 5-4 Kraken shootout loss to the Florida Panthers.

Takeaway 1: A furious comeback

This was a miserable game to watch for 54:17 of game time. But an outstanding individual effort by Matty Beniers and two quick strikes from Jordan Eberle and Bobby McMann rallied the Kraken back from the dead and erased a 4-1 deficit in a span of just 2:23.

The comeback started with Beniers catching a high-to-low pass from Brandon Montour and driving hard to the net, then taking advantage of an overly aggressive Sergei Bobrovsky and pulling it around the netminder and into an open net as he was falling to the ice.

Matty Magic! 🚨

Impressive individual effort from Beniers, but still down by two, likely too little, too late. #SeaKraken

4-2. pic.twitter.com/Jo4k3elPaj

— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 25, 2026

“Bobrovsky plays pretty aggressive,” Beniers said. “Earlier, I think in the first, [Berkly Catton], made a nice play to me coming down, and [Bobrovsky] was way out. So, I kind of knew if I could get to the weak side of the ice, I might be able to just tuck it in there.”

That goal, which came less than two minutes after a Shane Wright own goal that made it 4-1, seemed to give the team belief that it could get back in. Sure enough, Eberle stole a puck at the blue line and scored on a breakaway, then McMann did the exact same thing to tie the game just 12 seconds later.

MCMANN CAN! 🚨 TIE GAME! #SeaKraken have erased a three-goal deficit in 2 minutes and 23 seconds.

4-4

WHAT IS GOING ON?! #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/Ckrrv1ykeL

— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 25, 2026

“I think the guys were doing a good job tracking that one,” McMann said of what led to his goal. “And then I just had to stay on the puck and was able to pull it free, tried to separate with some speed, and was able to move laterally on him and get it in there.”

Now THAT is the urgency this team needs to show from the hop. They just never seem to find it until they’re way behind the eight ball.

“We’ve got to make sure we’re playing with that urgency all the time,” McMann said. “So it’s really good that we found it. But we’ve got to play with that from the drop of the puck, consistent throughout entire games to put those efforts forward.”

Takeaway 2: Kraken pick up Shane Wright

This was a tough night for Shane Wright. Immediately after two separate goals, he could be seen looking skyward and questioning his choices. The first came when he tried to sling a quick pass to Brandon Montour to start a breakout, but he missed his teammate’s stick by a solid two feet and instead put it on Carter Verhaeghe’s tape in the slot. Verhaeghe lost control of it, but scored with a bank shot off Joey Daccord from the corner. That goal made it 3-0 at 7:37 of the third period.

That feels like a season-ending turnover and fluky goal. 3-0 Panthers. pic.twitter.com/TrJvTJlSXp

— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 25, 2026

After Ryker Evans got a good bounce of his own—off the end wall, off Bobrovsky, and in—to finally get the Kraken on the board 33 seconds later at 8:10, another Wright miscue ended up in the Kraken net. This one was just a bad bounce that went off his stick and into an open goal, but Wright was once again left looking dejected as the score ticked up to 4-1.

Shane Wright did everything right on this play, except… where he redirected the puck.

His reaction says it all. #SeaKraken

4-1 Panthers. pic.twitter.com/HWayHrIA2H

— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 25, 2026

“We turned the puck over on their fourth goal at their blue line. We can’t do that,” Lambert said, indicating that Brandon Montour shouldered more of the blame for that goal than Wright. “We pass it right to them in the slot on their third goal. We can’t do that. So, if we can eliminate those mistakes, there’s more positive days ahead than not. But again, this is what’s happening, and we’ve got to cut out those catastrophic errors.”

The Kraken didn’t quit after that, though. Instead, they picked up their young teammate and fought back into the game.

“Things like that happen,” Beniers said. “I can think of five or six off the top of my head that I remember pretty clearly on my mistakes. So everyone makes mistakes; it’s a game of mistakes. He did a good job of brushing it off and going back out to the next shift and playing his game. And that’s a really hard thing to do, especially when it goes off your stick and finds the back to the net. It sucks. He knows we’ve got him.”

Takeaway 3: A night of milestones

It was a big milestone night, with Aaron Ekblad playing his 800th NHL game, all with the Panthers; Paul Maurice becoming just the second coach in history behind Scotty Bowman to coach his 2,000th NHL game; and Adam Larsson skating in his 1,000th NHL game.

That brought lots of good vibes to an optional morning skate on Tuesday, where Kraken players, coaches, and staff donned special Adam Larsson t-shirts commemorating the accomplishment, and he waxed poetic about his time in the league and in Seattle.

“It’s kind of hard to reflect on the whole journey to get here, but it’s been awesome,” Larsson said. “My last five years in Seattle has probably been the most fun I’ve had going to the rink on a daily basis. Obviously, we’ve had some tough seasons, but it’s still been very fun to come to the rink and kind of be around the guys and all that kind of stuff. So to look back all the way to my first year is pretty crazy.”

Considering there’s been some conversation around our Sound Of Hockey community recently about top players not wanting to come to Seattle, Larsson saying these have been some of his best times in hockey is somewhat reassuring.

Larsson has had a lot of support along his way to 1,000 and has endured some difficult times—especially during his Edmonton years, when he lost his father unexpectedly. Robert Larsson, a former pro hockey player himself, died in 2018 at age 50, when Adam was just 25 years old.

But Seattle has given Larsson the change of scenery he needed.

“I was looking for a fresh start. I got that, and I’ve had some just amazing teammates, coaches, support staff, and all that kind of stuff.”

Seeking the opposition’s perspective, I asked the always thoughtful and eloquent Paul Maurice about Larsson’s game and how he’d describe him “as a competitor.”

“That’s the word that you would fire out when you describe him,” Maurice said. “The change of defensemen over the last 30 years is that style of defense would have been a really big, bruising, fighting defenseman 30 years ago. They play just as tough now, but it’s a different style of game. So, he’s hard on pucks, he’s hard in corners, he’s hard net front, he can move the puck, he can get up ice, but his calling is that 1-on-1 battle area. So to be good at that, you have to do it every night. That’s where the strength of his career has been for me is that he’s been very consistent in his compete level.”

Maurice, by the way, got a nice ovation from the relatively light home crowd at Amerant Bank Arena and gave a heartfelt wave when he was recognized for his truly exceptional milestone Tuesday night.

Larsson said the best advice he ever received was, “Believe in yourself. I’ve never doubted myself by any means, but I’ve gone through some tough stretches, tough years, and stuck with it. I’ve had some tremendous leaders, coaches and kind of brings you back again, and that’s been a huge part.”

The Kraken did believe in themselves this night, at least in the third period. But it wasn’t quite enough to make Larsson’s 1,000th game unforgettable.