When a team goes from being firmly in a playoff position to effectively playing itself out of the conversation, one might expect the mood at a late-season practice—with eight games left, a four-point deficit, and four teams to leapfrog to return to the postseason picture—to be fairly drab. That’s not what we saw Friday, though. From the way Seattle Kraken players were acting on the ice, you’d think they were on a 10-game winning streak with their ticket punched. Players were hooting and hollering, ribbing each other, excessively celebrating goals, and even [gasp] smiling.
Now, this isn’t exactly a new thing. You always hear some chatter on the ice when the team skates together, regardless of the situation, but considering the circumstances the Kraken have put themselves in now, it was nonetheless a surprisingly chipper mood at Kraken Community Iceplex.
In a way, the positive energy of the skate was by design.
“It was important for us to get on the ice as a group,” coach Lane Lambert said. “Reality is what it is, but what is your perception of reality? We’re four points out of the playoffs. Clearly, if we had won seven of our last eight games, and we’re in the exact same position as we are right now, there would be a different mood. But we’d be in the exact same position we are now. So it’s our mental mindset and our perception, and [let’s] move forward. Past is past, and we have an opportunity moving forward here. That’s all we can think about, and that’s all the players were thinking about today… I thought it was a good day for them.”
Forward Jaden Schwartz echoed Lambert’s sentiment. “You don’t want to be so tight where you lose a game, you come in the next day and you’re down. You’ve got to get back up. We’ve got a lot of games in a short amount of days here, so you’ve got to turn the page quickly… be excited, and enjoy the days and the opportunity that we have.”
Players-only meeting
So with how things have spiraled since the Olympic break—the Kraken are 5-11-2 and have fallen from third in the Pacific Division to having the sixth-best odds in the NHL Draft Lottery—just where could this positivity be coming from?
Well, the Kraken players held a brief closed-door, players-only meeting in the dressing room immediately following their miserable 6-2 loss to the Utah Mammoth on Thursday. That conversation may have sparked some improved perspectives and outlooks when the team returned to practice Friday.
“We’ve got eight games left, and we know where we’re at, so let’s put it all out there,” defenseman Vince Dunn said. “And that’s kind of been the mentality that we’ve had since the break, is to put it all out there. But we’ve really put ourselves in an interesting spot right now with somehow still a chance to make the playoffs.”
**Editor’s note: Dunn put emphasis on “still,” as if to indicate that even he is as shocked as the rest of us that this team has not been mathematically eliminated from contention at this point, considering its extended poor performance. Ok, back to Dunn.
“So keep that at the front of your mind, rather than the back of your mind. Let’s not be like, ‘Oh, we might make the playoffs.’ It’s kind of, ‘Play like we are in the playoffs,’ right? Like, it’s all more of a mentality right now.”
Continuing to dissect what has gone wrong, Dunn confirmed that the players feel what many of us see when watching the Kraken play.
“We just get a little deflated when goals are happening. And this wasn’t discussed in the locker room [Thursday], but I look back on games like the Columbus game, it’s a puck off a foot, and then it’s like bouncing everywhere, and then it goes in the net, and that’s the first goal against. Look at the Edmonton game, it’s a puck… off someone’s head. And then last game, it’s a forward trying his best to block a shot, and it’s off his hip. Those are the first goals you give up in a game, and all the guys are trying to do the right thing. So if you’re that guy, maybe you need to be the teammate beside him and be like, ‘Hey man, you did your best. Let’s go out and maybe try to score one, or let’s go out the next shift and really put some pressure on and not get deflated.’”
Indeed, watching the Kraken play against Utah, you could feel the tying goal coming in the second period. Jacob Melanson appeared to make it 3-1, but it was negated after a successful goalie interference challenge, and from then on, it felt like only a matter of time before Utah flipped the script from what was almost 3-1 Seattle to 2-2—and after that, a matter of time before Utah took the lead and grabbed hold of the game.
We’ve seen this from this club on many occasions over its five years of existence, including earlier this season when the Kraken went 1-9-1 in 11 games between Nov. 23 and Dec. 18 before getting hot and winning eight of their next nine. They seemed to settle the fragility in the stretch before the break, too, rolling with the punches and minimizing the damage of letdowns in games. But now, it’s like if any little thing doesn’t go their way, they collapse.
These conversations being had by the players are great, although they will almost surely end up being too little, too late. Still, it was refreshing to hear that the players are aware of their situation and their shortcomings as a team, that they care, and that they are not giving up.
Jaden Schwartz feeling good after “scary incident”
We chatted with Schwartz for the first time since he was inadvertently kicked in the face by Nick Cousins in a 7-4 loss to the Ottawa Senators on March 7. Considering how badly that could have gone if that skate swung in just a slightly different direction, fans should be very thankful that Schwartz is back after just three weeks and appears no worse for wear.
Wow. Scary one there.
Eeli Tolvanen laid a huge hit on Nick Cousins, and Cousins’ skate came up and clipped Jaden Schwartz in the face.
Schwartz was down for a while, bleeding on the ice, but he went down the tunnel on his own power. #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/QyeBYgi5eN
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) March 8, 2026
“I’m feeling better, for sure,” Schwartz said. “It was a tough couple of weeks, but then I kind of turned the corner and was able to start training a little bit, and [I’ve had] a couple games now to get the legs under me. But the head’s feeling pretty good, so still feeling more and more comfortable as we go here.”
Schwartz said he didn’t remember too much about what happened on the play and that he had to watch it the next day to see exactly what had occurred.
“It could have been a lot worse,” Schwartz said. “It was obviously unlucky, but lucky at the same time that something more serious didn’t happen.”
Bobby McMann settling in
Forward Bobby McMann has been a revelation since he was acquired in a last-second, deadline-beating trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs on March 6. Since joining Seattle, he’s racked up eight goals and four assists in 10 games and scored again against the Mammoth to give Seattle a 2-0 lead.
It’s no secret McMann is on an expiring contract, and with the way he’s performed down the stretch, you’d have to think the Kraken will want to keep him around. So, we figured it wouldn’t hurt to at least find out how McMann is settling in and if he’s so far enjoying his time in the Pacific Northwest, despite all the losing the team has been doing.
“So far, it’s been great,” McMann said. “The guys have been great, the organization’s been great, management’s been helpful and making sure I get everything I need. And not that there’s anything that I’ve really asked for, but they’ve just been making sure that everything is all good with me, with the transition, which is always super helpful, just to know that you have those resources. And then guys have been super helpful trying to help me figure out where to go in the city and figure out where to go eat, stuff like that. That’s all been nice.”
McMann recognized immediately that the Seattle market is quite different from hockey-mad Toronto, where the Maple Leafs are the center of attention all day, every day. And he does seem to appreciate the opportunity to help build a hockey culture in this still relatively new market.
“I think that that’s special, and that’s fun, and that’s been really enjoyable to kind of see and feel the energy of the crowd and feel the energy of this city becoming a new hockey city. It’s been a lot of fun, and I’m excited to continue to be a part of that.”
That last part, though… “Continue to be part of that,” you say?
Other odds and ends
Lambert implied some big changes could be coming to the power play in the near future. After the loss Thursday, he mentioned that they can’t keep running the same guys out there—even though they’re mostly veterans that the coaching staff trusts—if they continue to come up empty. He cited the fact that even zone entries, an area that the power play has excelled in throughout much of the season, have dried up.
“[We’ll] change personnel completely and see where that takes us.”
Speaking of changing personnel, Lambert also implied that Eeli Tolvanen, who has been playing on the fourth line most recently with Oscar Fisker Mølgaard and Jacob Melanson, could find himself on a new line Saturday when the Chicago Blackhawks visit Climate Pledge Arena. We would not be surprised to see even more of a shakeup as Seattle looks to find the offense that has been so elusive.
Shane Wright continued to skate in a red jersey Friday, so don’t expect him back in the lineup on Saturday.
