Seattle Kraken’s Lambert Hiring Questionable At Critical Time For Franchise

After about a month of searching, Lane Lambert has been hired as the new head coach of the Seattle Kraken. The appointment comes on the heels of Dan Bylsma being fired less than a year into his Kraken tenure, and makes the 60-year-old Lambert the franchise’s third head coach in only five seasons since expansion.

The Kraken job was one of several vacant head coaching positions, with Lambert now holding the reins to a franchise on the rise. The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler listed Seattle’s prospect pool as the 10th-best in the league in his midseason rankings, and the farm system should get a boost from whichever talented prospect is picked at number eight.

The 2025 offseason represents a critical juncture in the Kraken’s journey to the Stanley Cup. Get this hiring right, and Seattle could find itself a contender in the back half of the decade. Get it wrong and have another year wasted by aimless decisions and uninspired hires. Like Bylsma before him, Lambert has a lot to prove to the Kraken faithful.

Lambert Found Some Success in Toronto

Lambert – a veteran of 283 NHL games from 1983 to 1989 – most recently held the post of associate coach with the Toronto Maple Leafs, where he was primarily responsible for overseeing the penalty kill and defense corps.

While the penalty kill came in at a mediocre 17th in his only regular season in Toronto (77.9%), the group elevated their play in the postseason, where the now-eliminated Maple Leafs still sit fourth among all playoff clubs (81.6%). He also helped orchestrate one of the most drastic defensive turnarounds in the NHL as the Maple Leafs went from 21st in goals against per game in 2023-24 (3.18) to eighth (2.79) in 2024-25.

The Kraken also poached Dave Hakstol, their first coach in franchise history, from the Maple Leafs in 2021, where he held a very similar post to Lambert. While Hakstol presided over the organization’s one and only playoff run, ownership will be hoping for more this time around from a former member of Toronto’s coaching staff.

Lambert Draws from Lengthy Trotz Partnership

Lambert’s experience as a head coach at the NHL level is sparse. After stints as both an assistant and a head coach in the WHL and the AHL between 2002 and 2011, Lambert hitched up with Barry Trotz and was part of his staff with the Nashville Predators (2011-14), Washington Capitals (2014-18), and the New York Islanders (2018-22).

After Trotz was fired following the 2021-22 season, the Islanders tapped Lambert for a promotion, and he assumed the position of head coach for the first time in his NHL career. Despite owning a winning record (61-46-20 over 127 games) and guiding the Islanders back to the playoffs in 2023, he too was fired after an uninspiring 19-15-11 start to the 2023-24 season.

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly how much blame to assign to Lambert for New York’s middling record over his brief tenure, given the Islanders’ shoddy roster construction and the constricting philosophies of now-departed general manager Lou Lamoriello. Even while keeping that under consideration, it feels like there was a more impactful hire to be made elsewhere. Here are the team’s rankings in several categories at five-on-five with Lambert at the helm:

A quick glance at the numbers gives us some idea of how the Islanders played under Lambert. They were middle of the pack in terms of generating offensive opportunities, but lacked the finishing talent to capitalize, which explains their underperformance in actual goals. Brock Nelson was the only Islander who cracked 30 goals in a single season between 2022-23 and 2023-24, ranking 25th in the league in goals over that time. 

The next highest Islander? Kyle Palmieri is at 88th with 46 goals in two seasons. It’s difficult to hold that against Lambert, and he can only use the players at his disposal, but the situation resembles the Kraken’s current predicament. Forward Jared McCann leads the team in goals since 2023-24 (51), but only ranks 67th league-wide. The next best Kraken skater is Jaden Schwartz at 127th with 39. Unless the Kraken make a splash in free agency or someone like Shane Wright (24 goals in 95 career games) has a breakout season, the same patterns and complaints could emerge in Lambert’s second tour as a head coach.

The defensive results also don’t inspire a ton of confidence. The team ranked fifth in goals against per-60-minutes at five-on-five over Lambert’s tenure, but that mark is more so due to goaltender Ilya Sorokin posting the eighth-best save percentage (.918) in the face of bottom-half rates of scoring chance volume and quality conceded.

Lambert will have an above-average Joey Daccord in the crease (15th in save percentage among qualified goalies since 2022-23) as a safety net, but the Kraken are coming off of a turbulent season, which saw the team sit in the bottom 10 league-wide in terms of shots, chances, and high-danger opportunities allowed at five-on-five. That porous defensive display follows years of being a quietly sturdy group defensively at five-on-five, so Lambert has his work cut out for him at both ends of the ice.

Lambert Must Lean on Coaching Strengths to Overcome Inexperience

While his experience as the lead bench boss is limited, Lambert’s teams have done a lot of winning with him as an assistant. The Capitals won the most games in the league between 2014-15 and 2017-18, earned two straight Presidents’ trophies for the NHL’s best regular-season record in 2016 and 2017, and won the Stanley Cup with the Capitals in 2018. He was behind the bench for two trips to the Eastern Conference Final with the Islanders during Trotz’s tenure.

Lambert can also point to a sterling winning percentage of .617 across four seasons with the AHL’s Milwaukee Admirals. That success may not carry as much weight without the head coaching tag, but being steeped in an environment of winning and accountability should count for something.

General manager Jason Botterill touted Lambert’s communication style and ability to build strong relationships in the locker room in the team’s official statement. He also brings some familiarity with Chandler Stephenson, Andre Burakovsky, Philipp Grubauer, and Jordan Eberle, as the four current Kraken players he’s previously coached in his career.

Lambert’s Fit in Seattle is Questionable

At first glance, the hiring is underwhelming. Lambert does not boast the top-level experience of a typical candidate his age, nor does he have the success in a head coaching role, which could ease concerns surrounding his inexperience. Given the evidence, he may be better suited to an assistant or associate role where he can focus on a specific facet of the game, such as the defense corps or special teams.

Given that the Kraken are set to usher in a youth movement, there are also concerns about whether Lambert is the best fit for the new generation of players. Other names on the head coaching market included, but were not limited to: David Carle (age 35), Jay Woodcroft (48), Jay Leach (45), Mitch Love (40), or even the Kraken’s own Jessica Campbell (32). All of those names are at least a decade younger than Lambert and would theoretically be better aligned with the Kraken’s timeline for contention.

There’s a world where Lambert’s recent experience helps him be an anchor for the Kraken’s young players, and they develop within a structured but open environment. The jury is out on Lambert’s capabilities as the leading man; can he persuade the doubters?

Data courtesy of Natural Stat Trick and the NHL.