Seattle Kraken’s Poor Underlying Numbers Contributing To Recent Slump

While the Seattle Kraken remain in the thick of the Western Conference playoff race (eighth in the conference by points percentage), the team’s underlying play at five-on-five and on their special teams has recently come back to bite them.

Seattle has lost six games in a row and seven of their last nine to see their record drop to 11-10-6, a far cry from sitting at 9-4-5 and in the top three of the Pacific Division in the middle of November. They have been outscored 34-16 over the nine-game slump, and conceded 13 goals across back-to-back games with the Edmonton Oilers to close November and open December. 

Regression to the mean is no longer an unexplainable phenomenon in NHL circles, and the Kraken’s potential demise has been forecasted for some time despite their hot start to the season. Whether they banked enough points early on to weather the storm remains to be seen, but the numbers are not trending in their favor.

Kraken Attack Anemic at Five-on-Five

The Kraken have watched their offensive output plummet to 1.9 goals per-60-minutes at five on five, dead-last in the NHL through a third of the 2025-26 campaign.

Given the Kraken’s lack of reliable contributors up front, the injuries to Jared McCann (the franchise’s all-time leading goalscorer) and Kaapo Kakko (30 points in 49 games last season) are leading culprits for the team’s inability to put the puck in the net. McCann has been limited to appearing in only 10 of the team’s first 27 games, while Kakko has played in 11. Jaden Schwartz – second on the team in points-per-game – was also recently injured, meaning that the Kraken have rarely iced their full lineup.

Related: Montour Crucial To Seattle Kraken’s 2026 Playoff Hopes

While the injuries have robbed Seattle of its more consistent scorers, that should not excuse the team’s ineptitude in the offensive zone. They rank in the bottom five league-wide in shots, expected goals, scoring chances, and high-danger chances per-60-minutes, meaning both the quality and quantity of pucks on net are absent.

One can’t point to their shooting percentage (27th with 8.4%) and claim that they are unlucky when they are one of the league’s worst teams at creating opportunities. Only the San Jose Sharks (last in two of those four aforementioned categories) have been as bad, not that that should be any solace when the Sharks are still in the midst of a rebuild.

What has prevented the Kraken from losing more games is a decent defensive structure and above-average goaltending during five-on-five play. They are hovering around the middle of the pack for shots and chances allowed per-60, which pulls them out of the basement in terms of their share of those shots and chances. The team’s three-man rotation of Joey Daccord, Matt Murray, and Phillip Grubauer has combined to post a sparkling .925 save percentage at five-on-five (top five in the league), which has masked most of the group’s inability to push play in the right direction.

If the five-on-five goaltending continues to falter as it has over this nine-game streak (26th since Nov. 16 with an .872), the situation could become untenable in Seattle.

Kraken Penalty Kill a Cause for Concern

While the Kraken have been bad at five-on-five, special teams play offers a lifeline that can overcome poor underlying numbers elsewhere, at least for a brief period of time.

Teams spend 10-15 minutes per game on average either killing penalties or on the power play, with the likelihood of either conceding or scoring a goal during this time rising drastically due to the numerical asymmetry. Assuming even the best teams will generally be below 60% in goal share (or less than a 2-1 margin on average) at five-on-five over the course of a season, scoring or preventing an additional goal or two during the remainder of the game can significantly affect the final outcome.

That’s all to set up the fact that, while the Kraken are struggling mightily at five-on-five, they are also failing to make up the difference elsewhere. Not only are they last in penalty kill effectiveness (66.2%) by a wide margin, but they are conceding high rates of shots and chances while shorthanded, so the blame can’t be pinned on simple bad luck.

Penalty kill

The goaltending has been terrible on the penalty kill to be fair, with the Kraken boasting the league’s worst shorthanded save percentage at .760, nearly three full percentage points worse than the Vancouver Canucks in 31st with a mark of .783.

The Kraken’s shorthanded units have struggled to keep the puck away from dangerous areas, but haven’t done so at such a level that warrants their goaltenders performing at a significantly lower level, especially since they rank highly at five-on-five.

Adam Larsson, Ryan Lindgren, and Jamie Olesiak are by far the Kraken’s most frequently utilized penalty killers on the blue line, ranking first, second, and third, respectively, on the team in both cumulative and average shorthanded ice time. The usage is more dispersed among the forwards, with six forwards playing 19 or more shorthanded minutes so far this year.

While personnel could be an issue (none of Larsson, Lindgren, or Oleksiak are all that mobile), the Kraken are taking a passive approach to killing penalties. Not only are they conceding among the highest rates of shots and chances in the league, but they also rank 31st in shots and scoring chances generated per-60-minutes while down a man. Those numbers suggest Seattle is falling back into a shell and letting opposing power plays pepper the goal from anywhere but close range.

For comparison, the Carolina Hurricanes are first in creating around 15 shots per-60-minutes on the penalty kill. The Kraken? Under five. Could a more aggressive approach solve some of their problems? Maybe, but they don’t have the same collection of players as Carolina, who emphasize a more high-tempo, no-holds-barred style based on strong skating.

Kraken Power Play Average Once Again

Moving onto the power play, where the Kraken sit 22nd in conversion at 17.5%, a clip that is somehow higher than the one belonging to the juggernaut Colorado Avalanche.

Unlike the penalty kill, the struggles of the power play are less due to bad luck, despite sitting 20th in shooting percentage (12.6%). The Kraken are not generating many good looks, ranking right around the middle of the pack or worse in shots, expected goals, and chances for per-60-minutes on the power play. You can’t score on shots you don’t take, and they’re not taking a whole lot at the moment.

The Kraken’s historical ineptitude with the man advantage is not surprising. The team’s most productive player by points-per-game over the past three seasons, including this one, is McCann at 0.76, just inside the top 100 of all skaters leaguewide over that span. This is a team that is sorely lacking in star power and one in desperate need of an injection of skill.

Kraken Must Improve in All Situations

While the Kraken’s results on special teams are disappointing, they shouldn’t be surprising. The franchise has never ranked higher than 20th in kill-rate (78.8% in 2023-24) and higher than 17th in powerplay conversion over their five seasons of existence, trends which don’t look to be ending this year.

If new head coach Lane Lambert was brought in to steady the ship but has the team posting either similar or worse results than last season, then what was the point of the hire? The team didn’t lose anyone of note, added Mason Marchment, and got another offseason of development from young pieces in Matty Beniers and Shane Wright, among others.

Maybe injuries have played that big of a part in the unevenness to date, but the team is once again struggling to tread water and doesn’t really look like they deserve a better fate. If the deficiencies aren’t sorted, another season largely spent outside of the playoff contention is in the cards.

Data courtesy of Natural Stat Trick and the NHL.