The Kraken wrapped up their homestand at 3-1-0, and they did it by turning Thursday night into one of those games that leaves the bench buzzing. After Seattle’s 5-4 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs, coach Lane Lambert didn’t bother softening the moment.
“Hey! It’s a big f***ing win right there,” Lambert said in the dressing room. “Even though they tied it, we played well.”
Seattle also got the kind of start it has been building around lately. Berkly Catton struck just 1:59 into the game, and the 20-year-old continued a stretch that has people around the team taking notice. Catton now has 4 goals and 6 assists, goals in back-to-back games and points in five straight.
He’s been a problem for opposing veterans all homestand, and that has only fueled the conversation around what he might become for this franchise.
Lambert didn’t back away from that buzz.
“We kept him here last year so that he could be better and more physically ready this year in training camp. We think he is. We threw another wrinkle into him, thrown him into the middle on a full-time basis.
“He’s still adapting to that situation, even though he’s played center all his life. It’s another animal at the National Hockey League level, so he continues to grow and build in that way.”
The scoring load Thursday wasn’t carried by just the forwards. Seattle leaned hard on its blue line, and the defense came through in a big way. Brandon Montour scored the winner with 34 seconds left, Ryker Evans also found the net, and the Kraken now have 10 goals from their defensemen.
Josh Mahura got in on the action too, scoring just his second goal since the end of the 2022-23 season. Montour had a front-row seat for that one and knew it was coming.
“I saw him jump in the play,” Montour said in a KHN interview. “I was saying, ‘He’s scoring!
He’s scoring!’ I probably said it 25 times.”
The two were teammates with the Florida Panthers before. “It’s great to see a friend and a great teammate score his first.”
Mahura’s goal also pushed the Kraken to 17 different skaters who have scored this season. Seattle now has 10 players with three or more goals, and 14 with two or more, the best mark in the NHL.
The fourth line has been part of that depth push too. Freddy Gaudreau leads that group with six goals, while Ryan Winterton and Ben Meyers have helped the line pile up nine goals and 21 points. Gaudreau also has assists in four straight.
Even without Jared McCann, Seattle kept the offense humming. McCann, the team’s top scorer, is out 10 weeks with a lower body injury, but the Kraken still scored five on Thursday and are averaging 3.7 goals per game, good for sixth in the league.
“We’re a resilient group, and we’ve been finding a way,” Mahura said. “That’s the most important thing.”
That approach has Seattle sitting at 8-4-1 after 13 games, the best record in team history at this point in the season. Whether it can last is a question for another day.
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Wood arrives with NHL experience from last season, while Wright leaves Seattle after being drafted in the first round in 2022. Both players are expected to join their new clubs before the upcoming games between the Kraken and Predators, so this is the kind of move that gets judged quickly, especially when the two teams are about to see each other and the swap is still fresh enough to color the conversation around both benches. [Read more 🡒]