Kraken's backslide continues in 6-2 loss to Jets

Kate Shefte, The Seattle Times on Apr 6, 2026

Published in Hockey

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The Winnipeg Jets scored on each of the game’s three power plays and went on to rout the spiraling Seattle Kraken Monday night.

For the second time in a week, the Kraken’s penalty kill was dinged three times in a 6-2 loss. It has killed 5 of 12 opportunities over the past three contests and allowed at least one goal in each.

The power play hasn’t been able to help Seattle keep up. It’s scoreless in eight tries over the past week. The Jets didn’t give the Kraken a single opportunity Monday.

The Kraken have dropped five straight games and 9 of 10. Back-to-back regulation losses to the Utah Mammoth and Chicago Blackhawks last week, effectively torpedoed the Kraken’s slim playoff chances, and with six games left, they would basically need to win out and get help from the many teams above them, which now includes the Jets.

The Kraken aren’t mathematically eliminated yet, but barring a miracle, that day is coming soon. Though they spent most of the season solidly in the playoff hunt, they entered the Jets game with the 32-team league’s fifth-lowest point total.

You can tell the circumstances are truly dire because the Kraken’s top pairing of Adam Larsson and Vince Dunn split up for a non-injury reason, for the first time in just over four years. Neither of Lane Lambert’s predecessors at head coach went that route while the Kraken floundered.

Larsson started out with Ryker Evans and Dunn giving it a whirl with Cale Fleury. Original Kraken player Jamie Oleksiak was a healthy scratch.

Philipp Grubauer started the game in net and made 15 saves before leaving with an apparent injury. Joey Daccord came in cold during the second period, soon after the Kraken went down 3-1.

Grubauer slid over to try and deny the Jets’ third goal and appeared to be in some pain afterward. He stayed in, froze a puck, went to the bench and chatted with medical personnel while Daccord looked on, seemingly deciding whether to put his gear on.

Daccord was in net for Seattle’s 6-2 loss to the Mammoth on Thursday. Lambert called out Daccord’s performance, unprompted, in his way.

“You can say what you want to say — I think there’s some saves that we needed tonight, and we didn’t get them,” Lambert said then.

Daccord made 10 stops in Winnipeg. This likely upset Seattle’s goalie rotation for the second half of a back-to-back to some degree. The Kraken will travel to Minnesota for a game Tuesday night, and unless they want to send Daccord out again, Matt Murray could see his first action since Nov. 15. The Kraken’s third goalie suffered a lower-body injury around that time, and an expected six-week recovery time turned into nearly four months.

Seattle was outshot 13-4 during Monday’s second period. Jared McCann got the Kraken within a goal in the third, but Brad Lambert — Jets forward and nephew of Lane, the Kraken’s coach — put an end to any comeback hopes, making it 4-2 Winnipeg.

Grubauer kicked off his abbreviated performance by stopping Mark Scheifele on a breakaway, then diving on the follow-up.

That allowed Kraken captain Jordan Eberle to open the scoring. He did almost a full lap of the Jets net with the puck. Eberle attempted a wraparound, snatched the puck back, drifted to the other side of the slot and scored.

Eberle leads the Kraken in goals (25) and points (53), despite scoring just three goals since the start of March — a span of 17 games.

Forty-seven seconds into a Berkly Catton penalty, a point shot bounced off the glass behind Grubauer. Usually it would drop, but this time the Kraken caught a bad break. It bounced straight back over the net to Jonathan Toews, who tied the game at 1.

A Fleury blast hit the goalpost during the second period. Gabriel Vilardi and Kyle Connor built up Winnipeg’s lead on the power play.

Kraken forward Ryan Winterton returned to the lineup after missing nearly three weeks. His older brother, Jacob, passed away following a cancer battle on March 24 at just 25 years old.

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