Knowing that Kraken head coach Lane Lambert lived just a 10-minute walk away from me in Magnolia prompted me to wonder what a ride in to work with him would be like.
Lambert graciously agreed just a couple of weeks back as the Kraken were preparing for the post-Winter Olympics portion of their schedule. We hopped in his car just before 7 a.m. and headed out to the Kraken Community Iceplex on much the same route I take daily. Naturally, I was curious what he thought of the drive.
“If I leave before 7 – it’s funny, there’s a 7 o’clock cutoff,” he said. “If you leave before 7, you’re there by 7:20, 7:25.”
Anything else, it can run for half an hour or more. And when you’re an NHL coach, you appreciate any found time you can get.
Lambert has quickly adapted to his new surroundings, having moved to Seattle early last summer shortly after being hired.
“We know our neighbors,” he said. “They’ve been very helpful as well because of just different things throughout the neighborhood that you’re maybe not aware of or not used to. Lots of trees, lots of leaves. Where do you put your leaves? How does that go? You’ve got to bag them this way or that way and so they were very helpful and have been very helpful.”
Lambert has four grown children, two daughters from his first marriage to his late wife, Andi, and two stepsons with his current wife, Annie, whom he wed in 2018. They were in town staying with him last fall when the Kraken opened the season at home with games against Anaheim and Vegas.
One of his sons, Cade Lambert, doesn’t use the term “stepson” -- is in the U.S. Navy and was stationed in the Persian Gulf when the U.S. and Israel last week began joint strikes on Iran. Lambert said he thinks of him constantly.
“He’s on an aircraft carrier right now for eight months, so he’s not going to be around for quite a while,” Lambert said. “We’re proud of all our kids.”
His other son, Cole, is in dental school in Omaha, Nebraska. One of his daughters, Taylor, is married and living in Calgary, Alberta, while his other daughter, Samantha, is studying for her Master of Arts in Mental Health Counseling and Behavioral Medicine at Boston University.
“It was too bad because when we went to play in Boston, we’d played in New Jersey and then we flew in there that night, and she was on break,” he said. “So, she wasn’t even in Boston when we went there.”
Lambert is philosophical about his children being scattered across the continent and even the world.
“That’s true,” he said. “But they’re older now, so, that’s just the way it goes, right?”
He admits he wasn’t always there for family events as much as he’d have liked because of his NHL playing and coaching career.
“You certainly miss some things,” he said. “It’s no different than anything else. There’s always sacrifices to be made no matter what you’re doing. I’m not the only one. But certainly, there are some moments during this job over the years that you miss things you don’t want to miss. But you don’t really have a choice.”
Watching the sun rise along our car journey, it occurred to me that Lambert’s early morning commute might represent a rare moment for him to relax.
“It gives you a little bit of time to just kind of think,” he said. “Certainly, in the morning and when you’re heading to work. Like I was saying earlier, you can feel playoff time coming and spring coming because it’s now light when you’re going to the rink…it was pitch dark in December and January, so you know there’s sit sort of light at the end of the tunnel so to speak. But it gives you good time to just think and think about what’s coming up. What the day looks like and what you want to accomplish. All that kind of stuff.”
But Lambert’s real method of relaxation is on the golf course. He has a summer home in Scottsdale, Arizona affording plenty of time on the links. Not so much in winters here, when he’s busy with hockey.
“But every once in a while, I’ll get out to Interbay or whatever and hit golf balls,” he said. “Golf is kind of my relaxation time.”
I asked him why that was. I’d heard people over the years describe how the mere act of hitting the ball with a smooth stroke is a form of mental exercise that calms their brain. Not so much with Lambert.
“It’s the competition,” he said. “Sort of the internal competition. It’s such a difficult sport. And it doesn’t seem like it should be. The ball is just sitting there. And it’s not moving. And you can hit it whenever you want. And to have it go in the right spot is extremely challenging. So, some days you have it and some days you don’t. Some shots you have it and some shots you don’t.
“And the nice thing about it is when you’re playing a bad round, it doesn’t mean you can’t birdie the next three holes. It can change fast. So, I don’t know. I love that part about it. Going out there and challenging myself all the time.”
I suggested to Lambert that a lot of “detail” goes into hitting a golf ball and that perhaps that’s why he takes to the sport.
“Yep,” he said. “There can be. But the interesting thing about it is that you can get too detailed or overthink. It’s like anything else. It’s like with our team and our players. With our systems and things like that. There was a point in time probably early on where we were thinking too much, maybe, and not quite reacting. And as you do it more and more just like the golf swing it becomes a little bit more second nature and becomes a little easier.”
So, has Lambert the coach learned not to think as much? Does he find it’s become easier just to remember to rely on instincts and second nature?
“Yes, maybe just a little bit more as you go along and you do it more often or longer you try to keep things a little bit more in perspective,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve changed too much from day one of coaching. Your job is to help guys get better. We have a team this year and obviously, we have some young players on our team that we have to develop and develop on the fly.
“And so, us, myself, the staff put a real good focus on that, and the staff has done a real good job in helping not only our younger players but our older players. Because I firmly believe that the older players can get better and continue to get better as well. So, that hasn’t changed and would never change.”
Lambert grew up in small town Saskatchewan, playing in freezing temperatures on an outdoor rink his father – a municipal worker – kept lit long into the night by climbing the electric pole and turning on the power. I asked whether he’d ever envisioned his NHL career taking him to faraway places like the Pacific Northwest, with views of the nearby mountains and sea. Essentially, whether he could have imagined doing this NHL life to the extent that he has and continuing to be rewarded for it.
“That’s a great question,” he said. “Because I don’t know that I sit there…but I do sit there and understand how grateful I am to be able to have done this. You have to work for your opportunities but you’re also at different times pretty lucky. I don’t think you can ever take that for granted.
“So, I think that’s probably the biggest thing. It’s not so much that you sit there and go, ‘How did you get here,’ or whatever. It’s just an appreciation for where you are. But it’s also an understanding. And I just think that no matter what you’re in or what you’re doing or who you are, as long as you work hard and do the best at what you’re doing, the chips will fall where they may and often times they kind of fall in the right places.
“We talk about our team that way, and we talk about doing the right things consistently. If you do that – and you’ve heard me say this many times before – you give yourself a chance to win every night and you’ll have success more often than you won’t.”
