Kraken Have Proven They Are ‘Good’ Team

To hear Kraken head coach Lane Lambert tell it, his players believed since training camp they were capable of a playoff run.

He specifically said, when asked after Wednesday night’s win in Los Angeles whether players were buying into something beyond the regular season awaiting if they keep playing this well: “I think they’ve felt that way right from day one to be honest with you. They felt, to a man, that we’ve got a pretty good hockey team.”

Yes, that’s a pro sports cliché – right up there with, “Nobody believed we could do it!” – that makes your eyes roll to the tippy top of your forehead and out the base of your skull. But before anyone loses eyeballs or faith in Lambert’s quotability, know that he quickly qualified his opinion about such player beliefs.

“Thinking that and doing it are two different things,” he said.

Lambert knows the sports landscape is littered with teams that tout ability in training camp before crashing and burning.

Pro sports are funny that way. The skill level is so elite that the difference between teams stacked with top “talent” and those at bottom rungs of any pro league is often barely distinguishable.

It’s one reason so many teams sit within a few points of one another vying for NHL playoff spots. Also, why teams such as the Kraken can lose 10 of 11 games in a period stretching deep into December and still be in a playoff position a few weeks later. After all, they aren’t the only ones doing it. The Anaheim Ducks said, “Hold my beer,” and dropped 13 of 15 games well into January but now are neck-and-neck – or bill-and-tentacles – with the Kraken at 63 points apiece.

That’s pro sports for you, especially in the NHL salary cap era. Parity exists. Sure, all those single points teams gain from overtime and shootout losses keep standings tight. But that’s also because parity has the games themselves going down to the wire every night and forcing overtimes and shootouts.

No wonder so many teams believe they have what it takes to be a playoff squad, even when they don’t get there. They truthfully are good enough if things bounce their way. When the skill level is this close, it’s easy to believe a break here, or unexpected player emergence there can be the difference.

Or, maybe, that difference is a system finally coming together.

The Kraken have talked all season about building offense through the back end with their defensive-oriented system. It paid dividends early when they started great. Not so much when they lacked consistency at implementing it.

But that consistency has now been there for two months’ worth of games. That the Kraken were only given 5 ½ weeks to play those games is another story. But they just ran a record-setting gauntlet of 17 games in January with two more in early February. By the time play resumes on Feb. 25 after the 2026 Winter Olympic Games Milano Cortina it will have been two-plus months since the Kraken headed to San Jose on Dec. 20 in what appeared to be a season on the brink.

Since then, they’ve gone 15-6-3.

That’s no “fake .500” record looking good on the front two digits with a gaudy third one disguising defeats as overtime points. Heading into the San Jose game, the Kraken at 12-14-6 had nearly twice as many defeats as victories. Since then, they’ve managed nearly twice as many wins as losses.

And they’ve done it over a sustained period. They played an NHL record 17 games in January and went 10-5-2. Then tacked on another two games the first five days in February. That’s 19 games in 36 days with an 11-6-2 mark.

So, that part is real. The Kraken will emerge from the break just one point behind the second place Edmonton Oilers in the Pacific Division with 26 games remaining.

They’ll emerge with three more victories than Anaheim and four more than the Los Angeles Kings. They’ll have just one fewer victory than the two-time-defending Western Conference champion Oilers and the same number of wins as a first place Vegas team they just beat on the road.

They’ll also be tied with Edmonton for the division’s most regulation wins after a very slow start in that regard.

They have two playoff caliber goalies. They are 19-5-4 when scoring at least three goals and 12-1-0 with at least four. They’ve done both more lately; 17 times in 24 games since that late December visit to San Jose.

Again, this is real. And the object in pro sports is to win when offered opportunity. The goal isn’t to endlessly build the perfectly crafted roster in hopes of contending five years down the road.

There is something to be said about focusing on the here and now when it’s getting up in your face daring you to do it.

After his eventual game-winning third goal against the Kings on Wednesday night, Kraken defenseman Vince Dunn described the play as “taking what’s given” – an apt symbol for his team’s season. The Kraken find themselves battling for what could be a division title with the season about to round its three-quarter pole. They’re doing it not through luck, but sustained quality play. They’ve outlasted injuries to almost every key player. Beaten some of the best teams in their division and league wide.

Shane Wright said his teammates sense “something special brewing” and he’s right.

The Kraken at their very best have never been more than a No. 7 wild-card seed. They now have a legit shot at Top 3 in their division.

It’s never how you start in sports but how you finish. Keep playing this way the remaining 26 games, no one will care what the Kraken were doing in December. Lambert and general manager Jason Botterill spoke in training camp about building a team constantly looking to improve with each passing day.

And here we are almost finished with February play and that’s exactly what’s happened. Yes, the Kraken had struggles. As has every single team as this grueling condensed schedule plays out.

The Colorado Avalanche were the NHL’s runaway best team by a mile yet are only 6-7-2 the past month. Dallas has boosted its fortunes by winning six in a row but had dropped 11 of 14 prior. Vegas had lost six straight and seven of eight before posting two wins ahead of the break. Edmonton has dropped three in a row and seven of 12.

So, if the Kraken want to believe they’re a good team capable of playoffs, they’ve earned the right. Talk is cheap. Results matter. Everything else is a tired cliché, regardless of what side of the “good team” debate one happens to fall on.