^{Seattle and Utah battle it out as Utah looks to continue to ride their point streak at home.}

The Seattle Kraken slither their way to town to take on the Utah Mammoth for the second and final time at the Delta Center this season. The Kraken look to avenge a 5-3 loss back on December 12th, a game that broke a Mammoth 3 game losing streak. Arguably, that last home win was the start of turning things around; the Mammoth would go 3-2 in the 5 days after the Seattle game, losing just 1-0 to the Avalanche, and 2-1 to New Jersey in tightly fought games.

Tonight, it’s Seattle that’s looking to change their stars, as their only win in the past 5 games has been against a pathetic New York Rangers squad. The Kraken are feeling a bit of desperation at the moment. While they held serve most of the first half of the season, they unwrapped a bunch of points from Santa. From Christmas through last week, though, Seattle went on a 5 game win streak, including sweeping two back to back series in just 6 days. Getting points against the Wild in OT in their last home game, put the Kraken in a comfortable position with a 5-0-2 after the holidays, for 12 of 14 total points.

This propelled them to 3rd in the Pacific division, quickly closing the gap with 2nd place Edmonton, though Seattle had the better win percentage. However, with this losing pace over the past 5, Edmonton’s put a little more distance between the two clubs, and the San Jose Sharks have caught up. The two oceanic teams are in a dead tie on points and point percentage, though Seattle has 9 OTL points, but 2 more regulation wins.

Needless to say, like the Dallas Stars game on Thursday, the game against the Seattle Kraken may end up feeling like another playoff game. Seattle is desperate to get back to their winning ways, and are fighting for their very lives in the playoff race in an extremely tight Pacific division where a 3 game win streak, or pointless streak, can alter the rest of the season for any of the 5 teams vying for the 2nd and third position right now.

What’s been fishy in Seattle lately?
Seattle has been on the south end of some really tight games lately. 3 of their 4 losses were one goal affairs (naturally the OT losses, plus a 3-2 game in Carolina last Saturday). Facing two of the top teams in the league, Minnesota and Carolina, plus an OT loss to New Jersey and the back to back scheduled loss against Boston, the Kraken haven’t been playing poorly – they’re just not finding that clutch goal to give them the win.

Tonight, Seattle will contend with a few disadvantages against Utah to further complicate their situation. This game will mark the 10th game of January for the Kraken – the busiest team in the NHL in January. It’s the last game of a 5 game road trip. Their last game against Boston, on Thursday, ended late, and traveling 2 time zones, with elevation, after a week on the East Coast could severely hamper their conditioning. They didn’t practice yesterday, so that may come into play tonight as well.

Key points to secure a victory today:
Moby Dick Nothing will motivate a man more than a burning passion for revenge. That feeling of getting even can drive a man insane, or it can drive a man to greatness. Kailer Yamamoto, spurned from Seattle in an uncomfortable divorce with a lot of negative press and fan pressure, was pushed down a path that saw the former #22 pick spend time unsigned in the AHL.

The Utah Hockey Club, now Mammoth, gave Yamamoto NHL minutes in a limited role in 2024, and since then Yamamoto has done well against the team that almost ended his NHL dream.

In 2 games against Seattle, Yamamoto has scored twice. A full 1/3rd of his goal production in roughly half a season of games played have been against his former club. His shooting percentage is an unbelievable 67% against Seattle with just 23 minutes of ice time between the two games.

While we debate his usefulness, a 4th liner rarely makes a significant difference. 2 goals in 2 games where Utah outscored Seattle by a combined 12-4 isn’t a game altering amount. However, when you’ve got that vendetta on your mind, you step up. It would be wise for Andre Tourigny to take note and give Yamamoto time and opportunities to continue to exact his revenge.

Striking ‘Accord And it’s probably not A minor, but it certainly is an opportunity. Joey Daccord is having another great season for Seattle this year, with a 2.84GAA and
.902 SV%, putting him 35th and 30th in those respective stats for goalies with 10+ starts for the year. Solid numbers, as his save percentage is nearly identical with Karel Vejmelka’s.

However, the post-Christmas slump has hit Daccord a little bit. His save percentage has dropped below .900. Goals against have inched up close to 3. Backup Philipp Grubauer, meanwhile, has a .940 SV% and a fantastic 1.80 GAA in that same span. Grubauer has taken more starts than Daccord, so we may see Grubauer again – who lost against Utah earlier in the year.

No matter the starter, Utah has beaten them both in the past two meetings.

If Daccord is in, Utah needs to remind him of the game that he was embarrassed with 7 goals against. An early tally against him could potentially shake the netminder and give Utah a decisive advantage against a team that has been playing very good defense otherwise.

Fish Feast or Famine The Seattle Kraken, from last time I wrote, live and die by their special teams. This hasn’t changed for them one bit since December. On the road, Seattle’s PK is an abysmal 67% for the year. Their January PK in total has been even worse, with a sub-65% kill. On the power play, even a struggling Mammoth team – who looked much, much better against a difficult Dallas PK – should be able to generate quality scoring chances and, hopefully, points.

The flip side of this is that Seattle’s power play in January is a staggering 40%. 8 of their 31 goals in January came with the man advantage. This puts them top 3 in power play goals, and power play percent, in 2026.

While Jordan Eberle still leads Seattle in total points and goals (16g/30p), Eberle hasn’t been a power play scorer for the Kraken. For the year, only 4 tallies came a man up – and only one since Christmas. The power play, lately, flows through Chandler Stephenson and Jared McCann, who have accounted for half the Kraken PPGs this month. Stephenson hasn’t scored anywhere but the power play, and half of McCann’s goals and points come from special teams. Vince Dunn, power play quarterback, is the other main cog in the machine, with 5 assists to his name.

If Utah is to be successful, the team needs to either keep as clean a game as possible – limiting Seattle to few power plays (and likely limiting themselves as well) and aim for a low scoring game, or play a run-and-gun open style game, with penalties on both sides contributing to a higher scoring affair.

If the game is open, Team Tusk needs to focus their efforts to disrupt Dunn at the point as best they can, while trying to find a way to sell out a little more than usual to try and contain Stephenson and McCann. Otherwise, they need to exploit the Seattle PK and go at least 50% on the night on the power play.

If the game is tight, clean, and few penalties are called, Utah instead needs to press the Kraken, as the squids do give up more expected goals against at 5v5 than they generate, giving Utah an edge in a low scoring, defensive minded game.

Projected Lineups:
The NHL says there’s no expected changes to the lineup. I do expect one substitution, noted above, but we’ll go with the experts and correct them when they’re wrong:

Clayton Keller — Nick Schmaltz — Lawson Crouse
JJ Peterka — Barrett Hayton — Daniil But
Michael Carcone — Jack McBain — Dylan Guenther
Brandon Tanev — Kevin Stenlund — Liam O’Brien

Mikhail Sergachev — Sean Durzi
Nate Schmidt — John Marino
Ian Cole — Nick DeSimone

Karel Vejmelka
Vitek Vanecek

Early puck drop with a 3PM at the Delta Center.

TUSKS UP!