The Seattle Kraken nearly got all they could have wanted on their season-opening trip to Alberta.
After a 6-1 victory Thursday in Calgary, the Kraken took host Edmonton down to the final minutes before former Hart Trophy winners Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid scored in the final 2:27 in the Oilers’ 3-1 win on Saturday. Kraken goaltender Philipp Grubauer stopped 22 of 24 shots in the loss.
The Kraken have their home opener scheduled for Sunday in a rematch against Calgary, which lost 4-1 Saturday night in Vancouver.
“We got a great, solid effort from ‘Grubie,'” Kraken coach Lane Lambert said after the Edmonton game. “It’s unfortunate that we don’t come out of here with more than what we have, but we have to find ways to come out of buildings like this when the score is tied late.
“That’s a step for us that we have to get to, for sure, but I thought there were a lot of good things in the game (Saturday).”
The Kraken, who finished 31st among 32 NHL teams on penalty kills last season, stopping just 72.2% of their short-handed situations, held Edmonton scoreless in three attempts. The Oilers led the NHL by converting 30.6% of their man-advantage attempts in 2025-26 and were a combined 3-for-9 in their first two games of this campaign.
Draisaitl’s go-ahead goal came after Oilers defenseman Ryan Shea banked the puck off the boards to keep it in the offensive zone. The puck caromed off McDavid’s knee to Draisaitl near the top right of the crease, and Draisaitl quickly put a shot past Grubauer.
McDavid capped the scoring with an empty-net goal.
“I think we deserved a better result,” said Kraken forward Bobby McMann, who scored on the power play midway through the second period. “When you see ones like that (Draisaitl goal), you sometimes realize that’s the game of hockey and you want to put yourself in a position where something like that maybe doesn’t matter as much because we have a goal up.
“There’s always ways to counteract that, but yeah, those ones are always tough to see when a game’s so close and you’re playing so well down the stretch toward the end of a game.”
The Kraken trounced the Flames in the season opener as defenseman Vince Dunn collected a goal and two assists, Jared McCann added three assists and Matty Beniers and Kaapo Kakko each had a goal and an assist. Joey Daccord made 24 saves, losing the shutout bid with 3:25 remaining.
The Flames took a 1-0 lead into the third period Saturday in Vancouver before surrendering four unanswered goals.
Matt Coronato scored and Devin Cooley made 22 saves for Calgary.
“We were a much different team tonight than we were our first game of the year, so there’s a lot of things that we can build off of from this game,” Flames coach Ryan Huska said. “Couple things again we got to clean up, but there’s a lot we can build off.”
–Field Level Media
