Seattle Kraken eliminated from 2025 NHL playoffs contention

Kate Shefte, The Seattle Times on Mar 30, 2025

Published in Hockey

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SEATTLE — Seattle Kraken fans have sensed it since the 2024-25 season was less than halfway over, and now it’s mathematically confirmed – another long summer is a little more than two weeks away.

With nine games to go in the regular season, the Kraken were formally eliminated from postseason contention Saturday afternoon when the St. Louis Blues notched their ninth straight win, 2-1 against the Colorado Avalanche.

The Blues hold the last playoff spot in the West and moved 19 points ahead of Seattle. Even if the Kraken had won out, they still would only make up 18. So Seattle’s 5-1 loss to the Dallas Stars hours later had no effect.

The Blues’ improbable surge has launched them into the second wild-card spot in the West. They were several spots behind the cutoff just a few weeks ago. They show no signs of slowing down. Seattle needed a similar, scorching stretch to crawl back into the running, but the Kraken didn’t have it in them this season.

Seattle has been unofficially counted out since the league’s break for Christmas. The Kraken were facing elimination on Thursday night, but fought off elimination for 36 hours with a 6-1 victory over the injury-hit Edmonton Oilers.

This is the second straight year the Kraken (31-37-6) will miss the postseason, and the third time in the franchise’s four seasons of play.

Of the teams at CPA on Saturday, Dallas had something tangible left to play for – playoff seeding. The Stars sit second in the West and are bound for a fourth straight playoff run. Dallas clinched a postseason spot by beating the Kraken, paired with an overtime win by the Oilers over the Calgary Flames.

The Stars remain the Kraken’s most recent playoff opponent. Dallas narrowly won a seven-game Western Conference semifinals series in 2023.

The Stars did only what they needed to do for two periods on Saturday night, then slowly pulled away. The first few minutes belonged to the Kraken, however, as Eeli Tolvanen’s goal-scoring race with teammate Jaden Schwartz continued. Jared McCann’s shot bounced off goalie Jake Oettinger’s leg pad and was headed wide. Tolvanen raced in and smacked it back over the goal line just in time, 1:27 into the game. Tolvanen notched his career-high 22nd goal of the season, one behind Schwartz’s total.

Chandler Stephenson returned to the Kraken lineup after missing three games with an upper-body injury.

Stars forward Mavrik Bourque thought better of a wraparound chance and centered to Jason Robertson, who scored to tie the game at 1. Then 35 seconds into their first power play of the game, Robertson set up Roope Hintz to make it 2-1 Dallas.

That’s the way the game remained for the next 22 minutes. Seattle’s Mikey Eyssimont and Dallas’ Lian Bichsel woke up the crowd with a brief fight, which was notable because it was Eyssimont’s first since joining the Kraken at the trade deadline. Also because Eyssimont quickly fell flat onto the ice, only for Bichsel to pick him up by his jersey and haul him back to his feet.

On another Stars power play 28 seconds into the third period, Mason Marchment made it 3-1 Dallas. Wyatt Johnston followed up and sent a good number of CPA fans heading for the exits. Mikko Rantanen added an empty netter for the final score. Joey Daccord made 16 saves.

The teams will meet again in Seattle on Monday night.