Seattle Kraken extend point streak before falling to Minnesota Wild in OT

Kate Shefte, The Seattle Times on Jan 9, 2026

Published in Hockey

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SEATTLE — The Seattle Kraken erased a two-goal, third-period deficit in order to push their point streak to 10 games (9-0-1) on Thursday night at Climate Pledge Arena. They lost in overtime to the Minnesota Wild, 3-2.

The third period was underway and the Kraken still hadn’t gotten on the board. Seattle’s fourth line tried to remedy that situation and swung at the net repeatedly over 11 seconds. Ben Meyers missed the cage, Vince Dunn hit the crossbar and Tye Kartye had his shot saved. The fourth attempt from Adam Larsson wiggled its way through Minnesota goalie Jesper Wallstedt and made the score 2-1.

Either Dunn or Matty Beniers was certainly going to tie the game. Dunn had just been dumped to the ice with no call, and took out his annoyance on the Wild net. Meanwhile a lurking Beniers was methodically testing Wallstedt during a mid-period power play.

Beniers was on his hottest streak of the season with three goals, five assists and a shootout winner in his previous eight games. He did the honors on that power play, with Dunn picking up an assist.

Philipp Grubauer made 28 regulation stops for the Kraken. Mats Zuccarello scored the OT winner.

The good news was tinged with bad. The point streak continued, but a four-game win streak ended. And Kraken captain Jordan Eberle missed the game becaue of an upper-body injury without an obvious cause. He finished out Tuesday night’s 7-4 win over the Boston Bruins, leaving the ice for the last time with 12 seconds left in the game. The Kraken didn’t practice Wednesday.

Eberle leads the team in goals (15) and points (28), a resurgent return after the 35-year-old missed nearly half of last season with a pelvis injury. Just 17 games into his first season as an NHL captain, Eberle went into the boards just wrong and suffered an injury more common in rugby players than hockey players. It required surgery and held him out of 40 games.

As winger Eeli Tolvanen missed the Boston game due to an illness but had recovered by Thursday, the Kraken didn’t need to call anyone up. They did anyway, summoning Oscar Fisker Mølgaard from the American Hockey League. Mølgaard didn’t play against the Wild.

The Kraken (20-14-8) could have moved into first in the Pacific Division on Thursday with a win and some help, but they got neither. The Vegas Golden Knights beat the Columbus Blue Jackets to remain in first place.

The second-place Edmonton Oilers also rallied out of a 3-1 hole to hand the Winnipeg Jets their 11th straight defeat. The Jets are the defending Presidents’ Trophy winners as the NHL’s best regular-season team but struggling hard at the moment.

Let the Kraken be an inspiration to the suddenly last-place Jets. Seattle dropped 10 of 11 and are now third in the Pacific.

Seattle has 40 games left. The latest into a season the Kraken have led their division was Feb. 6, 2023, with 33 games remaining, right before their lone playoff run. They ultimately landed in a wild-card spot that season.

The highlight of the first two periods was during intermission when Kraken mascot Buoy, dressed as a disco ball, rappelled from the rafters in honor of Pride Night.

Minnesota’s Ryan Hartman scored the first goal five minutes into the game. With 6-foot-7 defenseman Jamie Oleksiak accidentally providing the largest screen the Kraken can offer an opponent, Grubauer probably couldn’t see the shot, which glanced in off his glove.

The Kraken were caught watching the Wild’s second goal, scored by Brock Faber abut 11 minutes later. It was a good, honest, top-shelf shot that cleanly beat Grubauer.

Grubauer had allowed a single goal in each of his past four starts, all Kraken victories. Having allowed two in the first period alone, he scrambled to keep the damage there. His teammates left Zuccarello alone on his doorstep and Grubauer lunged on the shot to prevent a rebound. He then had to hustle back into position after he passed the puck along the boards to Dunn and Dunn promptly turned it over. Seattle survived both sequences.

The Kraken will head out on a five-game road trip, still working their second-longest point streak in franchise history. The longest was 13 games, which stretched from Dec. 12, 2023 to Jan. 13, 2024.