Kraken Defense Unravels in Sunrise as Panthers Win 8-3

Every road trip reaches a point where the team just wants its own bed back, even with a few games still on the itinerary. On Saturday night at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Florida, the Seattle Kraken looked like a group that had already packed their bags. The Panthers won 8-3, and the game got away from Seattle in a hurry.

A five-minute stretch that decided it

Sam Bennett opened the scoring at 1:05 of the first, batting a puck out of the air. Shane Wright, with his third of the season, tied it midway through the period. Then the wheels came off. Ryker Evans took a delay-of-game penalty, and Adam Larsson followed with a high-sticking call. Florida's power play made Seattle pay, and Carter Verhaeghe scored twice before the first ended, with the Panthers up 3-1.

Head coach Lane Lambert didn't dress it up. "There was a stretch of five minutes that turned the game on the wrong side," he said. "We have certain situations that we have protocols for. Didn't do a good enough job of executing and that's what happens when you're playing against a good hockey team like that. They have a tendency to take advantage of situations when you make mistakes."

That's the part that worries me most. Penalty trouble is one thing, but Seattle's problem was what happened after the whistle. Florida is a team that punishes any hesitation, and the Kraken handed over the open ice and the open shooting lanes on a plate. Lambert's read on it was accurate: give this group an inch and it takes the mile.

Two hat tricks and a franchise first

From there, the night belonged to the Panthers. Verhaeghe and Bennett each finished with hat tricks, marking the first time in team history that two players on the same side managed that in one game. It also extended a remarkable run for Florida. The Panthers have now had a player record a natural hat trick in three straight games, the first time that has happened in league history. A natural hat trick means three consecutive goals, which don't have to come in the same period. Verhaeghe's third of the night made it 4-1, and Florida pushed the margin to 5-1 before the game was done.

Those numbers are impressive from Florida's side. For Seattle, they're a reminder of how many chances the Panthers got to cash in on turnovers and loose pucks in the middle of the ice.

Getting outmatched by better teams

Don't let last season fool you into thinking Florida is a fading power. The Panthers still have the core that won back-to-back Stanley Cups. Seattle's four losses so far have come against Edmonton, Vegas, Tampa Bay and Florida, and each of those teams has either won the Cup or reached the Final in the 2020s. Those are model organizations, and they're the teams the Kraken need to measure themselves against.

The road trip showed real progress in places. Still, a game like this one shows how far Seattle has to go before it's talked about as a serious contender. Vegas and Florida exposed the same gaps: slow reactions in the neutral zone and too many players caught watching instead of defending.

"We got beat in every area tonight," Lambert said. "You ask me what I needed to see, a lot more of everything."

The Panthers spent most of the night stopping Seattle's rush chances before they could develop. Florida's forwards halted progress at the blue line and used active sticks to get into passing and shooting lanes. Kraken forward Shane Wright saw the same thing from the inside. "The last two teams [were] some of the best teams in the league," he said. "The level we want to get to and need to get to, that's kind of the pace, speed, and intensity that we need to get to. We've shown that we can play with those teams, just got to do that [on a] consistent basis."

That last line is the one to watch. Seattle has shown it can compete with strong opponents for stretches. The gap is consistency, and it has to show up in the first period as much as the third.

Puck watching and a line that struggled

Florida has a lineup full of pure shooters, and they make defensive units pay for any lapse in positioning. The Panthers won battles along the boards and in front of the net, then cashed in with goals from long range. Seattle's defensemen were often a step late, and the forwards didn't help by getting pulled out of position.

It's hard to pin a blowout on one player, but the second line of Jordan Eberle, Chandler Stephenson and Bobby McMann was clearly the worst unit on the ice. Together they finished the game at minus-14. Facing Bennett, Verhaeghe and the Tkachuk brothers, Matthew and Brady, is never easy. Still, the line made the night harder than it had to be. Tough matchups don't excuse a group that gets buried in its own zone.

Joey Daccord was one of the few bright spots in the net. He stopped 29 of 37 shots, and it was his second straight strong showing in a row, with two blowup starts across his last three appearances. Goaltending alone couldn't keep up with a team that generated quality chances as efficiently as Florida did.

Seven points from a trip that could have gone worse

The Kraken wanted a better finish, and they didn't get one. Still, the trip itself was a win. Seattle finished 3-1-1, earning seven of a possible 10 points on its first long road swing of the season. That matters because the Kraken won just one regulation game in 2025-26 when visiting Eastern Conference venues. They've already matched that total with three wins on this trip alone.

Consider what a fan would have said at the start of October if you'd told them Seattle would go 3-1-1 and come out of it in reasonable shape, even with Brandon Montour out injured. Most would have taken it without hesitation. Here's the thing, though: the bar for the Kraken is rising. Beating weaker opponents is expected. The real test is what they do against the top teams, and Saturday was a reminder of how much work that requires.

"I mean it's seven out of 10 points so not everything's bad news," Wright said. "Obviously it sucks to end that way but I think overall as the whole, the road trip was good for us."

The Kraken now fly more than 2,000 miles home and start a stretch of seven games in eight at Climate Pledge Arena, opening with the Utah Mammoth on Tuesday night. That's a chance to turn the lessons from Florida into habits at home. The early-period discipline and the second-line play are the first things I'd want to see fixed.