The Kraken played the first of back-to-back road games Tuesday night, this time in Calgary. It marked the first opportunity for goalies Philipp Grubauer and Matt Murray to make a case for being in uniform on the Oct. 9 opening night of the 2025-26 regular season. The night ended in a 4-1 victory for Calgary, following an empty net goal to seal it late third period, and no conclusive advantage to either Seattle goaltender.
Both veterans played half the game with Grubauer facing three Flames power plays in the first 30 minutes and making 17 saves on 19 shots on goal. Murray stopped all seven shots he faced in the back half of Period 2 but allowed an early third period score by young forward Matt Coronato, who tallied 24 goals last season.
Kraken defenseman Cale Fleury got tripped up with Murray sliding over toward Coronato after a cross-ice pass from CGY center Morgan Frost. Murray fell forward, not leaving much position to stop the puck. The two-time Stanley Cup winner in 2016 and 2017 is looking to return to form after a double-hip surgery wiped out most of his 2023-24 season.
Murray kept his score sheet clean after the first-minute goal in the final frame.
The Kraken managed just 14 shots on goal by mid-third period and finished with 20 for the game, not providing much offense to counter Calgary. An early-game Seattle power play and mid-third period man-advantage didn’t yield much production, and, in fact, Murray faced the most dangerous scoring attempt on the later power play.
“I thought both of our goaltenders faced difficult shots. [Calgary] spent a lot of time in our zone, and our goalies were on call, that’s for sure,” said head coach Lane Lambert postgame. “I thought both of them played pretty well and made saves.”
Kraken Falter on Puck Battles
Lambert didn’t like his team’s work on puck battle and overall pace.
“When you lose that many puck battles, you spend a lot of time in your zone,” said Lambert. “When we did get the puck, we weren’t making many plays with it. Just not a good game overall. We have a lot of things to improve on … I thought we played slow through the neutral and in getting pucks back [from the Flames]. Just kind of doing things we haven’t talked about and not enough of what we have talked about.