Kraken can't hold early lead in road loss to Mammoth

Kate Shefte, The Seattle Times on Dec 13, 2025

Published in Hockey

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Mason Marchment doubled his season goal total, but the Seattle Kraken dropped a 5-3 game in Utah.

Marchment, a 2025 offseason pickup, opened the scoring early in Friday’s second period. He accepted a pass from Freddy Gaudreau and split the Mammoth defenders, going straight to the net and putting a backhander on net.

Marchment had a hand in three of Friday’s goals. The Kraken winger tried settling down the puck in the Mammoth zone and Utah’s Nick Schmaltz pickpocketed him, knocking it right off his stick. Schmaltz took off down the ice on a breakaway with Marchment trailing and went high on Seattle goalie Philipp Grubauer to tie the game at 1.

The Kraken lost some steam after that, and the Mammoth had the upper hand the rest of the period. Former Kraken Kailer Yamamoto scored the go-ahead goal for the Mammoth after a wild sequence. The goal was celebrated, overturned, then overturned again on a challenge from the Utah bench.

The puck flew around the Kraken net before Yamamoto found and deposited a rebound. The initial ruling was the goal shouldn’t count because of goaltender interference. Utah took a gamble, positing that they did not prevent Grubauer from doing his job, and a review confirmed the hosts’ take. If anyone, it was Kraken defenseman Vince Dunn who backed into Grubauer and kept the goalie from being able to move freely.

Yamamoto is a Spokane native and the only Washingtonian to ever suit up for the Kraken. He has scored in each of the games he’s appeared in against the Kraken since the team let him hit free agency following the 2023-24 season. He wasn’t in the lineup during the two games at Climate Pledge Arena last season, but he was part of a 7-1 Utah shellacking in April.

Trailing by one, the Kraken had 1:42 of 5-on-3 early in the third period, extended by a strategic timeout from the Seattle bench. Utah goaltender Karel Vejmelka willed his team through it. But almost as soon as the power play expired, Marchment tucked his second of the night just inside the near goalpost.

Another Mammoth player with local ties, former Seattle Thunderbird Dylan Guenther, answered with a power-play goal five minutes later.

The Kraken power play, which struck three times Wednesday against the L.A. Kings, had another chance at glory with about four and a half minutes left in regulation. Seattle failed to tie the game.

Grubauer (26 saves) was summoned to the bench for the extra attacker with 2:30 left in the third but the Mammoth quickly scored an empty-netter. They added another, and a close game was about to be saddled with a lopsided score.

Seattle’s Ben Meyers scored with 43 seconds left before the final horn. It was his first goal in 19 games with the Kraken, spread across two seasons. He’s filled in when the Kraken are battling injuries, but spends most of his time with the Coachella Valley Firebirds of the American Hockey League.

Vejmelka was occasionally stellar in a 32-save performance for Utah. The Kraken (12-11-6) dropped their sixth regulation game in seven tries.

They split their so-called “dad trip” 1-1. A suite full of the fathers and mentors of the Kraken players and staff members looked on Wednesday as the Kraken defeated the Kings in overtime, and Friday as Seattle lost to Utah.