Kraken head coach Lane Lambert looking to make the most of 2nd shot leading NHL franchise

SEATTLE — It would non be hard for an looker-on at a Seattle Kraken preseason exercise to registry Lane Lambert’s booming voice.

Yet the new Kraken head coach, who was hired in May to replace Dan Bylsma, is anything but a drill sergeant. Just a few weeks into playing under Lambert, center Matty Beniers would describe him as a straight-shooter, but not somebody who seeks to call out his players for mistakes.

“It’s, ‘Hey, we all got to learn from this. It’s not one guy, it’s the team,’” Beniers said. “And I love it. He’s got a lot of dedication to being a really good team, and being a good team together.”

The Kraken front office, which underwent a bit of a shakeup this offseason, sure hopes for that from the 60-year-old Lambert. He is in his second go-around as a head coach, and will be Seattle’s third in its five years of existence.

In May 2022, he was promoted to head coach of the Islanders following the firing of Barry Trotz, a longtime mentor of Lambert’s. They coached together for 12 years, and won the only Stanley Cup in franchise history for the Washington Capitals in 2018.

“We’ve kind of joked that we were able to finish each other’s sentences, we knew exactly what each other was thinking,” Lambert recalled. “So, his influence on me was tremendous, and just the type of person that he is and the way you handle situations and treat people was really an impressive experience for me.”

Lambert is certainly capable of getting his teams to be difficult to play against, as evidenced by his tenure with the New York Islanders. In the 2022-23 season, for instance, the Islanders deployed a top-10 penalty kill and allowed the fifth-fewest goals in the league that year en route to a playoff appearance.

Amid a lackluster start to the 2023-24 campaign, Lambert was fired in favor of Hall of Fame goaltender Patrick Roy, who remains at the helm for New York. Lambert looks back at his time on Long Island pleased with some aspects of his coaching, while also recognizing there was room for improvement.

Now in his second stint as an NHL head coach, Lambert is focused on doing right by everybody in the organization – and that doesn’t just mean the players he coaches.

“That was one thing that I really sat back ,” Lambert said. “You can talk all you want about X’s and O’s, and systems and strategies, and we all have very similar ones. But, it’s ‘How do you communicate?’ and ‘How do you have your players all feel important?’ And, it’s that relationship and that communication with them that cultivates that.”

The group that Lambert will seek to cultivate those kinds of relationships with is a bit of a mixed bag. Beniers is one of four 20-goal scorers returning from last year’s squad, and the Kraken added a fifth in Mason Marchment, who they acquired from the Dallas Stars for two draft picks.

However, Seattle doesn’t have much by way of proven talent on the blue line, which could very well make life difficult for goalie Joey Daccord. Regardless, Lambert is eager to embrace the challenge at hand of elevating the play of a team that finished in seventh in the Pacific Division last year.

Whether it be acclimating Seattle, working alongside his coaching staff or learning more about his players, it’s been a positive experience on the whole so far living in the Emerald City for Lambert. Next week in the opener against Anaheim, he will learn if his efforts to communicate with his squad are the beginning of a fruitful partnership.

“When you try and lay a foundation, when you try and build and grow an identity, it doesn’t work if they’re not receptive to it,” Lambert said. “Right from day one, these guys have been fantastic to work with. Each and every one of them.”

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