It’s Clear What Kraken Need to Do at Goalie Moving Forward

The Seattle Kraken have had essentially the same two goalies for most of their five-plus year existence as a franchise. Seattle’s first big free agent signing before their inaugural season kicked off in 2021 was signing goaltender Philipp Grubauer to a six-year, $35.4 million contract. Joey Daccord came to Seattle via the expansion draft from Ottawa.

Grubauer has logged 194 games and Daccord 169 games in their Seattle careers. No other goalie has more than 48 appearances in Kraken history (Martin Jones, all in 2023).

Grubauer, for better and worse, was Seattle’s top goalie for the first three seasons. However, in 2023-24, Daccord began chipping away at Grubauer’s stranglehold on the starting job. The Arizona State product’s “coming out party” came in the 2024 Winter Classic on New Year’s Day at T-Mobile Park. Seattle beat the Vegas Golden Knights 3-0 in the franchise’s first outdoor game with a national audience. Daccord was between the pipes and shut the defending Stanley Cup champions out.

Naturally, that earned him a long leash as the new starter. Daccord ended up logging more minutes than Grubauer when the season finished. Hedoubled the amount of starts Grubauer received in 2024-25. Then, in 2025-26, Grubauer experienced something of a resurgence. In more of a reserve role, Grubauer stayed fresh and out-performed Daccord over the season.

With that note, coming into 2026-27, there were questions at goalie. Daccord, being younger and under contract longer, was the assumed starter. Yet, through 10 team games, it’s clear who the starting goalie needs to be for the foreseeable future, and it’s not Daccord.

Diving into the numbers, Grubauer has vastly outplayed Daccord between the pipes thus far this season.

Grubauer has a higher save percentage, allowing less goals per gam and saving more goals above expected than Daccord. Daccord's 3.89 goals against per game average ranks 49th out of 56 qualified goalies this season.

Head coach Lane Lambert has played it fairly close to the vest regarding where he views each of his goaltenders. Notably, he left Daccord in for the entire game during the 8-3 slaughtering at the hands of the Panthers.

But that might have said more about how Lambert views Grubauer and not wanting to put him in harm's way.

It seems like Lambert is handling this as a "hot hand" situation. Whichever goalie is playing better will get the start. Right now, there is no question which goaltender that is. The 34-year-old German veteran Grubauer has earned that distinction until further notice.