Seattle Kraken coach Lane Lambert tried to temper expectations before Bobby McMann’s long-awaited debut.
“Obviously he’s a good player. But he’s not coming in to be the savior,” Lambert said before Saturday’s game in Vancouver. “We have to all step up to the plate.”
McMann, acquired at the March 6 NHL trade deadline from Toronto, scored two goals and added an assist in a 5-2 victory that snapped Seattle’s four-game losing streak. The win kept the Kraken a point behind San Jose in the chase for the Western Conference’s second and final wild-card playoff spot.
McCann is set to make his home debut Sunday when the Kraken play the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers.
Visa issues forced McMann to miss three games since his trade to Seattle. His paperwork finally was completed Friday.
“It’s really hard coming to a new team. You want to make a impact right away and then with the whole visa thing it was just playing the waiting game,” McMann told the Kraken Hockey Network in a postgame interview Saturday. “The guys were giving it to me a little bit. I tried to be ready whenever it came and luckily it was a good one tonight for us.”
Lambert was familiar with McMann after having served as an assistant with the Maple Leafs last season.
He inserted McMann on the left wing on the Kraken’s top line, alongside Matty Beniers and captain Jordan Eberle, and moved Jared McCann, the franchise’s career scoring leader, down to the second line.
The move paid off in multiple ways.
McCann opened the scoring, snapping a 10-game goalless drought.
After the Canucks tied it, McMann scored on the power play at 19:10 of the first period to put Seattle in front for good.
McMann’s second, a tip-in at 4:14 of the third off a pass from Eberle, was his 21st goal of the season, surpassing his career high set in 2024-25.
Beniers scored and set up two goals and Eberle added three assists, giving the top line a combined nine points.
“There’s sometimes no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes you just need a little reset,” Beniers said. “And I think that kind of refreshes the whole team, too.”
The injury-riddled Panthers are 11 points out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with 17 games remaining in the regular season and need to pass five teams to make the postseason.
The Panthers have won three in a row, the last a 2-1 overtime decision against visiting Columbus on Thursday as Sam Reinhart scored the winner and had an assist.
“This is not what we expect. It’s certainly tough to be this far out at this time of the year,” Reinhart said. “But it says a lot about us that we’re able to hang in there and rattle off a few.”
Defenseman Mike Benning, making his NHL debut, got an assist on Reinhart’s winner. Benning’s father, Brian, played on the Panthers in 1993-94 and traveled from his home in Edmonton to be in attendance for his son’s inaugural game.
