Maybe it hasn’t quite gone as well as we hoped it would for the Seattle Kraken in their first year. They are not the 2017-18 Vegas Golden Knights—not even close, in fact—and it does look like there is at least a couple-year process that will need to be endured before Seattle can actually ice a contending team. We begrudgingly accept this reality now.
Compared with the lead-up to the season, there is now a lot more clarity about what the organization does and does not have in its grasp. With the All-Star break coming to a close for the Seattle Kraken and the rest of the NHL, this feels like a good time to take stock.
What the Seattle Kraken have
Goaltending
We know, we know! Put down your pitchforks and your torches, folks. We are fully aware that this position has been a massive concern and one of the primary reasons for the team’s struggles this season. But both Philipp Grubauer and Chris Driedger appear to have turned a corner after a miserable first few months.
Coming in, we expected the goal crease to be a strength for this team, and we still think this will be the case in the longer term. A relatively small sample size of improved play from both netminders over the last month has reinforced this belief, and the team has followed suit by playing well in front of its goalies.
Even if they haven’t turned a corner and regress to playing the way they were both playing earlier in the campaign, Seattle’s top two netminders are signed to significant deals, so this position feels relatively set. Grubauer is under contract through 2026-27 with an average annual cap hit of $5.9 million, while Driedger is signed through 2023-24 at $3.5 million per year.
Grubauer also has a no-trade clause for the first three years and a modified NTC for the next three, so he’s not going anywhere any time soon. Driedger has a modified NTC throughout his deal, so he too has some control over where he can theoretically be traded.
Joey Daccord’s waiver exemption runs out after this season. (Photo/Brian Liesse)
We expect that these are the two goalies for this team for the foreseeable future, but there is one wrinkle to consider. Joey Daccord has played well in the AHL and has filled in admirably on a couple of occasions at the NHL level. He’s been a nice insurance policy, because he is currently waiver exempt and can be shuttled back and forth between the Kraken and the Charlotte Checkers without fear of losing him to another NHL club.
The problem is that Daccord’s waiver exemption runs out after this season. So, he will have to pass through waivers if Seattle tries to put him in the AHL at any point during the 2022-23 season. Does general manager Ron Francis want to get ahead of that issue and try to get a return for Daccord? Or does Seattle think Daccord is ready to serve as a cheaper backup to Grubauer next season? If so, maybe Driedger is the guy that gets moved. Either way, put a pin in this one, because it is something that may need addressing by the front office.
A core of solid (but not dazzling) players
The foundation is there for the Kraken. They have a group of players that does things the right way, doesn’t cheat, and battles every night, despite Seattle’s firm footing in last place in the Pacific Division.
Since the early-January break due to COVID issues, the identity of the club has revealed itself, and now Seattle is playing the way we expected from the beginning. The group makes the opposition fight for every inch of ice and is in every game, win or lose.
Jared McCann has already tied his career high for goals. (Photo/Brian Liesse)
There are also forwards that can produce. Jared McCann has proven that he can put the puck in the net consistently and deserves a nice raise, while Jaden Schwartz and Jordan Eberle have pitched in for stretches. The Kraken have gotten contributions from guys like Yanni Gourde, Brandon Tanev, Ryan Donato, and Calle Jarnkrok as well.
Worth noting, Donato (restricted free agent) and Jarnkrok (unrestricted free agent) are on expiring contracts, so whether they remain Kraken beyond 2021-22 is yet to be determined.
Also worth noting, we really like this group of forwards, but if they could play in lower roles, they would each bring Seattle even more value. We’ll talk more about that in a bit.
Defensive depth
Like goaltending, the Kraken entered the season expecting to have a practically impermeable blue line. It was downright leaky in the early going, though, with turnover after turnover ending up in the back of Seattle’s net.
But recent returns have been far more favorable, with Wednesday’s 3-0 shutout of the New York Islanders serving as a prime example. That night, there was almost nothing getting through to Grubauer that created much danger, and odd-man rushes were almost non-existent for New York. Of course, the Isles are a defensive team that has struggled mightily this season, but still, it was a solid defensive effort by the whole group.
In the first three months of the season, the Kraken owned just 47.53 percent of the expected goals for (xGF), meaning they were giving up more defensively than they were generating offensively. They were 24th in the league in this category during that period. Since the early-January break, however, they have generated 52.46 percent of the xGF, good for 13th in the league over that stretch.
From a personnel standpoint, the season-long rotation on the bottom pair, featuring Haydn Fleury, Will Borgen, Jeremy Lauzon, and—to a lesser extent—Carson Soucy has made for interesting storylines about who will and will not be in the lineup each game. Up until this last week, it had also meant that even as injuries and illnesses popped up for the Kraken, they hadn’t needed to look to the AHL for defensive stopgaps.
With Jamie Oleksiak, Soucy, and Borgen all out at the same time, Cale Fleury was the first AHL defenseman recalled and performed admirably alongside his brother in two games for the Kraken. The fact it took 44 games for the Kraken to use an AHL defenseman does speak to the team’s depth in that spot.
Again, one month of positive play is a relatively small sample size. It’s also possible that Mark Giordano gets moved prior to the trade deadline, which would put a serious dent in the blue line. Still, the xGF stat is a promising indicator that the early struggles were fixable and not necessarily a matter of personnel. With all that in mind, we maintain that the Kraken do, in fact, have defensive depth.
What the Seattle Kraken need
Top-end skill
Don’t get us wrong, we love the trio of Eberle, Schwartz, and McCann, and we’re hopeful that McCann’s contract extension will be a long one. But what if Schwartz and Eberle were wings on Seattle’s second line, with McCann skating on the top group with some combination of players that features Johnny Gaudreau, Filip Forsberg, and/or Tomas Hertl?
Filip Forsberg is expected to be an unrestricted free agent after this season. (Photo/Brian Liesse)
Even one of those players would change the whole makeup of Seattle’s forward lineup and give Eberle and/or Schwartz more favorable matchups, while pushing players better suited for depth and checking roles into those positions.
We know, free agency is scary, and getting one (or two?) of the best unrestricted free agents on the market is both risky and costly. But Seattle has a lot going for it, from the cap space to the sparkling new facilities, so luring top talent is a legitimate possibility.
Recognizing the risks, landing a top free agent or two this offseason would be the fastest way to jumpstart this organization on its path to contention.
Organizational depth
The times that Seattle has had to call up help from the AHL this season have revealed just how shallow its current pool of players is. This should marginally improve next season, as the Kraken will have their own AHL affiliate with the inception of the Coachella Valley Firebirds. They’re likely going to have to sign a bunch of career AHLers and tweeners to fill out the inaugural roster, though, as they still won’t have much of a prospect cupboard from which to draw.
Building real organizational depth will take several years of drafting and developing players.
That brings us to the next obvious need for Seattle…
A prospect pool
Ryker Evans had an outstanding training camp for the Kraken. (Photo/Brian Liesse)
Seattle’s top-three picks in the 2021 NHL Entry Draft are all looking like good choices, based on early returns.
Matty Beniers is having another excellent season at Michigan with 36 points in 28 games and is now in China to compete in the Olympics.
Ryker Evans had a great training camp with the Kraken and has 43 points in 39 games on the blue line for the Regina Pats of the WHL. He scored a banger on Sunday, by the way.
Ryan Winterton has returned from a long injury hiatus and has 16 points in just eight games for the OHL’s Hamilton Bulldogs.
So, there are some players there, but three guys under 20 years old is not a prospect pool. Getting another lottery pick in the 2022 draft would certainly help, but it may behoove the organization to acquire some young, waiver-exempt prospects that are further along in the development process.
The Kraken are in a decent spot
While there are some glaring holes in the existing NHL roster and throughout the organization, Seattle has done a good job of building a foundation for the future. There’s plenty of salary cap flexibility, and the current group is creating an identity as a team that is hard to play against and skates with every team in the NHL.
Sure, some more wins would be nice, but at this point, the best-case scenario for this inaugural season is to win enough to keep the fans interested down the stretch, while also losing enough to stay in contention for a top-three pick in the 2022 draft.
Regardless of if Seattle lands another top pick, there is a pathway to success in the relative near future for this fledgling franchise.
With the All-Star break upon us, we thought it would be a good time to check in on NHL attendance numbers across the league.
There are a few preconditions we need to call out before we start digging in.
The 2020-21 NHL season started with no fans, as it began in the middle of the pandemic and before vaccines were readily available. For that reason, we will be comparing the 2021-22 NHL attendance numbers to 2019-20 games.
In late December, 2021, the provincial governments in Canada put restrictions on large gatherings, and this included NHL games. The league also postponed several Canadian games to get through this Omicron wave. Games in Canada would eventually start up again with limited to no capacity, depending on the location. We have excluded limited-capacity games in certain visuals to illustrate a better comparable.
Average NHL Attendance by Season
The drop from 17,157 in 2019-20 to 15,780 in 2021-22 should not be surprising, as the pandemic is still surely impacting the willingness of fans to attend sporting events. We should also point out that the 15,780 includes reduced attendance figures from Canadian games in January.
Here is a look at a game-by-game moving average:
You can see the impact of the reduced capacity games over the last month with the drop in the most recent 50 games.
Here is how it looks with excluding the reduced capacity games.
Even with the reduced capacity games excluded from the data, the NHL attendance numbers are still off from 2019-20. This is mostly driven from the Omicron variant raging through North America and giving many fans pause.
Team-by-team changes
The one bright spot in the team-by-team attendance figures is the New York Islanders. They opened UBS Arena this season, and the impact to their attendance is significant with a 36 percent boost compared to the 2019-20 season. In 2019-20 the Islanders split time between Barclays Center and NYCB Live/Nassau Coliseum, both of which had limited capacity and a less than ideal fan experience.
On the other side of the equation, the Sabres are down 50 percent compared to the 2019-20 season. There are plenty of reasons for the drop: team performance, the Jack Eichel situation, and the challenges for fans to cross the Canadian/US border for hockey fans living near Buffalo but in Canada.
Anaheim and San Jose are outperforming their 2019-20 performance and preseason expectation on the ice, but the fans are not turning out. It is common when teams fail to make the playoffs in multiple seasons that it takes a few seasons for fans to start filling up arenas again.
Here is a look at teams by game number of the season.
Outlook
Even with some encouraging news surfacing around COVID-19 case data, it is unrealistic to expect the numbers to turn around this season while the pandemic is still a thing. Best case scenario is that the league can start the Stanley Cup playoffs with full capacity in every building.
The boys are back in BarrDown Studios for Episode 173 of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast, recording fresh off Philipp Grubauer pitching the first shutout in the history of the Kraken. Seattle had a decent road trip in general, and John, Andy, and Darren have full analysis of what went right and what went wrong.
They then move into general NHL news, including the All-Star Game and its festivities, the latest PR catastrophy for the Chicago Blackhawks, the Coyotes playing at the ASU arena next year, and Evander Kane becoming an Edmonton Oiler.
After all that, they move into segments, which this week include Goalie Gear Corner, You Don’t See That Every Day, Bad Boys, and Weekly One-Timers.
He did it! Philipp Grubauer accomplished what once seemed even more impossible than Joonas Donskoi scoring a goal for the Kraken by shutting out the New York Islanders on Wednesday for the first clean sheet in franchise history. And so, the Kraken proved on this four-game road trip that there is a first time for literally everything.
It was a tight-checking affair between two defense-first hockey teams, so Grubauer was not tested all that much. Still, considering how the early parts of this season went for the German Gentleman, it was nice for him and for Kraken fans that he continued his strong play and held the Islanders scoreless.
It was such a big deal that he got the shutout, even ESPN’s SportsCenter congratulated him via Twitter.
Congrats, Grubi! Now here's a photo of Chris Driedger to help you celebrate. https://t.co/GBtSLKZJ8K
Here are our Three Takeaways from a 3-0 Kraken win over the Islanders.
Takeaway #1: A result for Grubauer, but an impressive defensive effort in front of him
It was awesome to see Grubauer get the first shutout out of the way, but really this win belonged to the defense in front of him. The Kraken had excellent structure throughout and only allowed 1.51 expected goals, while generating 3.1 themselves. There were very few odd-man rushes against, and only 19 shots actually got through to Grubauer.
“Great, great game from everybody,” Grubauer said. “I don’t think they had too many great chances. When you compare this game to other games we’ve played, [there were] breakaways, two-on-one’s. Today was the least scoring chances we’ve given up in a long, long time. So without the guys in front of me, there’s no chance you can [get the shutout].”
Grubauer has been really good since a lengthy COVID-related break in early January and deserved this reward. In his last seven starts he is 5-2-0 with a .922 save percentage and 2.14 goals against average.
Takeaway #2: Vince Dunn has entered the chat
Jared McCann’s goal streak was snapped Tuesday in Boston, after he scored in three consecutive games before that 3-2 loss. In that defeat, he had a golden opportunity to tie the score in the closing minutes and extend his streak, but he shanked a shot from an angle with a wide-open net.
On Wednesday, he got a look from an even sharper angle after Jordan Eberle performed some sorcery behind the net and got Semyon Varlamov looking the wrong way. McCann banked it off Varlamov for his fourth goal in five games.
That eventual game winner was McCann’s 19th goal of the season, tying his career high for an entire campaign with a whopping 36 games left to play. How many can he score as he prepares to negotiate for a contract extension?
Vince Dunn stole the show from McCann on Wednesday, though, burying an absolute beauty of a backhander. The shot was nice, but it was the little dipsy-doodle backhand toe drag around Anders Lee that got John Forslund to shout, “That’s hockey, baby!”
What a goal by Dunn, who is so shifty on the back end. We’re excited for his future with the Kraken.
Takeaway #3: The road trip was better than Seattle’s record indicated
We’ve thought for a long time that the Kraken are a better team than their record shows. This road trip was a great example of that. They played really good hockey on this east coast swing with consistent efforts all the way through. They beat an outstanding Pittsburgh team, were tied in the last minute with the Rangers, gave up a fluky power-play goal and went 0-for-6 themselves against Boston, and were the better team for most of the night against the Islanders.
In all, that’s a 2-2-0 record after going 3-3-0 on the homestand prior to this trip. So, it’s not the most inspiring outcome, but the boys really did play well and probably deserved better in terms of standings points than what they actually brought home.
“At this time of year, these are the kinds of games that everybody’s going to be involved in,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “You know, really, we had four in a row on this road trip. We knew that was the kind of road trip it was going to be. For the guys, it’s a good reward.”
“It started after that little COVID break we had,” Grubauer added. “We had time to work on some stuff systematically. We worked on a lot of things, which—game, day off, game, day off—you don’t usually have time to work on. So I think since that game it’s been really consistent.”
A win to close out this stretch does feel nice, and now Seattle slides into the All-Star break feeling good about the way it’s playing.
The Kraken get another week off to clear their heads and hopefully hit the ground running when they return to Climate Pledge Arena on Wednesday.
The Seattle Kraken fell 3-2 to the Boston Bruins Tuesday at TD Garden in a game that was the tale of two power play units. One was Seattle’s that ended the game 0-for-6 while the Bruins cashed in twice giving them the edge in a one-goal game.
David Pastrnak scored both the goals on the Bruins (26-14-3) power play, which is one of the best in the NHL and Linus Ullmark made 25 saves.
Joonas Donskoi scored his first of the year, Mason Appleton scored, and Chris Driedger returned to the net and kicked out 23 shots. The Kraken (14-27-4) outshot Boston 27-26.
“It’s a relief,” Donskoi said about finally scoring. “It’s been obviously a tough year and mentally it’s not easy. Nothing’s going your way and we’re losing a lot of games and I just want to help the team, and I feel like I haven’t been able to do a lot of that this year. So, it was nice to get that out of the way, but another one-goal loss, tight game… it’s frustrating.”
Seattle had six power-play chances but failed on all of them. That included a short, 38-second 5-on-3 opportunity in the second period, and overall, the Kraken managed eight shots with the man advantage.
“It was a tight game, five on five, and comes down to special teams,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “We had some opportunities on the power play that could change that. In terms of scoring earlier in the game, we weren’t able to do that.”
The loss dampened what had been a good comeback by Seattle.
Trailing 2-0 entering the third period, Donskoi cut the lead with a wrist shot through traffic 42 seconds into the period. Seattle rode that momentum and Appleton scored his fourth of the year at 7:30 of the period when he fired a loose puck through traffic to make it 2-2.
Pastrnak got the game winner on the power play at 10:49 of the third when his innocent looking shot was going wide before it hit Driedger’s glove and rebounded into the goal to make it 3-2.
“I’m just not really happy with the third I let in there, it’s pretty deflating,” Driedger said. “That one’s on me. Especially when we come back to tie in the third like that, and you know obviously, we want to get that third one.
“I honestly thought he was passing it back door there. Puck was lying up on its edge a little bit so I’m not sure if he was trying to [pass]… but whenever it hits off your glove and kind of flows back I’m never really happy with those. Obviously, he’s an elite player but there’s a lot of elite players in this league and you’ve got to stop them if you want to be good yourself.”
The Kraken had looks during a desperate 6-on-5 stretch late in the third, but Jared McCann rushed a shot where it appeared he had a wide-open net to shoot at.
Bruins goals forced Kraken to chase game
Boston got on the board first with a Pastrnak one-time clapper from the circle. It came on a Bruins power play after they worked the puck low to high and Taylor Hall spotted Pastrnak open.
Seattle fumbled the puck away at 16:09 when Cale Fleury and Riley Sheahan suffered a miscommunication and left the puck in front of their own goal. Hall cleaned it up and scored to make it 2-0.
Kraken’s offensive woes continue
It doesn’t help that they’re missing Jaden Schwartz and Brandon Tanev, but the Kraken are not scoring enough. It’s not just the power play, they aren’t scoring at 5-on-5 either and have scored two or fewer goals in the last three games.
The lack of scoring cost them in New York and Tuesday in Boston.
To add to the misery, Seattle’s power play is mired in a 3-for-38 slide over its past 10 games.
“They did a real good job killing,” Hakstol said. “We couldn’t find shooting lanes. Several shots blocked and on a couple of our good opportunities on the power play we missed by a couple inches. We’ve got to try to take advantage of those opportunities.”
Tentacle Tales
+ Cale Fleury came off the taxi squad and started Tuesday. He played on a defensive pairing with his brother Haydn to become the third pair of brothers to play on the same team this season joining Chicago’s Caleb and Seth Jones and Tampa’s Darren and Taylor Raddysh.
+ Defenseman Will Borgen was placed in the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol Tuesday morning.
+ Forward Calle Jarnkrok returned to the lineup Tuesday after missing Sunday’s 3-2 loss to the New York Rangers.
+ Seattle wraps up its road trip Wednesday evening against the New York Islanders at 4 PM, Pacific.
