If you are losing faith or have lost faith in this Seattle Kraken team, you are not alone, based on what we’ve seen in our Twitter mentions the last few days. Things are not good right now, plain and simple. The Kraken are turning the puck over in terrible spots, they can’t score, and they’ve lost five straight games with three of those losses coming against teams we don’t expect to be in the playoffs at the end of the season.
Seattle’s latest defeat, a 4-2 stinger at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens, was avoidable, but the Kraken had a horrible start and never recovered.
“I mean, it’s four losses, so we probably shouldn’t take too much away from it,” Vince Dunn said. “It’s really unacceptable to come out with nothing… Being close doesn’t cut it, doesn’t win you games. It needs to be complete.”
We’re officially hitting the panic button. Here are our Three Takeaways.
Takeaway #1 (Curtis): Slow starts defined the road trip
Seattle never held a lead at any point during this critical four-game trip. Not only that, the Kraken found themselves trailing in the first period in each and every game. On the first night of the trip in Chicago, Seattle managed to level the score at 2-2 and escape the first period tied, but over the last three games, the team found itself down a goal at the first intermission each time.
“It feels like we do this every time–we’re chasing the game,” Jared McCann said. “We’re all frustrated right now because we know we have better.”
On Monday night, the Kraken didn’t play with enough pace or discipline with the puck to break Montreal’s forechecking pressure effectively early on. Seattle repeatedly turned the puck over and conceded high-danger chances to the Canadiens.
At 4:00 in the first period, Jamie Oleksiak had full possession of the puck behind Philipp Grubauer but was slow to breakout and allowed Jake Evans to close on him, causing a weak turnover to an unguarded Josh Anderson in the right circle. From there, Anderson found Sean Monahan low beside Grubauer for an easy tap-in goal.
“[Montreal] didn’t do anything special. They worked hard,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “We didn’t handle that pressure well enough early in the game.”
McCann was more direct: “The first period was pretty embarrassing.”
For me, the first period effort was reminiscent of the team’s flat start in Toronto. That led me to think that a heavy push could come from the Kraken early in the second period. But that didn’t happen.
Seattle’s sloppy play and parade of turnovers continued for the first 10 minutes of the second period. Before fans could catch their breath, Montreal was up 3-0. That’s too deep of a hole to dig, even against a truly mediocre Habs team.
“Starting from behind, and working and playing from behind, no matter how well you might feel you play in the third period, you can’t pat yourself on the back in any way for that,” Hakstol said. “We came up short in the beginning of this hockey game to match the necessary sharpness and intensity to handle the pressure.”
Said McCann, “We have some veteran guys in this room who [said] something after the first period, [but] we can’t get to that point. We need to come out a lot harder, a lot stronger.”
Takeaway #2 (Darren): Scoring is too hard right now
This iteration of the Seattle Kraken feels more like the inaugural season version than the Year 2 version that practically scored at will and got contributions from every corner of its roster. The 2023-24 Kraken work hard and mostly play within a sound structure, but they have doozy turnovers that end up in the back of their net, while goals at the other end of the ice are too hard to come by to overcome those defensive gaffes.
Struggling to score isn’t something that just recently started for this team, but it has been magnified on this five-game skid. All four of these road games against Chicago, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal have been winnable. But putting the puck in the net has felt like catching lightning in a bottle, while opposing teams just need one screw-up from the Kraken, and they capitalize.
It has been well documented that the Kraken’s shooting percentage was through the roof last season at 11.6 percent, just 0.2 percentage points behind Edmonton for tops in the NHL. This season, Seattle is hovering at 7.46 percent, good for 27th in the league, and its goals for above expected is a shabby -3.48, good for 22nd according to MoneyPuck.
This is a very anecdotal/eye-ball test observation to go with those statistics, but I can’t help wondering if a lack of shooting mentality earlier in the season has led to an overcorrection by Seattle’s players, where now they’re erring on the side of just getting pucks on net.
Shooting more is generally a good thing, and the Kraken have put 72 shots on goal the last two games. But have they now swung the pendulum too far to where they’re sacrificing precision on their shots and perhaps not being selective enough?
Again, this is just what I’ve been seeing, and I don’t have a good stat to back this up, but I’ve felt that too many of Seattle’s shots are right into the opposing goalie’s midsection, where not only does the puck have almost no chance of going in, but also where a rebound is highly unlikely.
From this game, I can remember two well-placed shots, just inside the posts; one by Jared McCann and one by Vince Dunn. And those both went in the net.
Takeaway #3 (Darren): Panic button time
These are officially dire times for this Kraken group, and the players know it. There are several veterans who could be on the trade block in the coming months if things don’t turn around quickly, and every passing loss makes a Trade Deadline fire sale more likely.
“Coming [into Montreal] we had some good confidence, but maybe we need to take a step back and look in the mirror,” McCann said.
If the Kraken want to save their season, something has to change. They’ve been banged up, no doubt, but they can’t keep losing to beatable teams if they want any hope at making the playoffs, which are slipping farther and farther from reality.
Now, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from watching NHL hockey most of my life, it’s that an 82-game season is a LONG season. Teams go through stretches where fans think they will never win again, only for the team to find a win or two, get some good feelings, and suddenly a 10-game heater makes everything feel right in the world.
But I’ve also found there needs to be some sort of catalyst to get things going back in the right direction.
One particular season jumps to mind, but before I tell this tale of campaigns past, note that I’m not implying Seattle should trade for a goalie, because A.) Philipp Grubauer isn’t going anywhere (he played well Monday, by the way, though he still somehow finished the night slightly below a .900 save percentage) and B.) Joey Daccord has generally been solid in his outings.
Ok, here’s the story. As Sound Of Hockey Podcast listeners will know, I grew up a Wild fan, watching almost every game from their inception in 2000 until the arrival of the Kraken. In the 2014-15 season, Minnesota had an awful—and I mean awful—mid-season slump where they lost 12 of 14 games and couldn’t get a save from either Darcy Kuemper or Niklas Backstrom.
In a desperation move, then-GM Chuck Fletcher traded a third-round pick for Devan Dubnyk, who had been backing up Mike Smith in Arizona. Dubnyk came in, won his first game against Buffalo, and the entire Wild organization and fanbase breathed a big sigh of relief. Then Dubnyk caught fire, pulled Minnesota out of the abyss, and the Wild went on to make the playoffs. They even won a playoff round against the St. Louis Blues before getting swept by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks.
Heck, even last season, the Kraken claimed Eeli Tolvanen and put him in the lineup for the first time after three consecutive losses and an 11-game stretch where they went 3-7-1. Tolvanen scored in his first game for Seattle, and the Kraken then went on an eight-game win streak to practically cement themselves as a playoff team.
The point is that sometimes a personnel change is needed to bring a fresh perspective and inject positivity into the dressing room.
Seattle has tried a series of call-ups from Coachella Valley, and that hasn’t worked. Is there a waiver claim out there? Is there a low-risk trade that doesn’t cost the team too much in terms of leveraging the future? I don’t know what the answer is, but I would like to see this club try something to create a spark before it’s too late and the only thing left to do is sell veterans for draft picks.
Worth noting, Andre Burakovsky skated in a regular jersey at Monday’s morning skate, shedding the red non-contact sweater for the first time since suffering his upper-body injury on Oct. 21. Could his impending return be a catalyst for a turnaround?
Bonus Takeaway (Darren)
I really wanted to put this as Takeaway #1 with no words explaining it, but John and Curtis talked me out of it. So, here it is as a Bonus Takeaway.
I’ll show myself out.
Puck handling…
Passing…
Low percentage shooting…
After the 3rd goal, I was ready to watch something else but I left the room to cook dinner and came back to eat it and bam, McCann scored. It started to get interesting then they scored again and it became a real game. I have resigned myself into writing off this season(I hope I eat my words). The reality is that I am a hockey fan. I love good hockey and it was a good hockey game. We lost because we have no back up scoring and bringing guys up will not help when they play so low minutes and can’t get any rhythm going. I get that Haskol is trying to win but M. McCormick 5min 38 seconds. Whats the sense in bringing them up at all. Also, no one is blocking shots as they had 6 tonight and most of those were on the Penalty kill.
You bring up a good point. The Bellemare line is being underutilized, and the extra ice time is wearing out the guys on the other forward lines. Whether they are behind or not, they need to get a more even rotation going if just to give Gourde, Tolvannen, and Bjorkstrand a breather.
This team isn’t tougher or more skilled than the opposition. The way the Kraken win is with speed and using their depth by rolling four lines. Their game is to get up and down the rink fast. The team has stopped skating, stopped scoring, and stopped winning. Except for the Gourde line and Tanev and Kartye, this team is on the skids. Beniers is a limp noodle.
I blame Hakstol for a lack of improvement on the PP and not getting the team fired up to compete. The team looks like they haven’t gelled and they don’t stick up for each other. It’s probably due to the fact they haven’t named a captain. The cap polices the room and sets the tone. Without one, it’s a bunch of individuals doing their own thing.
Here’s the fix from my POV. Season is toast. Sells the vets on expiring contracts (Wennberg, Schultz, Eberle, Megna), make room for competition and start giving the kids in CV some experience. Send Matty down if he doesn’t find his jump. Embrace the suck and get a top six pick to add to whatever you haul in from trades.
Just my opinion.
Completely agree that they should sell the 4 upcoming UFAs you mention plus Bellemare and Driedger for as many picks as possible. Time to shift focus to getting experience for the next generation.
At the deadline, there will be a team desperate for goaltending that can ship a bad contract back to the Kraken. Grubauer should be heading the other way. Sometimes I think they are hoping he gets on a heater, not to get the Kraken into the playoffs, but to create any kind of market for him. Dreidger and Daccord can do no worse. That said, Grubauer played well against Montreal, but nobody is exactly “stealing” a game in net. Great goalies pick up the team every once in a while. They can all make the routine saves.
Trading Grubauer should be on top of the list, after three seasons of sub-.900 goaltending. If they cannot trade him, then they should buy him out in the summer. The cap savings for next season alone is nearly $5m. Move on from this bad contract.
A buyout afterthis season drops his hit to under $1m next season… but then it’s $$2m+ the next… $3m+ the next… and then THREE MORE YEARS of almost $2m.
If they’re going to buy him out it would have to be at the end of next season. He’s not that bad – not like season one – he’s just not good.
Grubauer stinks! Gives up way too many rebounds, spends most of the game on his knees or stomach. Daccord is far more composed and much quicker! Give him the job, trade Grubauer!
Darren, I’m glad you didn’t let them talk you out of including that last takeaway altogether. As far as I’m concerned, you should always go with your gut!
I was wondering how long it would take for somebody to comment on the Bonus Takeaway.
My Christmas wish is that a miracle happens and we can either get rid of Grubauer somehow (unlikely I know) or we stop starting him….a girl can dream lol!
They could put him on Waivers and send him down and bring up Driediger. If someone claims him then, all good. The Drieds has been playing well. Just hope that we do not have a goalie injury.
I feel like Gru has potential but he should be showing it by now. He did really well during the playoffs. It’s hard to tell right now if Driedger is good enough. Maybe?
I do agree that they need a Captain – big time! But who? There is no leadership material. This is sad coming off a playoff high with almost all the same players. The spark between the players is definitely not there. I don’t know if I can stomach writing off the entire season. That hurts.
Hi Darren, Sorry to say I’m with John in the debate on the podcast. This team is just not a playoff team, and certainly not a contender, but they are on the right track to building a contender a few years down the road. The correct move is not to buy, even for 3rd rounders, but to sell the veterans that will probably be gone soon anyway, to bolster that future.
Sorry, P.S. — This is such a bigger dilemma for teams, e.g. the Flames, that are saddled with huge, long contracts for older players they thought were part of an existing, contending core. The Flames come to mind (Huberdeau, Kadri… yikes), but it’s a common problem. The Kraken don’t have this problem (except Grubauer, and even that contract is not THAT big). They have been careful to just collect some useful veterans via expansion or medium/small contracts to be competitive for the first few years while they draft and develop a more long-term core. This veteran “starter” group treated us to a delightful, surprise run last year and got the city fired up about the new team — Eberle will be a Seattle folk hero forever for that OT goal, even if he gets traded tomorrow — but they will be gone soon. So it should be an easy decision for the Kraken. If this initial group of veterans is not winning — and they’re not — cut ’em loose for more futures. I will be sad and miss them, but it’s just the right move. Trading away picks, even 3rd round or lower, has an opportunity cost because it means you’re not selling. Hopefully the partial no-trade lists don’t have all the wrong teams on them…
With the NHL raising the cap by 4 mill or so, this helps teams like Calgary and Edmonton and other Canadian teams. Their fan bases are really extreme and force teams to make deals that make fans happy but do not get results. Yes, there are US teams like that as well, but they are teams that are in the playoff mix. I suspect that the Kraken will not push a panic button with multiple trades until the trade deadline is close. This seems to be the way our GM likes to play the game. He gives players a chance to redeem themselves and for the team to improve on its own. They may make one small trade before then but until the Kraken is totally out of the race, they will not sedge towards a rebuild. I think this is admirable and is the right move for the players. Most players do not like to trade to other cities because they have families and the older a player whose children are school age. Fans usually do not consider this, but most gm’s do, unless you are a GM of the Canucks. Canada considers hockey “their game” and that fan base is off the hook. We are lucky as players like out fan base and out city, I think.