With the Kraken still in the midst of their long All-Star/bye week hiatus, there has not been much action since the last edition of Monday Musings. So this week I am going to dig into a few topics I have been wanting to look at for a while but haven’t had the time, instead of re-reacting to the Seattle Kraken loss to the Sharks last Tuesday. If you’re here looking for that, you can listen to last week’s episode of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. Spoiler: you will probably be underwhelmed by my non-emotionally charged response.
Shane Wright’s progress
I have talked to a few people about how Shane Wright has been performing in Coachella Valley. What I’ve heard is that those who have a critical eye for hockey talent seem to be impressed with how he is progressing. There will always be questions on how skill and production in the AHL translate to the NHL, but you want to see some stand-out qualities while young prospects are playing in the AHL. Shane is showing these stand-out qualities.
There are a couple areas I wanted to look at with regard to Shane’s game. First, how does his production compare to other forwards that played in the AHL at his age? Second, how is he trending? Is he getting better as the season progresses?
One area of note, getting advanced(ish) data from the AHL without buying an expensive stats package from a third-party provider is a challenge, so take all this analysis with a grain of salt. Â
From this basic analysis, it appears that Wright is scoring goals at the top end of his peer group, with .44 goals per game so far this season. Again, it is not a perfect analysis for projecting future results in the NHL, but we must be happy with the direction this is headed.
Shane Wright in-season trends
To take a stab at evaluating if Shane is getting better, I just created a moving average of shots, points, and goals. Ideally, we would have something like expected goals that would be generated by using shot location and events, but the AHL isn’t as lucky to have a rich analytics community that evaluates play-by-play data and runs it through a model to produce such metrics. Goals and points are obvious indicators of success on the ice, but I added shots to see if Wright has been generating more shots per game as the season progresses.
The chart is rather inconclusive. There was a sag in Wright’s points and goal production between games 20 and 28 with only a slight dip in shots during that same time span. Point production and goals seem to be rebounding lately, but both are roughly on par with where Wright was producing toward the beginning of the season.
One thing that is not available is time on ice and more specifically time on ice by game scenario (power play, penalty kill, etc.). Shane is on the power play and penalty kill, which is great to see, but we can’t break out the data to show that.
Here is a video from Saturday night. The clip does not do the play justice, but Wright was killing a penalty, stole the puck from the Tucson player, and charged down the ice to find a streaking Ryan Winterton as the penalty expired.
Overall, I think we should be excited with how Shane is developing into the two-way center he was billed as when the Kraken drafted him fourth overall in 2022.
Kraken scoring
It is obvious that one of the biggest challenges for the Seattle Kraken this year has been scoring goals. Part of this has been driven by injuries, and part of it has been a natural regression to a more normal shooting percentage after last year’s torrid pace.
There have been positive signs that the shooting percentage has been rebounding a bit. The Kraken’s shooting percentage has been 11.3 percent over the last 20 games. This topic warrants a deep dive on the scoring this season, so expect a Data Dump on that later this week.
Other Musings
- We have seen two big trades over the last five days that both involved a first-round draft pick as part of the trade, in exchange for a center. You must figure other teams looking for a center are calling Ron Francis to see what it would take to get pending unrestricted free agent, Alexander Wennberg. In my opinion, Wennberg is on par with Sean Monahan, who just fetched a first-round pick in 2024 and a conditional third-round pick in 2027. With that market set, until the Kraken are squarely out of the playoff race, you don’t move Wennberg for anything less than a first.
- If the Kraken trade Wennberg, the departure of his versatility will leave a huge hole in the lineup. He plays on the power play and penalty kill and leads Kraken forwards in total time on ice, averaging 18:42 per game.
- It was exciting to hear the news about NHL players returning to the Olympics. Those tournaments have brought so much excitement for the game in the past. The Kraken have several players who have played in past Olympics, including Matty Beniers, Eeli Tolvanen, and Tomas Tatar. Will Borgen was also named to Team USA in 2018 but did not play a game.
- If you need a local hockey fix, you might want to tune into the AHL All-Star Game airing on NHL Network Monday. There are a lot of former Seattle Thunderbirds and Everett Silvertips playing in the game: Brad Lambert, Jake Christiansen, Gage Goncalves, Dustin Wolf, Olen Zellweger, and Dylan Guenther were all named to the game, plus the Seattle Kraken’s own Ryker Evans will be there.
Player performances
Oscar Fisker Mølgaard – One of the Kraken’s second-round selections in last summer’s NHL Entry Draft, Molgaard has nine points in his last 10 games playing for HV71 in the top-tier league in Sweden. Prior to those 10 games, he had seven points over his first 27 games of the season. We chatted with Oscar back in July.
Tyson Jugnauth – A fourth-round draft pick of the Kraken from 2022, Jugnauth has 24 points in 22 games for the Portland Winterhawks. He started the season with the Wisconsin Badgers but only had two assists in 13 games. He left school midseason to play for Portland, and I am pretty sure he has no regrets leaving Wisconsin (he explained his decision to leave in a Sound Of Hockey story here).
Niklas Kokko – The Finnish goaltender has two wins in his last three starts playing for Pelicans, his new team in Liiga. He has a .947 save percentage in that span.
Goal of the week
That’s our All-Star!!!!
The week ahead
The Kraken return to action on Saturday in Philadelphia. The Flyers dropped their last five games with a goal differential of 27-13 but have two games before they take on Seattle. Expect some rust for the Kraken coming out of the long break (last year they lost their first three games after the All-Star break).
Thanks to reader/listener ‘Yanni’s Suffocating Pestilence,’ who gave me a homework assignment after last week’s Musings. Expect some of those findings in the next edition.
If you have any thoughts or areas of exploration, feel free to leave a comment, and I will add it to the backlog.
In addition to NHL Network, the AHL All-Star Game will be streaming free on AHLTV. You need an account but not a subscription.
The quiet before the storm…
Monday Musings are the best!
Until Henrique comes off the board, I don’t see Seattle fetching a first for Wennberg… even with retention… and even then I doubt it. The Avs, Bruins, Canes, and Rangers are all looking for middle-six centers – but – the Bruins are thin on picks right now and the Canes don’t pay for rentals. New York may be looking for two actually, but I think that makes them the front runner for Henrique and they’re not gonna spend two firsts. That leaves Colorado. They’ve already spent their upcoming second and third. They’re also looking for a legit 2C on a contender. As much as I like Wennberg, that’s not him. If they’re spending a first, I think again, that would have to be Henrique.
Carolina has two seconds, but Waddell has never traded anything higher than a third for a rental. I think the only way Seattle ends up with a first is conditionally – a second that becomes a first if the team makes it to the Conference Final – thus making it No.29 or lower. If they do fetch a first, I think it would have to be a deadline day panic.
With all that in mind… if things go sideways next week… getting a second for Wennberg – even a late second – would also open up a spot for Shane Wright to get some actual time in with the Kraken.
In addition to being on the playoff bubble, Seattle is also on the draft bubble. Depending on who you read, there’s a big dropoff around No.11 in the draft this year.. I’d be curious what “good friend of the pod” Chris Peters thinks on this. Right now Seattle would be No.11. Worst case scenario… just missing the playoffs. I’m starting to think, for this team, a top ten draft pick and getting Evans, Kartye, and Wright more NHL icetime is a better path than two or three playoff games at CPA.
Finally, I wonder if where renewals are at will have anything to do with the buy/sell timing? Just a thought.
Go Kraken!!!
RE the Wennberg, I think we are thinking about it the same way. I am not really suggesting that Wennberg gets a 1st, but a never though Monahan would have warranted a first either. I like Wennberg more than Monahan but I am obviously biased and don’t catch too many Montreal games these days. My point is as long as they are in the hunt, you don’t do entertain any offers unless it is for a first.
Regarding the draft drop off. It seems like every draft has a drop off discussed but no one ever goes back to analyze if this is true. (thinking face emoji) I love the draft and love reading rankings and what not, but I think most of it is throwing darts after the first couple picks so I tend to not worry about the drop offs discussed. (doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist but I am skeptical if it does)
Unless they are offered a first, I agree… they should wait and see, maybe. I did see today, however, on the Athletic, that the Rangers are looking for a top line right wing and a third line center. That sounds like an Eberle/Wennberg package to me. With retentions New York could do that right now. If Seattle could get a first+ for that… I’d say do that now.
Ryan M pointed out in the Round Table comments that 51% of the NHLs current top 100 point scorers come from the top half of the first round, 13% come from the bottom half. This is consistent with what Ron Francis has said, top ten picks are important.* The higher in the draft, the better. Talent evaluations and rankings are not random.
Regardless of what they decide, it’s pretty clear that standing pat and just missing the playoffs is the worst possible outcome, but right now, that seems like a real possibility. They need to pick a lane sooner rather than later, next four games are huge.
*Paraphrase Andy Eide article March 1 2022 from Ron Francis statements.
Is Shane Wright normally on the Firebirds PK? I’ve watched a decent number of games and on the forward side McCormick, Hughes, Studenic, Winterton, Hayden, and Petman all seem to kill penalties more regularly.
What’s the x-axis in the first graphic?
I don’t know the answer to the Shane question. All I know I was watching and he was on it. Funny you should ask about the x-axis. I almost put a footnote there. There is no value….it’s random to scatter the results. Commonly referred to as a jitter plot.
Thanks for update on Shane Wright. Read an article or two lately where a couple “experts” re-drafted 2022 draft and move SW down the list considerably. Nice to see his progress, he’s got pretty good company the your chart above…