The Seattle Kraken fell short of the ultimatum I set in last week’s Monday Musings of grabbing five out of a possible six points, but I can’t be upset at the effort. The boys came away with gutsy wins against the Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins but fell short of gaining a point versus the Edmonton Oilers in a Saturday afternoon matinee.
This might have been the best three-game effort the Kraken have brought this season against some high-quality opponents. From top to bottom, the team is really bought in and showing the desperation to stay in the playoff hunt right now.
Unfortunately, the Kraken woke up on Monday nine points out of a wild card spot and again looking at a logjam of four teams they would need to climb over in the standings to get into the postseason. Getting in is looking less likely every day, but if the Kraken can play the rest of the season like this, I still think they have a shot.
Remaining schedule
The next four games will be the toughest four games remaining on the schedule. Even if they only manage four points of the eight available, the Kraken might be ok to stay in it as long as either the Los Angeles Kings or Nashville Predators start to lose a bit more than they win. Over the next four games, the Kraken have one game against the Calgary Flames, two against the Winnipeg Jets, and then one game against the Vegas Golden Knights. After those four games, the schedule gets easier with six out of the next eight games being against teams that are mostly eliminated from playoff contention.
Alex Wennberg
With the trade deadline this coming Friday, I worry this might be the last week we see Alex Wennberg wearing the Seattle Kraken jersey. Regular readers will know that I love Wennberg and what he has brought to this franchise. He was one of the first free agents to sign in Seattle before the team ever took the ice. I am always blown away with his play and patience with the puck, and I marvel at his footwork and board play.
I will never forget the below play during the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season. A lot of the highlights won’t show his contributions to the goal, but the whole sequence doesn’t happen without his board work.
He had another great play on Monday that will go underappreciated, when he gained the zone, and as five Bruins set up to defend, Wennberg delivered a soft pass to empty ice that Will Borgen. Borgen swiftly stepped into it for a one-timer that Oliver Bjorkstrand tipped by Linus Ullmark.
If this is truly his last week or even season with the Seattle Kraken, he will be missed. He currently leads all Kraken forwards in ice time, and he plays on the power play, penalty kill, and is often deployed in key defensive situations.
Hard sell, soft sell, or hold
What the Kraken do at the trade deadline is still anyone’s guess. I found Pierre LeBrun’s take on what the Kraken might do with their two biggest assets on expiring deals humorous. LeBrun’s take was the Kraken could re-sign Wennberg and Jordan Eberle, or they might re-sign one of them, or they might do nothing. So, they could do anything.
We published a story on the topic a couple weeks ago, in case you want to read up on that and hear what the players themselves said about the situation.
There are three trade deadline scenarios that could play out:
- A hard sell would be if the Kraken trade either Alexander Wennberg and/or Jordan Eberle.
- A soft sell would be if the team traded Justin Schultz and/or Tomas Tatar
- Holding would be doing nothing or moving a depth piece in the system.
The fate of what they do might come down to the back-to-back games to start this week. Two wins, and they might hold. Two losses, and I think a hard sell will be kicked into motion. I do think there is a way this team could make the playoffs even with a “soft-sell,” where maybe it trades only Schultz and has Ryker Evans slot in for him the rest of the way (just as an example).
Other Musings
- After a successful goalie interference challenge last Monday against the Bruins, the Kraken are two for two in goalie interference challenges this season. The success rate for goalie challenges league wide is 63 percent.
- The Boston game was the 17th overtime game of the season for Seattle. That tied the full-season total from 2022-23, so the next overtime game this season will mean the most OT games in a single season for the Kraken. Here is how overtime games have broken down by seasons.
- If the Kraken start the week with two regulation losses, the season is probably cooked, and I would appreciate people checking in on me on Wednesday morning.
- Tuesday’s game against the Winnipeg Jets will be the first time the Kraken square off against the Jets this season. Winnipeg is the only team in the league the Kraken have not faced this season, but they will play two in a row against them this week.
- The Kraken are still winless at home on Saturdays this season. The loss to Edmonton pushed their Saturday home record to 0-5-2. The Kraken have two more Saturday home games remaining this season.
- It is great to see Philipp Grubauer getting in a groove. He has a .942 save percentage with a 4-1-0 record since coming back from injury. Outside of last season’s playoffs, this is probably his best stretch of games he has played with the Kraken.
Player performances
Morgan Geekie (BOS) – The former Seattle Kraken and Tri-City American had his first career hat-trick against the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday. We continue to root for Geekie as long as he isn’t playing against the Kraken.
Philipp Grubauer (SEA) – Grubauer had a .944 save percentage and a 2-1-0 record on the week including a shutout against the Penguins, his first of the season.
Jagger Firkus (MJW/SEA) and Carson Rehkopf (KIT/SEA) – Both players might be the most mentioned players in the Monday Musings for the season. Both Seattle Kraken prospects are having outstanding years for their respective clubs, and both eclipsed the 50-goal mark on Sunday.
Goal of the week
For those that might have missed it, we had two outstanding guests on the Sound Of Hockey Podcast this week with Piper Shaw and Alison Lukan in studio. The episode was packed with tomfoolery and hijinks, but there was also plenty of Kraken insight, so give it a listen.
One thing Alison called out was Andre Burakovsky’s actions that helped with the Vince Dunn goal against Boston. The breakdown is in her below tweet.
Chart of the week
Also, on the podcast we discussed a different framing of shots and shot attempts, called ‘shots on target.’ It’s just shots on goal, but in context of shot attempts, you could widen the lens to evaluate how many shot attempts actually get to the goalie. So, naturally, I investigated it.
I originally started just looking at percentage of shots on target, and that showed Seattle had the second-lowest percentage of shot attempts that are on target. When I saw Carolina below the Kraken, I felt it needed additional context since Carolina is one of the better teams in the league this season. I then added total shot attempts per game to help add more color to the story.
This was pulled together in about 30 minutes on Monday morning, so there is still a lot more to dig into here, but it is an interesting perspective to start evaluating some of the shooting performances across the NHL.
The week ahead
I have been implying the Kraken’s situation (in terms of making the playoffs) has been dire for a while. They have been staying afloat, but the Predators have really started to separate from the rest of the pack and currently have a nine-point advantage on the Kraken for the last playoff spot. Seattle still has two games in hand but will need to climb over a few teams, even if Nashville starts to falter. I am also ready to lock the Kings into a playoff spot at this point, which only leaves that Nashville spot.
The first half of March has the Kraken facing some quality opponents, and that kicks off this week with a game Monday against an equally desperate Calgary Flames team and two games against the Central Division leaders, the Winnipeg Jets. Anything less than four points and at least one against Calgary might sink these Kraken playoff dreams in season three. The team has been playing well and still shows a lot of compete that has me clinging to a few last shreds of hope.
As always, thank you for making it this far. If you have questions, thoughts, or reactions, feel free to leave a note in the comments and I will do my best to respond and engage.
John, I admire your optimism, as well as your hard work on these excellent articles. But I truly hope you are wrong that the Kraken are waiting on the results of these two games to figure out whether to sell, because it would mean this team’s management is dumber than I thought. Moneypuck (the site that is the HIGHEST on the Kraken’s chances) has them at only 8.1% to make the playoffs. Those odds will not improve much if they win the next 2 games. If the right offer comes along, they need to grab it. They do not have a contender’s roster. They need to continue to build up toward a real contender, as Allison said they are doing on last week’s episode.
I will miss Wennberg and Eberle, but I think they will do a “hard sell.” Whether they sell or not, based on the schedule, it looks like the team will pull an “Ottawa” after the deadline — win a bunch of garbage-time games against lousy competition and back-up goalies, and then finish just 3 or 4 points out of the playoffs without ever having a real shot, fooling some people into thinking they will be better and a playoff team next year. The reality is, we are at least 2-3 years away from real contention, sadly. And I’m worried we’re not even on track because the team has no truly elite talent in the organization and is not willing to get bad enough or trade aggressively enough to land any.
Small correction: Somehow the Athletic (which has generally had the Kraken’s odds at about half what Moneypuck says all season) is suddenly SLIGHTLY higher than Moneypuck now — a whopping 9%.
Hey now, hockeyviz is at 12.5%. That’s 40% higher than 9%. 12.5 + 40 is even over 50%, if you think about it!!
I am a fan first and have been dancing that dance of being a realist and being a fan optimist since early November. The only reason I think there is a chance is because I don’t think Nashville is that good. That said, Wennberg is out of the lineup tonight for trade reasons so I think it is safe to say, the hard sell is on and the team is not as dumb as I suggest.
Hard sell. If making the playoffs were guaranteed you’d keep the band together. But even if they make the playoffs I don’t see them as a legitimate contender this year. Make some trades that bring more high end draft picks to the team and plan for the near future.
John… the Kraken are really making it tough on you.
I don’t think moving Wennberg is necessarily a “hard sell”. I like him for all the same reasons you do, but I think if they can get a decent return for him and hold on to Eberle, they can still hang around and see how things play out.
I see a lot of folks on here talking about the “odds”. What are the odds that what you get in the late second – at best – or late third and fourth rounds is better than the odds of Nashville regressing from the heater they’re on? Sell, sell, sell doesn’t get you much with what the Kraken have to offer.
If there was truly something to be gained by selling, I’d be all for it, but there just isn’t much there. For me, if you really want to “play the odds”, take the value this team offers down the stretch – Wennberg exception – and look to the off-season to make adjustments.
It’s hard to believe that all these teams who couldn’t get out of their own way are suddenly unbeatable now.
Plus… if this team finally has goaltending… you’ve gotta give em a chance.
Go Kraken!!!
A ridiculous point of comparison…
On September 1st 1995 the then Anaheim Angeles we seven-and-a-half games up on the lowly Seattle Mariners – who had never made the playoffs. MLB plays twice as many games as the NHL, but this is the equivalent of being fifteen points up with just one month to go… and yet… in a one game playoff the lowly Mariners defeated the collapsing Angeles and went on to defeat the hated Yankees in the greatest playoff series in Seattle sports history.
Elliott Friedman recently said, “we focus too much on the exceptions”, and I believe this is true. But with so much opportunity, should this team trade the chance to be exceptional for for the 61st pick overall?
Go Kraken!!!
Answer: yes. Mediocre teams that keep holding onto pending free agents praying for miracles and then losing them for nothing end up in the toilet for years on end. 7.5 games in baseball is NOT the equivalent of being up 15 points, thanks to the NHL’s loser point. Also, that Mariners team had 3 future hall of famers in their primes plus Buhner and Tino Martinez. This Kraken team has only token all stars and zero hall of famers. There is not a “big opportunity” here. A 2nd round pick has a decent chance of being a useful NHL player, and they still need to accumulate as many lottery tickets as they can get, as an organization still getting started. Also, once we’re praying for miracles, we could get one even without Wennberg, as secretly wonderful as he is (that was for John).
I believe the words “lottery tickets” says it all. That’s right there with “ridiculous comparison”. As my father often said… “wish in one hand”… well, anyway. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t think “lottery tickets” is a sound method for building either a franchise or – just as importantly – a fan base.
Go Kraken!!!
…and that team had 4 future Hall of Fame players.
I get everything you are saying and ultimately there is a lot of grey here. I think I’ve said for a while that if someone offers a first for Wennberg, you gotta listen. If it is a fourth, you don’t even answer the call. There is something in the middle and that sweet spot can change based on how the team is positioned. I think trading Wennberg and holding on for hope is a fools errand…of course I will still be rooting for them and justifying they still have a shot but that’s what us fans do. It sure beats the alternative to just concede.
Agree on the 1st… if they get that offer, they’ve got to take it. As much as I like him though, I think they could move McCann to the middle and a healthy Burakovski up to the top line. Obviously McCann and Wennberg are night and day, but I don’t think Oliver is necessarily the “straw that stirs the drink”.
I believe the words “lottery tickets” says it all. That’s right there with “ridiculous comparison”. As my father often said… “wish in one hand”… well, anyway. Contrary to popular belief, I don’t think “lottery tickets” is a sound method for building either a franchise or – just as importantly – a fan base.
Go Kraken!!!
lottery tickets are not a good financial strategy either. 🙂
yeah poor choice of words. flyers? investments? I was thinking in terms of the chances of getting a truly elite player with a 2nd round pick. Still, better than a lottery ticket. And chances of getting a useful NHLer with a 2nd round pick are WAY better than a lottery ticket.
Anyway, I don’t think anyone can question that building through the draft is a good strategy for building a winning team. and you build a fan base by winning. I’m sure they would have loved to win more than they did with the initial expansion crop, especially with the likely arrival of the Sonics in a couple years, but them’s the breaks.
With their replacements at hand (Wright and Evans), trading Wennberg and Schultz is a hard yes.
With Eberle and Tatar, sell if they can get a 2R pick and sign them again in the summer.
Hope they bring up the rest of the 2021 draft class (Winterton, Ottavainen) for NHL tryouts. All four of the callups can return for the Firebirds playoff run.
Also heard on 32 Thoughts teams are asking on Dumoulin… definitely worth moving.
Interesting if they trade both Schultz and Dumoulin. Already having lost Megna, that would be all three of their bottom pairing guys. You have Evans but who else fills in for the rest of the season? Wonder if Francis is taking any younger players back?
On the Carolina numbers…
In addition to being No.1 in shot attempts – Corsi for – the Canes are also No.1 in offensive zone time. When you divide up their shots per minute in the offensive zone they’re getting 2.5 and the Kraken are getting 2.46.
I would assume that they’re getting more shots because they’re in the zone longer, BUT they’re in the offensive zone longer because the forecheck is getting the blocks and misses back more often. This would have the effect of skewing down the percentage of shots on goal.
Moreover, because they’re in the offensive zone more than any other team, they’re also in the defensive zone less than any other team… and at that end they’re No. 1 in chances against, shots against, high-danger chances against, and expected goals against.
Maybe sometimes a lot of offense is the best defense.
Looking forward to reading about your “dig” into this. I think both the Kraken and the Canes take too many low-percentage shots but a stronger forecheck and better finishers makes it work in Carolina… until the playoffs.
Go Kraken!!!