If you follow along closely with the written content we create here at Sound Of Hockey, you know that I typically write a “Three Takeaways” after every game. If you also listen to the Sound Of Hockey Podcast, you know that—despite the devastating 5-4 Seattle Kraken overtime loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday—I remained in a chipper mood on this past week’s episode.
But after the past two games, I’ve found it hard to pull out compelling “Takeaways,” and my hockey-related mood can no longer be categorized as “chipper.”
Part of the positivity on the last podcast episode was simply endorphins from lots of exercise the day we recorded, blended with a string of sunny weather in Seattle. But part of it was that I still genuinely believed this team could lump together a bunch of wins down the stretch against bad teams and backdoor its way into the playoffs. Heck, I even wrote a Notebook article on Thursday afternoon about how several players on the team thought they could still do the thing, and how I believed what they were telling me.
But after a 2-1 Kraken loss to the Capitals on Thursday night, and Saturday’s 4-1 loss to the Predators, it has become painfully obvious that this team is done. They are not yet mathematically eliminated, but they are eliminated from contention in every other way, and the tone within the dressing room has shifted.
“You have to hit it head on,” coach Dave Hakstol said Sunday. “We have to understand the reality of our situation, and then our goal and our opportunity is to change that picture. We can’t look too far down the road, so we have to have a great mindset, and we’ll have a mindset of that going into [Monday’s game against Buffalo] to work to change that picture.”
With the team sitting nine points behind Vegas for the last wild card spot with 16 games left, and MoneyPuck now giving Seattle just a two-percent chance to reach the playoffs, the players seem to know their season is dead in the water, even if they won’t overtly admit it.
“It’s obviously very frustrating,” Jared McCann said. “We haven’t been able to score many goals, so it’s been kind of a grind lately. I don’t feel like we’re out of this at all. We’re just going to keep pushing, and you never know what’s going to happen. We’ve got to stay positive.
“It’s easy to be negative, and it’s easy to spread negativity, too, but we’re lucky to be in the National Hockey League. We have some of the best jobs in the world, and you’ve got to come in every single day and just look at the positives. I know, obviously, things aren’t going well for us right now, but just look at the positives and keep moving forward.”
Sure, injuries have been a factor, but…
When general manager Ron Francis traded second-line center Alex Wennberg to the New York Rangers in advance of the March 8 trade deadline, he made Seattle’s odds of reaching the playoffs even longer than they already were. We still maintain that this was the right thing to do, given where the team sat in the standings at the time, and with the writing very much on the wall that the Swedish center would not return to Seattle beyond this season.
But remember, with Wennberg held out of the lineup for two games to avoid a pre-trade injury, the Kraken ripped off two (at the time) huge back-to-back road victories in Calgary and Winnipeg. They showed they could be competitive without Wennberg, so even after the trade, we still held onto hope that the “resilient group” could battle its way through the rest of the season.
We’ve since learned, however, that with Wennberg jettisoned, Seattle could no longer survive with any injuries to key players. Vince Dunn has been out since that Calgary game, when Martin Pospisil hit him with a cheap shot from behind that earned the Flames forward a three-game suspension. Jaden Schwartz has been out since the first game of this (so far) winless homestand, a 3-0 loss to the Jets.
“Obviously, teams deal with different things and adversity throughout the season,” said defenseman Brian Dumoulin, who has been filling in on the top pair with Dunn sidelined. “We’re no different here, but I mean, I know we’ve got enough in this room to compete and win hockey games, and we’ve got to get back to that.”
Without Dunn, Schwartz, and Wennberg, Seattle’s lineup looks thin. Hakstol shook things up Saturday, moving McCann back to the top line with Matty Beniers and Jordan Eberle, and bumping Tomas Tatar down to the fourth line (which we don’t think is a good fit for the veteran winger). Halfway through the game Saturday against Nashville, the new forward lines had generated just eight shots on Juuse Saros, and they were shut out on the night at 5-on-5.
Unsurprisingly, the lines went right back in the blender at practice on Sunday.
No matter what Hakstol has tried the last couple games, Seattle is simply not generating. The absence of Wennberg, Schwartz, and Dunn is partially to blame, but so too an apparent recognition that their season is over.
The group has only had a handful of games with its full lineup healthy this season, yet the fact of the matter is that every team in the league deals with injuries. This is why you need depth, and after the whole (very productive) fourth line walked last summer, everything needed to go exactly right on that front for the Kraken to have another successful campaign.
They can only blame themselves
Injuries are not enough to let this team off the hook for the many stretches of poor play that have led to its demise. There’s no excuse for dropping eight consecutive games in the heart of your season. There’s no excuse for losing the last game before the All-Star break, 2-0, to the lowly San Jose Sharks. And there’s certainly no excuse for blowing two-goal leads at home and losing in overtime in critical games against St. Louis on Jan. 26 and Vegas this past week.
In an 82-game season, you can get away with having dips in performance, but when the valleys are more abundant than the peaks, you will fall from contention in March.
That overtime loss to the Golden Knights was the nail in the coffin. Had Seattle held onto its two-goal lead and won in regulation, then ridden that momentum into the game against Washington and won, the team would have come into the game against Nashville just four points out of the playoffs. Instead, in the blink of an eye, Seattle experienced a three-point swing in the standings and allowed the negativity from that damning loss to sap their effort in the next two games.
Now, it’s (all but) over. We know it, the Kraken know it, and at this point, I’m not even sure if there are exciting storylines to look forward to for the next month of Kraken hockey.
I think I need to go get some more exercise.
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
Word.
The only other thing I’ll mention as to where things went wrong: not just their OT losses to Vegas and St. Louis, but their record in OT in general is awful this year (3-8). It was something they were really good at last year (9-4) — those 6 extra points sure would be nice right about now. Could be it’s just a coin flip, but they do seem to be a lot more passive this year in OT, focusing on keeping possession and exiting the O-zone multiple times in the process. Maybe their high shooting% last year masked their lack of high end talent, cause this is honestly where I would guess our OT record should be. There are just not enough great scorers on this team. Their strength was/is theoretically their depth, but depth isn’t nearly as important at 3 on 3.
Agree… 100%. It’s my understanding there isn’t necessarily a correlation between a teams overall record and overtime performance… but watching the Kraken this season, I think there’s some stuff to actually point at.
On the “coin flip” side, I think the loss in overtime to Vegas is a good example of that. It looked to me like Seattle did an excellent job of controlling the puck and creating high-danger scoring chances, but an “unfortunate” non-call by the refs and an opportune breakaway for Eichel led to the loss. But for a lot of this season, this isn’t how overtime has played out.
If you go back and watch the St. Louis overtime… Oh boy!
At the time I ranted about it on Three Takeaways – against St. Louis “3-on-3 was a clinic in how to (and how not to) play in overtime. The Blues prioritized puck possession and quality shooting. The Kraken did not. The Blues used the open ice to maintain control of the puck and work in towards the net creating four shots on goal – two of them high-danger, one being the game winner. The Kraken did not.”
There was more, but this is already “TLDR”.
To me, what I saw in that overtime was all about coaching – and it wasn’t a “one off”. Either those players weren’t directed in how to play in that situation, or were and didn’t bother. Either way, that ultimately rests with Hakstol.
I don’t think this team is as good as their record was last season and I think they still need some pieces and player development, but with more than 20% of games going to 3-on-3 where there’s an opportunity to minimize your deficiency, this seems like a missed opportunity.
Go Kraken!!!
Hey Daren stop sucking up to the corporation and write about the real problem which we all know has been and still is Hackstol. He never should have been the coach with the coaching talent that was available prior to season 1 which leads me to Francis being an issue just as he was in Carolina. I canceled my season tickets after this season. I have no trust in ownership getting rid of Hackcrap or Francis or both
Jams I agree with most of what you’re saying but two things. We’re lucky to have the sound of hockey and the writers they have, I would not point fingers at them point all the fingers you want at 🔥H. 😂
Secondly stand by your team through thick and thin, hockey is a fun sport to play and watch and it’s all a story board that develops. We are a very new team to the league if you’re dumping your tickets this early….. wow!!!
Thanks for reading! 🙂
🤣🤣 you can’t actually believe this
Going back to the previous game H’s post game comment was that he thought they played a good first period….. seriously, I was at the game and it was an incredibly poor coached period for a team fighting for their lives. I wouldn’t have ever expected him to say it was a good period!!!! H it’s time to do what you never have, stand up and take some blame. Good coaches are willing to share the responsibility when things are not going well. I think he’s afraid as he should be.
Darren we’ve been out of it for awhile now, there are still stories to cover. It will be interesting to see how they shift their focus and hopefully use this opportunity to put players in different situations snd test out some younger players. The rest of the season will tell a lot and should have some interesting angles to cover. Keep your head up we’re a young team, seasons like this are to be expected.
Some of the older vets that we won’t be seeing next year should be sent to the press box and cycle through some younger players to get a few looks. Don’t put tuna on the 4th line sit him and put someone else in if you don’t want to use him in the top three. A certain 4th line center should sit the rest of the year….. Do we need Schultz in the lineup after Dunn returns? Should our top 2 D really include Brian? Put Evens up there get him some more experience with bigger minutes at least until Dunn returns.
Didn’t mean to cause an existential crisis with my “storylines” question on the patreon! 😅
How Hakstol is deploying players is leaving a lot to be desired. It feels like a major coaching failure seeing Tatar relegated to the fourth line. His stints in Vegas and Colorado clearly showed that is not an effective way to use him. His knack for finding dangerous positions around the net, at the top of the slot, or with space to stickhandle shines the most when paired with teammates that have great vision and passing like Dunn, Matty, Ebs, or Bjorkstrand, and is why Tatar leads the team in shooting percentage. Sticking Tatar with Bellemare and Kartye is a headscratcher. You’d be better off sitting him and bringing up Shore or Winterton to grind.
Similar to Tatar, it really feels like Yamamoto was misused all season and never found a place in the lineup because of it.
On top of those two, Hakstol seemed completely incapable of dealing with the Burakovsky situation this season, whose confidence was destroyed by injuries and is rebounding far too late. From the stands it looks like Hakstol’s cure for the rough start was telling him to “just shoot”. That’s lead to what must be a record for blocked shots per 60 and an almost team-worst shooting percentage.
This season has made me really start to doubt that Hakstol and Ron Francis are on the same page about personnel, and I feel like Hakstol might be the first coach fired next season if we see another regrettably poor start.
Now the delusions of a playoff run are in the rear view mirror, its time to start looking forward. There are certainly some fingers that could be pointed, but that is also behind us. I would really like to have Ron take the podium and provide some color on where he sees this team going, what changes he is looking to make and how we can challenge for the Cup.
A few elements that needs to be address:
– Goaltending: Gru is still a problem, negative GSAx (-3.3 in 26 games); Joey is holding his own at +8 through 42 games, ranked 11th with goalies more than 40 games. Gru is unmovable and is the most expensive backup in the league. The question I have is why is Driedger still in the system. There was a huge need around the league, is a pending UFA, already getting punished on the cap, why not move him?
– High-end Scoring: What is the plan here? The team is a aging and can’t score. Maybe two 20+ goal scorers and maybe seven 10+ vs six 20+ goal scorers and seven 10+ from last year. That is a lot of missing goals. Do we expect Winterton, Wright, Hughes, Lind to make the jump? Will it be Firkus, Sale or Goyette? What is Ron’s plan to get more goal scoring? Could it be structure/coaching?
– Roster turnover: Seems like the Yamamoto experiment didn’t yield the intended results, Eeli is going to need a new contract, how much does Matty sign for? Kartye is probably around until Firkus comes up due to his cheap deal. Bellemare is a great story but had issues staying healthy at 38, Tatar can’t be used on the fourth line and on the wrong side of the aging curve. Oleksiak’s contract is looking more and more expensive as a 5/6 D-man, would rather have Shultz for the extra year vs Dumoulin, which is curious the RHD didn’t get moved at the deadline.
Some direction for the future would be helpful, as this is a critical year on the business side. The 3-year season ticket packages are up for renewal and there is increased chatter around an NBA team coming. The team needs to increase viewership, which is a limiting factor locally….ditch Root and stream all the games. Following in Vegas’ footsteps here isn’t a bad thing.
They are innovating on multiple levels and it would behove the Kraken to do the same. Vegas is going for it, every year, no matter the cost; Kraken are sleepy and seem listless. Vegas ditched their RSN and went DTC; Kraken stayed with dying ROOT and were in a major contract dispute at start of the season. Vegas fired the coach when a change was needed (x2); Kraken still have Dave while proven coach is in Coachella.
Let’s hope we can some color from Ron or ownership on the near- and long-term direction.