Hey, it’s the preseason. We can’t get too wound up about a 6-1 drubbing at the hands of an uninspiring Calgary Flames roster when we’re just four days into training camp. But we can dissect the Seattle Kraken’s first foray into game action and see what interesting nuggets we can dig up.
There were some nice flashes, including Nathan Villeneuve sending a one-time rocket past Dustin Wolf to get Seattle on the board. However, Matthew Coronato (who could be a stud player that Seattle will have to deal with for a long time) and the Flames took advantage of the Kraken’s many mistakes and cruised to an easy win.
Here are our Three Takeaways from a 6-1 Kraken loss to open the preseason.
Takeaway #1: Many mistakes
Preseason is such a strange animal. You’re mixing NHL players with AHL players and even major junior players, several of whom are stepping onto NHL ice for the first time. In the case of Sunday night’s game, you’re doing it after just four days of practice and zero game competition.
Still, head coach Dan Bylsma was not particularly pleased with what he saw. “I think there was a concerted effort to do some of the things we’re talking about,” a very hoarse Bylsma said. “It just wasn’t on the same page. We weren’t at all connected, we weren’t doing it together, and the play was a lot like my voice as a result.”
It was one of those games where every mistake seemed to end up in the back of the Kraken’s net, something we’ve seen many times over the team’s first three seasons. On the first goal, right off a defensive-zone face-off, Berkly Catton lost his guy, Clark Bishop, who went straight to the crease and scored.
On the second goal, Josh Mahura got hit, lost the puck, regained it, and then sent a pass to David Goyette at the half-wall. However, the pass handcuffed the young forward, leading to a turnover at the blue line. A slapshot off the end wall caromed out in front, got batted around, and was eventually cleaned up by Coronato.
On the fourth goal, the Kraken got bottled up for a bit and seemed to have things mostly guarded. But then, suddenly, there was a glorious passing lane right through the middle of the ice. Coronato found it with a tasty backhand sauce pass right into Jeremie Poirier’s wheelhouse.
Meanwhile, Philipp Grubauer looked like he was swimming around in his crease in the first period (he seemed more comfortable in the second period), but he also got hung out to dry a couple of times.
The good news about these mistakes is that they offer learning opportunities for the young players who are just getting a taste of life in the NHL. And thankfully, these mistakes came in a game that meant nothing, other than perhaps delivering a small blow to the ego.
“The correction doesn’t come today,” Bylsma said. “If they’re coming off the ice every time and hearing my voice saying, ‘you made a mistake,’ or ‘you messed up here or there,’ it’s just putting them in the wrong mindset. Did Berkly Catton make a mistake on the face-off, lose his guy? He did. But he didn’t hear it from me after that. We put him back out there and just kept playing.”
Takeaway #2: Some nice flashes too
When we saw the lineups, we hoped the two full lines of NHL players that the Kraken dressed would carry the play. Indeed, there were some good stretches of play from the Jared McCann/Matty Beniers/Oliver Bjorkstrand line and the Tye Kartye/Shane Wright/Jordan Eberle line. We thought Wright had a solid game, a positive sign for a young player we expect the Kraken to lean on this season.
There were also good moments from some of the younger players. While Catton had the early face-off miscue, he also had a couple of nice rushes that led to scoring chances, including a partial breakaway in the third period. That play should have at least resulted in a penalty on Adam Klapka, and perhaps even a penalty shot. Instead, the Flames went the other way, and Klapka ended up scoring his second goal of the game to make it 5-1.
The highlight of the game for the home team was definitely Villeneuve’s one-time blast off Bjorkstrand’s cross-slot pass.
Villeneuve is an intriguing player. He brings a ton of grit, which was on display in this game, and now we’ve seen that he also has a scoring touch.
“Obviously, I like to play the physical part of the game, but I mean, a lot of people don’t see my offensive side,” Villeneuve said. “They only see my Matthew Tkachuk-type style of play. And obviously, I love scoring goals, but my main part is just to play my role.”
Aside from the goal, Villeneuve could be seen jawing at the Flames bench after nearly goading Dryden Hunt into a fight. He seemed intent on making his presence known throughout the game.
“We’re down a couple goals there,” Villeneuve said. “The goal [that I scored] kind of changed the momentum a little bit, but I thought I might be able to mix it up physically, maybe throw in a fight and try to get the momentum going more for our side.”
Takeaway #3: A feisty preseason opener
Speaking of physicality, there was an actual fight in this game after Tucker Robertson caught William Stromgren with a knee-on-knee hit and was immediately challenged by Artem Grushnikov.
But aside from that altercation, there were constant scuffles throughout.
“It’s the NHL, and it’s competitive,” Tye Kartye said. “Everyone wants to be here, and everyone on Calgary wants to be there… Nobody should have been surprised [by the physicality].”
Bylsma was also unsurprised by the feistiness of the preseason opener, but he wants his team to engage in the physical side of the game in a different way than what they showed Sunday.
“The thing that I didn’t like about it is it’s reactionary, and we don’t want to be reactionary,” Bylsma said. “We want to be ins— I can’t say that word. We want to be the aggressor, both in how we play and in physicality.”
The word Bylsma started to say before cutting himself off was “instigators.”
By the way, Bylsma is going to be an absolute treat to cover. Even on a night when his team got smoked and was reminded on home ice that there is a long way to go before the Kraken will be ready for the season, he brought honesty and bluntness, while still managing to mix in a little humor.
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.