Last week I mentioned that getting three out of six possible points would be acceptable, and that’s exactly what the Seattle Kraken did. They essentially held serve against challenging opponents. However, things don’t always feel that great when the most recent game is a lopsided loss.
The Kraken fell to the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-1 on Saturday, though the score feels a bit misleading. Tampa Bay was clearly the better team, but the game was still close at 2-1 entering the third period. The Lightning extended their lead with a Jake Guentzel power-play goal just four minutes into the period, securing that all-important two-goal cushion. They later added an empty-net goal and a fifth marker with less than 30 seconds left in the game. It wasn’t a great performance by the Kraken, but it also wasn’t as bad as the final score suggests.
Earlier in the week, the Kraken put together a solid effort with a 2-1 shootout loss to Florida on Tuesday and a dominant 5-1 win over the Bruins. All three opponents—Florida, Boston, and Tampa Bay—are notable teams, so the Kraken’s overall performance this week is acceptable given the circumstances.
Need more contributors
Over the last two seasons, the Kraken have faced challenges scoring goals. This season, they’ve been scoring at a respectable clip of 3.6 goals per game through December, but if they want to gain ground, they need more offensive contributions.
Matty Beniers, in particular, needs to get going. No one expects 30 goals a season from him at this point in his career, but with just four goals so far, he’s on pace to fall short of last season’s disappointing total of 15. There have been glimpses where it looked like he was on the verge of breaking out, but lately, he seems to have regressed. I don’t have an easy solution, but this team desperately needs him to produce.
From the obvious department: Andre Burakovsky also needs to step up. This has been a topic of discussion for most of the season, so it’s nothing new. That said, in recent home games, it feels like he’s close to breaking through, and came within about a centimeter of scoring a crucial goal against Tampa Bay but rang it off the inside of the post. I think I’ve said something like that before, though—so don’t hold your breath.
It would also be nice to see Jared McCann heat up again. He’s been cold, with only two goals over the last 14 games. That’s a significant drop from the goal-every-few-games pace we’ve come to expect from him. I’m not too worried, though—McCann has been a consistent goal scorer since he joined this franchise.
A quick thought on the passing of David Bonderman
When I first started the NHLtoSeattle movement 13 years ago, I said there were three things a city needed to get an NHL team: 1) an arena, 2) a team, and 3) an owner. The right owner, I believed, could solve the arena and team issues.
Early in the movement, there was a handful of potential NHL owners who explored Seattle. Most of them lacked ties to the area and struggled to gain traction. Don Levin from Chicago, for example, was treated poorly when he tried to promote a potential Bellevue arena. Ray Bartoszek hovered as a possible tenant for a SoDo arena before shifting focus to a Tukwila site. Victor Coleman made moves behind the scenes for SoDo and later partnered with AEG on the Key Arena redevelopment bid.
It wasn’t until David Bonderman was announced as an investor that it finally felt like we had the right person to bring an NHL team to Seattle. Yes, he came with significant capital, but he was also civic-minded and had strong local ties—qualities that were critical to the project’s success and to gaining support from other stakeholders.
Bonderman wasn’t just the money behind the team. He helped create the Kraken’s identity, including the iconic “eye” in the logo, and laid the groundwork for the inclusive culture that defines the organization today. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I’m not sure we’d have a team without David Bonderman. He leaves behind a tremendous legacy in Seattle and has made many of our dreams come true.
Thanks, Bondo!
Other Musings
- The Kraken scored first in all three games last week and in six of their last seven games (86 percent). This is a significant improvement after scoring first just eight times in their previous 25 games (33 percent). Scoring first doesn’t guarantee victory, as we saw against Florida and Tampa Bay, but the Kraken are now 9-3-2 when they get the opening goal.
- As uneventful as the game against Tampa Bay might have felt, according to NaturalStatTrick.com, the Kraken still generated 10 high-danger shots on goal at 5-on-5. That’s their second-highest high-danger shot total of the season.
- I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who noticed, but in an effort to generate some offense, it was interesting to see coach Dan Bylsma pair Vince Dunn and Brandon Montour together against Tampa Bay. They played 4:51 together, with nearly all of that time coming in the third period.
- The Kraken have converted six of their last 14 power-play opportunities over their last six games.
- It’s too early, but I already find myself scoreboard watching for teams likely to be in the wild card race. The Kraken have an uphill battle ahead, and they’ll need to claw back some points. Here’s a look at last week’s performance for teams in the wild card hunt.
- The players and staff haven’t used it as an excuse, but there’s a flu bug going around the locker room right now. You have to wonder if that impacted the team’s energy on Saturday.
- The Kraken’s penalty kill has been average, but they’ve done a good job of staying out of the box. Over their last 15 games, they’ve been shorthanded the fewest times in the league.
- Shoutout to former Seattle Kraken defenseman Justin Schultz, who announced his retirement last week. Schultz spent two seasons with the Kraken, providing offensive contributions from the blue line. In 143 games, he scored 14 goals and added 46 assists, but he truly shined during the Kraken’s playoff run, where he tallied 10 points in 14 games.
NHL announcement
🦑 GAME OVER 🦑
Justin Schultz scores the @Energizer overtime winner to send the @SeattleKraken to the #WinterClassic on a high note! pic.twitter.com/7c3pVLujmi
— NHL (@NHL) December 30, 2023
- The Kraken will be well represented at this year’s IIHF World Junior Championship. Once final rosters are announced, the Kraken are expected to have eight players competing across four countries. The tournament begins Thursday, Dec. 26, and all games will be available on NHL Network.
- Congratulations to Kraken prospect Oscar Fisker Mølgaard for helping Denmark’s U20 team qualify for the 2026 World Junior Championship. While he’ll be too old to participate next year, he’ll likely join the Denmark Olympic team alongside Oliver Bjorkstrand in 2026.
- Former Spokane Chiefs goaltender Dustin Tokarski made his first start for the Carolina Hurricanes over the weekend, stopping 27 of 28 shots to secure the win. Anytime his name comes up, I immediately head over to his HockeyDB page to marvel at his journey.
Goal of the week
This one was easy. Jaden Schwartz scored a nifty goal early in Thursday night’s game against the Boston Bruins. By the way, how about that nice little backhanded sauce from Shane Wright?
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE SCHWARTZ! 🚨
What a cheeky little goal to make it 2-0 #SeaKraken.
This came just AFTER a power play ended. pic.twitter.com/d3jMBCwioC
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) December 13, 2024
Player performances
Oliver Bjorkstrand (SEA) – Bjorkstrand has four goals and two assists over his last four games including two goals in the Kraken’s 5-1 win over Boston.
Shane Wright (SEA) – Wright continues to contribute with three goals and four assists over his last six games. The Bjorkstrand-Wright-Tolvanen line is humming right now.
Jani Nyman (CV/SEA) – “Li’l Jani” has a three-game goal streak for the Coachella Valley Firebirds.
go jani 👏 go jani 👏 pic.twitter.com/ak6pAXJxhT
— Coachella Valley Firebirds (@Firebirds) December 16, 2024
The week ahead
The Kraken face another daunting week as they head into the Christmas holiday break. They’ll wrap up their homestand on Tuesday when Ottawa comes to town riding a 5-1-0 record over their last six games.
After that, the Kraken hit the road for games against Chicago, Vegas, and Colorado. Chicago continues to struggle with a 2-7-1 record over their last 10 games, but as we saw during Thanksgiving week, the Kraken can’t afford to take anyone lightly. On Saturday night, the Kraken face Vegas, who are currently 7-2-1 in their last 10. The road trip then concludes with a back-to-back against the Colorado Avalanche on Sunday. Unlike Seattle, Colorado won’t be playing on consecutive nights.
Securing even four of the eight available points will be a challenge, but that must be the goal for this stretch of games.
One programming note: There will not be a Monday Musings next week due to holiday travel.
All very spot-on by John here. I am worried about McCann though because I suspect he is playing hurt. Hopefully, if that’s the case, the Xmas break allows him to heal up.
John says what we are all saying and feeling about Beniers and Wright. Beniers just NEEDS to be more productive at this point. But Wright is getting us all very excited. They are obviously still very young. There is still hope for an excellent one-two punch at center.
Love the Schultz shoutout. He was such a pleasant surprise, especially in 2022-23, and just added to the fun vibe that year. National writers panned that signing because they saw signs of major decline the previous year, but turned out they were wrong. Or he reversed it for a while. Either way, he was an underrated part of that year’s playoff appearance.
I’m wondering just how important Ebs is to Matty, I know he wasn’t lighting it but but I feel that he was making great plays but just not getting puck luck, now it feels like he’s drifting backwards. Same with McCann, they both are missing a very important player on their line. Much of their time has been with Burky and that not going to help but regardless of that I feel that Ebs is the problem.
It I’ll be interesting to see if the Wright line runs into a bit of a roadblock if they continue their hot hands as it’s sure to draw a more difficult matchup.
Of not we have been seeing a little bit of the request I had pre season… two D on the PP. if I were Jessica I’d try out Monty and Dunn on the same unit. Stack the first unit and put Evans on the second. Run the first unit 3/4 of the power play. Let’s be honest Montour and Dunn are probably the best two players on their line team why not try and draw more pressure to the top of the circle and hopefully open up some more space down low. I would try two different looks, one both players playing high like a typical 5/5 and switch up the look by dropping one down low on the halfwall from time to time. Very occasionally sending Montour to the net to really make the PP hard to read. I mean Jessica is saying the right things about how the PP needs to be unpredictable but they just aren’t doing that, it’s very predictable.
It seems to me the PP has been much better at moving the puck and maintaining zone control lately. Their six 5v4 PP goals in December are behind only the Oilers and Bolts seven each and the Kraken’s 13.04 G/60 this month is fourth in the league.
I’m not sure, but I think the Dunn/Montour pairing on the PP was short lived.
😂, reading your reply got me reading my post again. Didn’t know it was possible to fat finger so many times, I’m just impressed that you understood what I was trying to say.
Nice article, like Foist says above, you’re saying what we are all thinking. Maybe Beniers need to be sat for a game or two? It seems to have worked for everyone (except maybe Burky).
I was surprised to see Grubauer in goal vs. TB. Was anyone else?
I was also surprised to see Grubauer in net, but he was coming off his best start of the season against Boston… unfortunately, I think that may actually be a bad sign.
I noticed he hasn’t been able to string together back-to-back .900+ starts all season – I know, save percentage… blah-blah-blah – but then I noticed something more.
If you take his twelve starts and split them in half by every other… you get two very different goalies.
Gru No.1 – the one that was so good against Boston – has a .909 SV%, 2.5 GAA and +3.93 GSAx.
Gru No.2 – the one that played last night – has a .851 SV%, 4.33 GAA and -6.47 GSAx.
I know I said I was done talking about Grubauer this season because I believe he is what his numbers say he is over the past three seasons and the conversation has gotten tired, but this seemed so weird I just had to mention it here.
I wonder if maybe what he needs is a little less confidence? Two of his best starts this season have come right after two of his worst.
Go Kraken!!!
Ahh… wow, that’s some interesting data. I did think maybe they were giving him a “boost” but I was so surprised Joey wasn’t in net I thought maybe Daccord was sick again or not quite healthy. I hope the coaches are reading your stats so they can make some adjustments, ha!
I think it’s hard to call the numbers I was parsing out “stats”. It’s an obviously small sample size and I assume the comparison is almost entirely coincidental.
That said, I do think the inconsistency Grubauer has displayed this season shouldn’t be surprising. He’s coming up on 150 games with the Kraken and it should be pretty clear he is beyond being a reliable option – it’s not the team in front of him.
Maybe it’s like Foist says below and Joey has a nagging injury, but I cannot understand why the Kraken would give Gru any more starts than they absolutely have to. Surely they have better insights than I do, but it seems to me they are not good enough to give away even one game. On a .500 team, if Grubauer was himself just .500 – not good, just not bad – this team would be in WC1 right now.
Another possibility is they are trying not to overwork Joey, and Gru was coming off a good start so they figure why not give Joey extra rest and ride the “hot hand” for a game. I agree with Pax, I would never bet on Grubauer having a “hot hand,” but that is another possible explanation for what they were thinking.
I’ve got to think it’s likely exactly that… Gru had an excellent outing against Boston and they tried to ride the momentum AND get Joey some time off…
But that means they’re giving Daccord an entire week off after he put up a .970 against the Panthers.
I’m not sure if that guy needs that big of a break right now, especially with another break coming up next week. The way the schedule is, the Kraken’s No.1 goalie is going to get just three starts in two-and-a-half weeks… and Grubauer is likely going to get the same.
What I worry most about… was the second start in a row in hopes of him building on the previous game? Are they still trying to go with a platoon? It seems to me that if either of those is a yes, they are going to be giving away points they can’t afford to.
Very well said Daryl, it’s not like we don’t have a good sample size. I almost feel they are just really hoping that he can have a good season and someone might take him off our hands so we don’t have to buy him out. I don’t see that happening though and was very disappointed that they went back to Gru, unless there is a little injury issue but I’m skeptical that that’s the issue.
There have been signs that Joey is a little hurt as well (similar to mccann). I know they only officially said he was ill, not injured, but gotta wonder if there is also a nagging injury.
I noticed that the size monster raised its ugly head against Tampa and the Kraken were unable to find passing lanes. This haooens against bigger teams. Evans was over matched in this game, mostly due to his size. The smaller players like Tanev and Kartye were mostly ineffective and their pace was slowed. Unfortunately for the Kraken, a .500 team will not make the playoffs and I do not think they have enough talent to do so either, injuries or not. Boston is not a top tier team anymore and anything we play a top tier team we get exposed. If the Canucks GM says that his team is not a top teir team and they lat the top of our division, I wonder what he thinks of the Kraken.
Even though the Firebirds play good hockey, I do not think they have the talent to improve the Kraken this year of next. Unfortuately, thee Kraken do not have the talent to make a decent trade without getting fleeced. I feel we are in for a long season. I love your positive spin on things so keep that up. We are destined for a middle draft pick again and that spells trouble for the future. All of our top talent in junior and the minors are small players. as far as forwards go with the D being in the average size range.
Size isn’t everything. A team of Oleksiaks would lose every game. Also, Kartye is 5’11” and 202 lb and throws hits with regularity. He’s not huge but I wouldn’t call him one of the “smaller” players.
Timing and body position are a huge part of making a good hit. Tolvanen is 5’10” 182 and second on the team in hits both this year and last. Kiefer Sherwood is still on pace for over 500 hits this season and is 6’/194.
For undrafted players like Kartye and Sherwood, if hits are what’s going to keep them on an NHL roster, doing it well is a skill they’re going to put effort into.
Ironically, Boston is the biggest team in the league. Seattle is small, but so is Colorado and Minnesota….hasn’t hurt them much this year.
This was one of the main concerns re:the Montour and Stephenson signings, that it would make the Kraken better but it wouldn’t push them into playoff contention, so they’d be stuck in the mushy middle. This is pretty much exactly what’s happened so far — they aren’t quite good enough to consistently rack up points, and can’t seem to distance themselves from fake .500. It is one of the worst spots to be in as an NHL franchise — not good enough to get in the playoffs, and not bad enough to get a top 10 pick. I really like Montour, but by the time this team’s prospects actually show up/develop, he’ll probably be 35.
The problem is really Stephenson I feel that that cap room would be more valuable than he is. I think defense ages better and Montour could be useful long term but who knows. If your spending to the cap, have a lot of mid level players locked up long term it makes the future very difficult. Not impossible just difficult, I don’t think RF is the guy to lead us out of this.
Not to be pessimistic but MoneyPuck has the Kraken 12.7% chance of making the playoffs. This constant yo-yoing continues to give false hopes. While some new good things this year (Wright, Montour, Stephenson), this was the only team (outside an odd Carlson decision) that did not have a player selected for Four Nations. Vegas had seven!! More than anything else, that really dictates what is likely to pan out the rest of the season.
The real action will be in roster decisions. Francis has 6 key personnel decisions ahead of him by next season. The Grubauer buy-out decision, the trades for Gourde, Borgen, and Tanev, fixing Matty B’s lack of offense, and does he waste another year of Catton in the CHL?
We have some good teams to pass. The Avs and Canucks have both been under preforming, very difficult road conditions ahead.
Definitely some good teams to pass.
Last season Vegas bagged 23 points in their first 12 games and around this time (December 8th) LA had the best points percentage in the entire conference. The Kings fired their coach less than two months later and finished 7th in the West. The Golden Nights played the remaing 70 games at an 88 point pace and finished 8th.
Both those teams did make the playoffs and the eight teams in right now may well be the teams to ultimately make it, but it’s also possible a team that looks like “world beaters” right now may well take a turn for the worse. I think Seattle is definitely on the outside looking in, but I also think they’re in a decent position to be the team that could slip in if they can keep playing the way they have the last couple weeks.
Agreed on good teams to surpass. I was a little surprised that JB suggested we “held serve”. In my mind, the “playoff watch” started just prior to the games against the Ducks and Sharks – the idea being if we captured 6 – 8 of those points we’d be set up well for a playoff run. At that point the Kraken were 10th in the conference. Instead, we laid a major egg and are currently still stuck on 50% of available points and are sitting at 12th in the Western Conference. the team and – with a much more difficult remaining schedule – we must capture 65% of the available points.
About Vince Dunn’s impact – since returning (Nov. 30) the Kraken have captured just 9 points in eight games, or 56% of total points. Yes, he’s a very good player, but even he can’t compensate for our shoddy goaltending and inconsistent play from our forward group. I just don’t see any panacea on the horizon. Should make for an interesting trade deadline though….