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Monday Musings – Kraken hold serve

John Barr

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

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?

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.

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.

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