The Kraken just wrapped up a fun week of hockey at Climate Pledge Arena, winning two out of three games with victories against the Buffalo Sabres and the Pittsburgh Penguins. Their only loss came against the league-leading Washington Capitals. I won’t pretend it was the prettiest stretch of games, but let’s face it—winning is fun.
Saturdays are fun again
The win against the Penguins on Saturday marked the Kraken’s fourth home victory on a Saturday this season. Last season, they went 0-7-2 at home on Saturday nights. Pittsburgh seemed to dominate lengthy stretches of the game, but the Kraken capitalized on key opportunities and never trailed. An added bonus of Saturday’s game was the annual Kids Game, featuring several kids shadowing job functions during the event—not to mention the many young fans in the crowd, thanks to the family-friendly start time.
Face-off follow-ups
It was great to see people discussing my mention of Chandler Stephenson’s defensive capabilities on Reddit last week. Measuring defensive skills using public data is challenging because so many important events aren’t captured. Thinking out loud here: it would be great to have metrics like deflections of passes, elimination of passing lanes, coverage of players, possession in the defensive zone, controlled zone exits versus zone exits that immediately concede possession, and so on—all measured against the strength of the competition on the ice.
Someone in the Reddit thread pointed out Stephenson’s low face-off percentage in the defensive zone, as available on NHL.com stats. I commend the poster for digging into the data and investigating on their own. However, even that stat requires context.
For most of the season, Stephenson has been part of the first penalty kill unit, meaning he takes a lot of face-offs while the team is shorthanded. Being shorthanded naturally reduces a team’s chances of winning a face-off. League-wide, shorthanded teams win only 46.9 percent of face-offs in all scenarios. Meanwhile, Stephenson’s face-off percentage while shorthanded is 50.8 percent.
I should also point out that face-offs are an incomplete stat because what you really want is possession, which isn’t the same as simply winning the face-off. That said, face-off percentages are the best we have right now and are generally a good indicator of possession—though not 100 percent of the time.
Sign or trade
In case you missed it, we did an exercise on the Sound Of Hockey Podcast last week called “Sign or Trade,” focusing on the Seattle Kraken’s pending unrestricted free agents. Using the AFP Analytics midseason extension projection model, we analyzed a couple of players and shared our opinions on whether the Kraken front office should re-sign or trade them based on their forecasted cap hits.
Yanni Gourde’s projected cap hit was $4.1 million AAV over three years. We all agreed the Kraken should trade him if that is what it would require to re-sign him, but I wonder—at what point does the AAV start to make sense for the team? The Kraken need another center for next season, and there doesn’t appear to be anyone in the pipeline who could fill the fourth-line center role. So, if Yanni would stay for $3.5 million, would you consider it?
The other part of the equation is what the Kraken could get for Yanni on the trade market. As I mentioned last week, if a first-round draft pick is on the table, you have to make the trade regardless of Yanni’s potential re-signing number. You could always try to bring him back in free agency, but that rarely happens—so I wouldn’t count on it.
The other interesting player is Brandon Tanev, whose projected cap hit is $2.4 million AAV for two years. Tanev has played very well this season, and at those numbers, re-signing him would definitely be worth considering.
Other musings
- The Kraken improved to 6-2-0 all-time against the Pittsburgh Penguins. The only Eastern Conference team they have a better record against is the Buffalo Sabres, who they defeated on Monday. Seattle is now 7-1-0 against the Sabres.
- Fans at the Capitals and Penguins games this week had the chance to see goals from Alexander Ovechkin and Sidney Crosby. Neither player had scored at Climate Pledge Arena since the Kraken’s inaugural season.
- With their win on Saturday, the Kraken’s record improved to 12-5-3 in games where they score first. When the opposition scores first, Seattle’s record is 10-20-0.
- At this point, it feels like a stretch to consider Seattle, Anaheim, and Nashville in the playoff race. However, Nashville has been the hottest team in January and is inching back into the conversation.
- I haven’t completely given up on the Kraken making things interesting, but until further notice, they are out of the playoffs and are likely sellers at the trade deadline.
- The Kraken have two games against the Calgary Flames before the 4 Nations Face-Off break. Two regulation wins in those matchups would certainly make things more interesting.
- The Capitals looked very strong when they played the Kraken last Thursday. Impressively, the Caps also boast one of the best prospect pools in the league—not bad for a team that hasn’t tanked. They’ve only missed the playoffs once in the last 10 seasons.
- The big trade on Friday between the Carolina Hurricanes and Colorado Avalanche officially kicked off trade season. There’s usually a major trade in late January that starts to grease the trade gears—last year it was Elias Lindholm, and the year before, Bo Horvat. Expect trades to pick up steadily as we approach the March 7 trade deadline.
- Matty Beniers is playing his best hockey of the season right now. His performance seemed to improve after the Kaapo Kakko trade. Since Kakko joined the team, Beniers has scored seven goals in 17 games; before that, he had just four goals in 33 games.
- Speaking of the Kakko trade, Will Borgen signed a five-year contract with the New York Rangers over the weekend. The average annual value clocked in a $4.1 million. I’m happy for Will and, at the same time, thankful the Kraken did not sign for that price tag.
- Buoy attended one of those mascot night events at a Portland Trail Blazers game. I wonder if all those mascots get together after work to enjoy a few “college sodas.”
i fink i’m stawting to wike basketbawl 🧌🏀 pic.twitter.com/rbwKsGkmbs
— Buoy (@SEAbuoy) January 27, 2025
Goal of the week
Sophomore forward Kahlen Lamarche scored this beauty of a goal for Quinnipiac over the weekend.
MARSHY DOES IT HERSELF🤯#BobcatNation x #NCAAHockey pic.twitter.com/YJXey6kPLh
— Quinnipiac Women's Ice Hockey (@QU_WIH) January 25, 2025
Player performances
- Jared McCann (SEA) – McCann’s goal-scoring is off pace compared to previous seasons, but he’s contributing in other ways. He recorded one goal and four assists over the Kraken’s last three games.
- Tyson Jugnauth (POR/SEA) – The unsigned Kraken prospect is on an active 10-game point streak, tallying six goals and 13 assists during that span.
- Joey Daccord (SEA) – Daccord is 4-2-0 in his last six starts with an impressive .928 save percentage. Even in his two losses, he’s kept the Kraken competitive with a chance to win.
The week ahead
The Kraken face a tough matchup on Monday when they head to Edmonton to play the Oilers in Connor McDavid’s first game back after his three-game suspension. It’s hard to expect much from the Kraken in that game, as Edmonton has been playing well lately, winning seven of its last 10 games. Adding the best player in the league back into the lineup certainly won’t hurt the Oilers.
After Monday, the schedule lightens up with home games against Anaheim on Tuesday, San Jose on Thursday, and a Sunday game against Calgary. Both Anaheim and San Jose have been struggling recently. Anaheim is 3-5-2 in its last 10 games, while San Jose has managed just one win in its last 10. I don’t take anything for granted this season, but if there are two games you expect to win, these are them.
Calgary presents a bigger challenge. The Flames currently hold the last wild card spot and have been stingy on defense. One potential advantage for the Kraken is that Calgary will be playing the night before against the Red Wings, which might mean Seattle faces backup goaltender Dan Vladar instead of Calder Trophy candidate Dustin Wolf. That said, Vladar played well against the Kraken earlier this season, allowing just two goals in an overtime loss back in October.
I’ve accepted that a playoff push is unlikely, but I’d still like to see the Kraken make things interesting the rest of the way. Six points this week, including a regulation win against Calgary, are almost mandatory if they hope to have any shot at climbing back into the playoff picture. Either way, I still enjoy the winning—especially at home—so I’d probably be satisfied with a couple of home victories this week.
When I was listening to the sign or trade discussion on the pod, one question immediately jumped to my mind, would you trade a second for Yanni Gourde right now? Not trade him for a second, trade a second for him – even if he had the term discussed. Even though he’s injured and has had a somewhat down year, the center market is so thin I think a second is completely reasonable. The Lightning have Utah’s second right now and could possibly be in the market. That pick is likely going to be right around where the Kraken are picking… it’s apples to apples. Apart from the “fan favorite” part, I think resigning him is the same as trading for him. I think most folks wouldn’t make that deal.
Go Kraken!!!
On faceoffs… I think one thing worth mentioning that I’m sure most folks recognize but some may not. As much as there is talk about faceoffs not mattering, I think that’s mostly about win percentages. Where faceoffs are taken matters a lot.
Not only is there the obvious disadvantage of beginning play in your own zone whether you win or lose the draw, there’s also the problem of the matchup. Go on NST and look at the top 50 players on ice for offensive zone faceoffs so far this season. It’s pretty much all 4-Nation’s guys. Obvious you want the best players in the best position to succeed… so it’s worth think about who is on the other side of that proposition. So far Stephenson’s on ice 403 defensive zone faceoffs is 15th among all forwards. Before the Christmas break he was in the top 10. When you look at the xGF% and consider where he’s starting and against whom… it starts to make sense.
By the way… Matty and Shane have been on the ice for a combined 382 defensive zone draws.
Go Kraken!!!
I think my biggest fear for the second half is the goaltending. You cannot play Joey every night and I have trouble watching any game that GrubHub Gruebauher starts in. For me, a better back up is high on my check list in order to make the wildcard. No one will trade for him or take on his salary if waived. My feeling are to waive him and hope we get lucky and bring up the Firebirds goalie Kokko, anyway. He has better numbers than Stezka even though he does not have the experience.
Kokko is 20 years old. I think he’s a legit goalie prospect but there are risks to bringing someone so young up so soon. I say just bring up Steszka, because why not? It’s unlikely he’d be worse than Grubauer. Plus couldn’t they save some cap $$ by waiving and sending Grubauer down to AHL?? I defer to Curtis on this.
Thank You! for your take on Stevenson. Been reading so many other comments about him here and on other sites and it’s mostly negative. Don’t understand why?
To me during the last several weeks he has been one of the team’s most productive player.
Go Kraken!!!
Ugh, I can’t resist. The public stats do take into account strength of competition. And they still say that Chandler Stephenson has been worse than 99% of other forwards in the NHL, DEAD LAST among all players with at least 300 minutes in expected goals share at even strength. And so on and so on. And it is consistent across all of the competing analytics systems — the Athletic, Moneypuck, Jfresh, hockeyreference — they all say he stinks. Not stinks relative to his price tag — stinks relative to everyone. Here is a mere example, which includes some discussion (such as whether some team-specific data could possibly explain the Kraken’s blunder in signing this guy — answer: no):
https://x.com/JFreshHockey/status/1872320205696995685/photo/1
As for specific events like “deflections of passes, elimination of passing lanes, coverage of players, possession in the defensive zone, controlled zone exits versus zone exits that immediately concede possession”… well first of all, there are public stats on controlled zone exits and entries (which I admit I haven’t bothered to look up), but regardless, if Stevie was good at these things, they would positively impact the shot quality the team is generating and giving up when he’s on the ice. But the Kraken are getting consistently KILLED when he is on the ice, in both actual goals and expected goals, especially at even strength. His best asset used to be his speed — but that has plummeted too based on the tracking data. Of course these public analytics are imperfect, but there is no amount of tweaking or refining by some super-sophisticated private data that could possibly close this gap between “one of the worst full-time forwards in the NHL at both defense and offense” to “actually good.” You would need to believe that the margin for error of all of these analytical systems is 100%, i.e. they are absolutely useless, for that to be true. Do you really believe that? What is your evidence for the idea that he IS good, other than out-dated reputation? Shorthanded faceoff percentage? that’s it?
To top it all off, it’s not like any of this data seems particularly surprising when I watch the guy play. He has been visibly, glaringly bad on most nights. Slow, turnover-prone, loses puck-battles along the wall routinely, missing defensive assignments, etc. etc.
I’m not saying this to rag on Francis. I am actually NOT a “fire Francis” guy, I think overall he has done a great job. But the Stephenson contract is a glaring exception to that. I even used to love watching Stephenson play, in his prime — when he WAS fast. I have a bias for fast players, even ones with other limitations. In his early Vegas years, I would hear national podcasters or writers or analytics guys talk about how Stephenson was on OK player but over his head as a top 6 center, and I would kinda chafe at that, because he looked so fast and fun out there. But he just isn’t fast anymore, and the rest of his game has also regressed. Time comes for us all, sadly, and there was already plenty of writing on the wall last year that it was already coming for Stevie. The Kraken inexplicably ignored it and now we’re paying for it.
Free Curtis! I want to hear his response to all this.
you selectively missed the context of the “strength of the competition” comment.
I would say three things…
First… the JFresh card “Competition” rating of 73% only accounts for “on ice” matchups as far as I know. It does not account for situationallity. So the fact that Stephenson is taking admittedly tough matchups is worth something, but the fact that he is also taking those matchups in the defensive zone is not showing up in that number. As I mentioned in a previous post, Stephenson has taken more defensive zone draws than Shane and Matty combined… and those draws are against the toughest competition in the league. I don’t know how better to say it, it’s one thing to face tough competition, it’s another to have it on the toughest terms as well.
You didn’t look it up? Look up Shane’s “strength of competition”. I’ll point you at Luszczyszyn’s player cards… Stephenson is in the 70s – with the same faceoff caveats – and Shane is around 5%. Stephenson is eating a giant turd sandwich so Shane and Matty don’t have to.
Second, the whole foundation of the Luszczyszyn knock on Stephenson was his numbers without or without Stone. Well this season he traded in Stone for Burakovski… and he’s on pace to surpass his points from last season. Doesn’t that give you pause? Which brings us to number three…
Is everyone in the NHL just dumber than the guys sitting on a couch?
Does Luszczyszyn really think he’s smarter than everyone else… or is it maybe that his model is missing something? Darren mentioned this on the pod. NHL teams have a battery of people who spend their entire professional lives focusing on the minor specifics of the things that never even flutter across the attention screen of folks who look in from the outside. I’m not saying teams don’t make mistakes, but when a model has a guy who is second on his team in points and leading in assists as a WAR zero… maybe the model is missing something.
Stephenson starts in the defensive zone against some of the league’s toughest competition and he doesn’t shoot a lot. That explains a lot of his negative xGF%. He’s good with his passes; however, and when he does shoot, he shoots 17%. If your model is based on “expected” and doesn’t account for situationallity… it’s gonna hate Stephenson. That doesn’t mean he’s not worth the contract… and I’m a lot more inclined to have faith in contract projections from historically accurate Evolving Hockey and the views of NHL front offices than I am Dom Luszczyszyn.
But that’s just my take… maybe Stephenson IS the worst forward in the NHL…
I actually also suspect he’s not THAT bad, maybe partly for the reasons you say, and also, the stats just seem SO extreme. Maybe he’s not the worst… but I think it’s pretty unavoidable that he is *pretty* bad, egregiously miscast as a first-line center, and not even close to being worth the price tag. Yes, I’m aware they are sheltering Wright. And maybe that’s the right (wright?) thing to do for him at this stage, and we might as well throw Stevie to the wolves rather than quelch the confidence of Wright or Beniers, since we are not contending this season anyway. But I just don’t think the difference in deployment is big enough to explain the huge discrepancy between Stephenson and the two young guys.
Fair enough… there is definitely room for debate. I would say the term “first-line center” and $6.25m are not necessarily consistent. I believe if you look around you won’t find a lot of “first-line centers” earning $6.25m. I think that’s what Boston thought they were getting for $7.75m.
He is not getting paid like a first line center but he is being used like one, in terms of TOI and deployment. That’s what I meant.
Well if he’s not getting paid like a first line center but he’s being used like one… shouldn’t we be asking why? Shouldn’t that inform the idea that he’s there to… eat minutes, pass the puck, take faceoffs? To me it seems like you’re getting at the actual point… he’s doing exactly what he was brought in to do, I think, and the fact that Dom Luszczyszyn has a model that values xG% without context doesn’t mean, to me, he’s a bust.
Those are my feelings exactly Daryl.
The worst forward in the NHL is… 2nd on the team in points? Leading the team in assists? He’s not even the worst forward on the TEAM, let alone the entire NHL, and you don’t need advanced stats to tell you that. The entire conversation around Stephenson seems to be uniquely driven by JFresh’s model and twitter account and I would be willing to bet he hasn’t watched a single Kraken game all year. Even some of the local coverage sources have sort of unquestioningly bought into that line in ways that make me wonder if they really want to understand the analytics they are looking at, or if they just want to be mad about something online. The entire topic has just felt extremely hyperbolic.
None of this is to say that I’m happy with the AAV or term of his contract, or even think that he’s “good”, just that it doesn’t take watching too many other teams to come to the conclusion that there are, in fact, worse forwards in the NHL than him.
I would say on the term… folks in the performance analytics community look at past performance, apply an aging curve, and then make a projection. This is a very rudimentary take, but I don’t think it’s dishonest. Unfortunately, I feel like most of those same folks don’t deal with contracts in the same way but that doesn’t stop them from making judgments. They seem to look at yesterday and think tomorrow will be the same. Covid didn’t do anything to dissuade this thinking… but in the same way there is an aging curve, there is a cap curve… but it slopes up rather than down. I think most fans and folks in the media don’t consider this and I think most of them trail the market because of it.
If you’re going to use Dom’s QoC numbers, Stephenson has 78th percentile defensive difficulty and terrible defensive numbers. Beniers has 89th percentile difficulty and excellent defensive numbers. They are absolutely using Stephenson to shelter Wright but I don’t think you can extend that to Beniers at this point. I do think that he had a more difficult workload earlier in the season, and I wonder if Beniers taking more difficult minutes recently might partially account for him looking better recently.
For reference, Stephenson has easier QoC numbers according to Evolving Hockey than Wennberg did last year, and while he has a lower OZ FO rate at 5v5, their 5v5 OZ start% is comparable. Wennberg did not get caved to nearly the same extent, so I’m not willing to excuse his statistical performance entirely based on his deployment. This does, of course, come with the caveat that the systems are different this year and that may account for part of the difference in results there. I’d be interested in anything people with better eyes than me have seen that might account for this discrepancy, especially on the defensive side.
Raw point totals aren’t convincing to me because my complaints are about his 5v5 play, particularly defensively. I’m happy to concede that he has decent production on the power play.
If his passing was creating good chances for his teammates, that should be reflected in xGF% since that is an on-ice metric, not an individual one. In other words, the fact that Stephenson doesn’t shoot much himself wouldn’t matter as long as someone takes those shots while he’s on the ice. I do think moving Bjorkstrand to his line has been beneficial there, particularly coupled with the apparent shift in his deployment.
Evolving Hockey contract projections are designed to predict what contracts players will sign, not what they’ll be worth in terms of performance. That said, Stephenson is currently performing below their projection for him (0.2 GAR in 959 minutes, projected for 1.4 GAR in 1255 minutes) and signed a larger contract than they predicted (7 years at 6.25m per, projected for 4 years at 6.1m per).
I don’t actually believe that Stephenson is the worst forward in the NHL, but he spent the first half of the the season looking the least capable of playing the role he was given. Hopefully we’re seeing him both play better (the times I’ve noticed him this month have definitely leaned more positive than earlier in the year) and move into a role that is a better fit.
I think lately Beniers seems to be rounding into form and is looking more like the top six center they’re hoping he’ll become. If he and Kakko continue to work well together that’s great news and maybe Eberle can help out elsewhere when he returns. I also think he’s matching up against other teams top players as well. The point I was making on both the JFresh and Luszczyszyn numbers was I don’t think they account for situation….and that’s where Stephenson was taking the heavier workload from both Shane and Matty over the season. They had been getting around 60% of their faceoffs in the offensive zone as opposed to 47% for Stephenson.
Now… lately this has changed. In January Beniers was actually the one around 47% and Stephenson was actually taking more than half his draws in the offensive zone (51.96%). Wright has still been around 60%. I think Beniers has finally started to turn it around since Kakko arrived and Stephenson is now getting better matchups because of it. Among forwards, his on-ice for of 16 goals all situations and 10 at 5v5 in January both lead the team.
When I look at Wennberg and Stephenson it’s pretty noticeable how very similar a lot of their numbers are… both last season and this season. There are a couple differences however. Again, with the faceoffs… in Vegas Stephenson was actually taking around 60% of his draws in the offensive zone. With Mark Stone on his wing that makes sense. Meanwhile, Wennberg was the one drawing just 47% in the o-zone. This season those two have flip-flopped… and yet they’re both still pretty similar in most other respects. Maybe where you take faceoffs doesn’t matter? I actually think it does.
I think Wennberg at $5×2 would have been fine for this team and he probably would have fulfilled the same role as Stephenson… but he didn’t want to sign here. They’ve both played around the same minutes, both have just 8 goals… but Stephenson had 27 assists to Wennbergs 15.
Stephenson is not a No.1 center. He’s not a No.2 center on a contender… but after leaving Vegas and Mark Stone behind he’s on pace to match his points from last season… in tougher situations with less help. As I’ve said several times, I think his role – the reason he was brought in – was to eat minutes, distribute the puck, and take faceoffs. All of that has been to support the young guys down the middle and I think he’s done fine with that. Now that Matty is starting to click, I hope he can expand his game.
By the way phiFiFoFum… good stuff! Opinions are often difficult to quantify so I appreciate when someone does just that. Thanks.
I can’t resist either. If CS is REALLY this bad, below is the savings (and cost) of buying him out after THIS season. Most likely I’ll be dead by 32-33 so not to worried about the LT cap hit:
Season Cap Savings
25/26 $4.3
26-27 $2.3
27-28 $4.3
28-29 $4.3
29-30 $4.3
30-31 $4.3
32-33 ($2.0)
33-34 ($2.0)
34-35 ($2.0)
35-36 ($2.0)
36-37 ($2.0)
I’d do that in a heartbeat. A $2 million dead cap hit in 2032 will be peanuts relative to the cap then. In the near future, they could sign a 4th line center better than Stevie using half of those $4.3M in savings. And although everyone seems to be assuming that Francis would not admit a mistake and cut bait so quickly, I would not be shocked if he did execute the buyout. Stephenson’s speed and performance have declined so severely since last year that they *must* be surprised and re-evaluating their options. Even looking at all the criticism the signing got last year, absolutely no one expected him to be THIS bad THIS quickly. On the other hand, a Grubauer buyout looks like a near certainty, and would they do two of those in the same summer? Maybe not.
For the Stephenson defenders — do you think there are enough other Stevie fans in other front offices, perhaps with access to top-secret data that shows he’s good, that the Kraken could trade him?
I’ll call myself a Stephenson defender… sure. Considering how thin the center market is, the fact that a bunch of teams have been looking for centers all season, the consistency of his numbers year over year even with a more challenging deployment and a rumored “exploding” cap… yeah, I think they could could move him… but why would they? So they can replace his 20 minutes a night and 950 faceoffs so far this season with what?… and for how much?
If you trade Yanni Gourde, maybe you get someone from Coachella to take that hit. If you move Stephenson, Matty and Shane take that hit.
Maybe Evolving Hockey knew what they were talking about when they said $6.75 x 7.
This is where I’m at. The Kraken have had two good center prospects who are already in the NHL, and then nobody else is even close. Brandon Biro (who??), Ben Meyers, and Logan Morrison aren’t exactly banging down the door in CV. Stephenson is bad, but I don’t really trust Francis to spend that money wisely elsewhere while the team isn’t even close to playoff competitive. That’s what got us this contract in the first place. Or…maybe RF buys out both CS and Gru and goes for Rantanen?? A fan can dream!!
The NHL’s buyout clause is most ridiculously generous mulligan offered in US professional sport. It should also be a given that Burakovsky and Grubauer will be bought out next year – buying them out would save ~ $7.2mm in 25/26 and ~ $4.9mm 26/27. Add on letting Tanev AND Gourde walk at season’s end AND buying out Stephenson would create over $20mm in cap space. Unlikely that all four forwards are gone next year (too big a hole to fill all at once) but the point is the Kraken will have a decent amount of cap space this offseason. The 2025 FA class doesn’t look deep, but if the Kraken want an upgrade at forward, wouldn’t someone like Brock Boeser look attractive?
TFL… I’ve got to ask… dead by 32-33? Are you that old or do you live that hard? Or both? I hope for your sake the Kraken can get this thing on track and win a cup in the next seven or so years.
Was mostly tongue-in-check lol. I’m late 60’s, but my wife won’t let me live hard 🙂 so if the timeframe for Kraken winning the cup is 5-10 years we’ll have to plan on getting a drink (splitting a bottle?) to celebrate
Plenty of time.
On resigning the vets:
Absolutely not. What is with this fascination of trying to keep the band together? They’re a sub .500 team for 2 seasons in a row, a team which refuses to play its best young forward more than 14 minutes a game, a team with an atrocious cap situation for the results, team with a allegedly strong pipeline ready to come up. Where are they going to play?
Ship them all out
I see Logan Thompson just signed for $5.85 x 6. After listening to Curtis rave about him on the podcast last week, I don’t see how Seattle could honestly expect to get him for 5×5 now… let alone a year less and a million less.
Saturday’s game would have been much more fun had I noticed it was a 1pm start….assuming it was at 7, I went online around 3 to check traffic to figure out when I needed to leave, only to discover it was already second intermission. Oh well…at least I caught the third period on TV and got a lot done around the house…