Who said low-scoring games can’t be fun? The Seattle Kraken handed the Carolina Hurricanes just their third regular-season loss on Wednesday in a gritty 2-1 game in which Philipp Grubauer again dazzled and frankly stole the ‘W.’
These last two games have represented quite the turnaround for Grubauer, who was becoming the talk of the town in a not-so-positive way up until this week. Now, he’s the toast of the town.
Coming off a six-game losing streak, everything suddenly feels different for this Seattle Kraken squad, which has won two games in a row against elite teams and now heads on the road to continue facing difficult opponents.
Here are our three takeaways from this Kraken win over the Hurricanes.
Takeaway #1: Grubauer is who we thought he was
For those that were worried Grubauer would never pan out to be the top-tier netminder Seattle thought it was getting when it signed him in the offseason, concerns now have to be allayed, at least temporarily. He followed up an impressive 37-save performance on Sunday with an arguably better 35-save performance on Wednesday for the Kraken against the Hurricanes.
In Grubauer’s recent games against Chicago, Minnesota, and even his relief appearance against Colorado, he gave up goals, but they came on chances where he was hung out to dry. There weren’t bad goals getting by him in those games, as there had been in some earlier outings. So we thought this was coming, although until fans saw him put together full 60-minute games like he has suddenly been doing, it was still easy to doubt him.
But it sure has been a treat to watch him these last couple contests, hasn’t it?
What was most impressive about Grubauer’s play on Wednesday was that the NHL’s best team (at least in terms of its record entering the game) was getting tons of traffic in front of him, and he battled through all night. Even when he wasn’t seeing it, or pucks were changing directions on the way to the net, he was in perfect position and made himself big at the top of the crease.
Grubauer downplayed it after the game, saying, “Sometimes the puck just hits you,” which drew a big laugh in the media room. There’s truth to that for goalies, though. It’s a phenomenon that can’t really be explained, but it comes with confidence and being on your game. When you’re playing well and things are going your way, pucks that you think should get by you find ways into your equipment, even if you have no idea when the shot is coming or where it’s headed. And when things aren’t going your way, pucks you think you should stop find ways through.
He did eventually expand on those thoughts. “In this league now, it’s everybody’s strategy to get one or two guys in front of the goalie, take their vision away, get in the lane so the goalie has to move,” Grubauer explained. “Some teams don’t make it as hard as other teams, and I think Carolina made it really hard. So you gotta make sure you react. If you find the puck, you gotta know what’s going around you. You can’t just focus on the puck, you gotta know where are the open guys— where’s the fifth guy? And you need to make sure you place your rebounds well.”
Coach Dave Hakstol also pointed to Grubauer’s ability to fight for saves as a key to his recent success. “The big thing for me is he’s seeing the puck,” he said. “He’s finding the puck through traffic, he looks very calm and settled. He’s a guy that reads the play very very well, and we’ve seen that for sure tonight… He had good help from the guys around him, but he was finding the puck through traffic and then able to continue battling on the second pucks.”
Takeaway #2: Can a fight actually cause a momentum swing?
Look, we get it. We honestly, honestly get it. Not everyone likes the narrative that fights can change the momentum in a game, and we also recognize that believing they can is a bit archaic. Plus, after this little exchange via the Twitter machine, we’re frankly hesitant to even bring this up.
One cannot deny the efficacy of Vince Dunn taking Andrei Svechnikov—one of Carolina’s two best offensive players—off the ice for five minutes, right in the heart of the third period in a tie game.
The fisticuffs stemmed from Dunn playing the body on Svechnikov, who entered the Seattle zone on a one-on-two rush. He tried to make a flashy play between his own legs, but Dunn read it and pushed him to the corner. The two players came together behind the goal line, and Dunn got his hands up a bit as they battled. Svechnikov apparently took offense to that and threw several punches with his gloves on, leaving Dunn no choice but to drop his own gloves and defend himself.
Not only did the fight mean that Svechnikov would not be able to participate for the subsequent five minutes, but because he started it, he got an extra two-minute minor for roughing, which was served by Nino Niederreiter.
The Kraken didn’t score on the power play, but there’s no question the two minutes of good possession helped turn the tables. In the early stages of the third period, the Kraken had been playing hot potato with the puck, turning it over consistently in dangerous areas on the ice. In the later stages, after the power play and all that possession, Seattle’s puck management improved, and eventually the Kraken got rewarded when Marcus Johansson potted the game-winning goal at 16:52.
So, perhaps the fight didn’t really create the momentum or the turning point that led to the victory, but the outcome of the fight certainly did, narratives be damned.
Takeaway #3: The Kraken had their whole team healthy… for a little while
Mason Appleton played his first game since Oct. 26, when he injured his ankle against the Montreal Canadiens. His inclusion in the lineup Wednesday pushed Nathan Bastian onto waivers to make space and meant Hakstol had his whole group simultaneously healthy for the first time this season.
That lasted all of two periods.
In the first 30 seconds of the third period, Svechnikov gave Calle Jarnkrok a cross check just outside the Hurricanes’ crease, and Jarnkrok went down on all fours. Jordan Staal then fell on top of Jarnkrok, who stayed down for a bit and eventually got up and hobbled to the bench, putting minimal weight on his left leg. Jarnkrok went down the tunnel and did not return, and Hakstol had no update after the game.
The injury could prove… painful… on a lot of levels for the Kraken. Most obviously, if Jarnkrok misses time, that means the full healthy group will have been extremely short-lived. But Jarnkrok played his best game of the season on Sunday, scoring his first two points, and looked like he was starting to finally find his game. Plus, with Bastian waived, there’s a chance the Kraken could lose him on Thursday (we will know if this happens on Thursday morning).
The timing of most of Seattle’s returns and exits into and out of the lineup have aligned quite nicely, so they’ve largely avoided having to waive players they didn’t want to waive. This one could end up stinging.
UPDATE: Bastian was indeed claimed by his old team, the New Jersey Devils.
Seattle Kraken versus Carolina Hurricanes 7 p.m. Pacific time Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle, Washington TV: ROOT Sports Radio: AM 950 KJR
It’s wild how different things suddenly feel for the Kraken after just one win. It’s not that the attitudes of the players or the head coach had publicly changed all that much during Seattle’s six-game losing streak that was snapped with an impressive victory over the Washington Capitals Sunday. It’s just that… things… feel different. We can’t really put our finger on it, but watching the team skate on Wednesday morning, you just get this sense that the Kraken can play with the Carolina Hurricanes, one of the NHL’s best teams.
Mason Appleton returning
For the first time all season, the Kraken are fully healthy entering Wednesday’s game (knock on wood!). There are no players in COVID protocol and no players on injured reserve. That’s because Mason Appleton—who suffered a scary ankle injury against the Montreal Canadiens on Oct. 26—was activated on Wednesday morning and is expected to play.
It was a tough month for Appleton. “Rehab sucks, just because you want to be on the ice, and you’re not,” he said Wednesday after morning skate. He indicated there were times where he had to crawl up his stairs like his dog.
On returning, he said, “You’re just playing hockey. Trust your body and trust your brain and just make hockey plays. That’s kind of all there is to it.” Sounds easy enough, although Appleton has been out for four weeks, so there will likely be a bit of a ramping up period for him. He’ll start out on a line with Brandon Tanev and Jared McCann, which should create a nice mix of skill and tenacity.
Coach Dave Hakstol talked Wednesday about the luxury of having his whole group together. “There’s a little bit more flexibility in terms of some of the combinations,” he said. “Having everybody available is a positive, but as in every night—just like the other night—20 guys are in the lineup, 20 guys are ready to go, and 20 guys have to be ready to go for 60 full minutes.”
Nathan Bastian on waivers
In the past week, it became abundantly clear that Appleton was closing in on a return. It also became apparent that another roster move would be coming to make space for him. That roster move happened Wednesday morning, as Nathan Bastian was placed on waivers. Bastian—like Riley Sheahan before him—had been a good soldier and a solid presence on the fourth line for much of the season. But he had been a healthy scratch since Colin Blackwell returned on Nov. 13, making him a clear candidate to be sent down.
The hope for Seattle is that Bastian, who is just 23 years old and has a year left on his contract before becoming a restricted free agent, will clear waivers and go to the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers. It is certainly feasible that another team claims him, though.
This means Will Borgen, who has not dressed in a game for the Kraken, again survives to stay with the NHL club. The Kraken clearly believe the young, right-shot defenseman is likely to be picked up if they try to pass him through waivers.
By the way, with Bastian gone, it appeared from line rushes on Wednesday that Ryan Donato will be the healthy scratch from the forward corps, joining Haydn Fleury and Borgen.
What the Kraken face in the Carolina Hurricanes
We’ve had this game against the Hurricanes circled on the Kraken schedule for quite some time. Beyond the obvious ties between the two franchises—general manager Ron Francis, director of amateur scouting Robert Kron, play-by-play announcer John Forslund, Morgan Geekie, and Fleury all have experience with Carolina—this is just a good, good hockey team and a Stanley Cup contender. In fact, the Canes currently hold the NHL’s best record at 14-2-1.
The team’s lone overtime loss of the season did come Monday against the Sharks, and they are on the end of a five-game road trip through most of the Pacific Division. So perhaps Seattle can take advantage of a relatively tired team, as it did against Washington on Sunday.
The Hurricanes are getting it done at both ends of the ice. Offensively, they’re a top-ten team, scoring 3.35 goals per game, while they simultaneously boast one of the stingiest defenses, allowing just two goals against per game.
The knock on this team in past years has often been its goaltending. It was a bit surprising to see Alex Nedeljkovic sent to Detroit in the offseason, as he appeared to be solidifying the position. But general manager Don Waddell replaced Nedeljkovic and Petr Mrazek with Frederik Andersen and Antti Raanta, moves that have paid early dividends.
Andersen has been outstanding with a 1.89 goals against average and .937 save percentage and leads the league with 11 wins.
Sebastian Aho and Andrei Svechnikov drive the bus for the Canes offensively and have posted 18 and 19 points on the season respectively. Former Portland Winterhawk and friend of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast, Seth Jarvis, played his 10th game of the season on Monday. That means he crossed the threshold of burning the first year of his entry-level contract, so he will not be returned to the WHL. The 19-year-old has four goals and two assists.
Nobody said it would be easy for the Seattle Kraken to snap its miserable six-game skid, especially against a top-flight team like the Washington Capitals. And it certainly was not easy, but snap it they did on Sunday, as Philipp Grubauer was the guy that everyone expected him to be when he was splashily signed as a free agent in the offseason.
Kraken captain Mark Giordano had been saying for about a week that the group would have to “grind out” a victory to get off this losing streak. Meanwhile, we’ve been saying that Grubauer would have to steal a win for his team, something to help the guys build some belief that not every mistake has to end up in Seattle’s net.
Both happened on Sunday. Grubauer bailed his team out on countless occasions, and the players in front of him returned the favor by selling out to block shot after painful shot in the third period.
The result was a desperately needed 5-2 Kraken win over the Capitals and some good feelings for Seattle for the first time since Nov. 4. Here are our takeaways.
Takeaway #1: Kraken get the bail-out save(s) they’ve so sorely needed
When Jeremy Lauzon coughed up the puck to Evgeny Kuznetsov behind the Kraken net, and Tom Wilson buried Kuznetsov’s pass just 3:34 into the game, there was a palpable sense of, Welp… here we go again, throughout Climate Pledge Arena.
When Morgan Geekie coughed it up to Connor McMichael at the offensive blue line six minutes later, and McMichael skated in unmolested toward Philipp Grubauer, fans in attendance prepared themselves to have the air completely sucked out of the building.
But that didn’t happen. For the first time in… well, we don’t really know how long… the Kraken got the save that bailed them out after a bad mistake. Grubauer dropped into the butterfly and kicked away McMichael’s shot.
Philipp Grubauer sweeps the puck off his goal line Sunday against the Capitals. (Photo/Brian Liesse)
“We make a mistake, and all of a sudden— it’s not quite a clear-cut breakaway, but it’s a heck of a save at the right time,” said coach Dave Hakstol after the game. “That’s important. So Grubi gets us through that first period, and we feel good coming out of that period. A lot of it has to do with that save, and then the work he did on the PK to finish out the period.”
Saves like the one on McMichael have been few and far between for the Kraken and are so important for the team’s confidence that the goalie has its back if it screws something up. From that save on McMichael onward, the Kraken morphed back into the team they aspire to be, relentless on the forecheck and willing to simply outwork an elite team.
Grubauer had been showing signs of improvement recently, but he took an enormous step on Sunday, turning away 37 of the 39 shots he faced and rescuing his team from Alex Ovechkin and his band of offensive stars.
Takeaway #2: The line shuffling works to perfection
After the Kraken lost 7-3 to Colorado on Friday in a mostly lifeless (except for the third period) effort, it was not a surprise to see Hakstol shuffle up his lines again for Sunday’s game against the Capitals. What was a bit surprising was his decision to split Schwartz up from the red-hot Jordan Eberle, with whom Schwartz had formed obvious chemistry.
In the shakeup, Schwartz was moved to a line with Yanni Gourde and Calle Jarnkrok. We surmised via the Twitter machine that the shift may have actually been an effort to get Jarnkrok going offensively, as he had not registered a single point in his 12 games this season. Jarnkrok got the second assist on Adam Larsson’s first goal as a Kraken, and from then on looked like a completely different player. He was flying around the ice, and deservedly scored a beautiful goal seven minutes later.
Schwartz stole a puck at Seattle’s blue line and sped through the neutral zone with Jarnkrok on his flank. He dished to Jarnkrok, who delayed, cut to the middle, and rifled it into the top corner.
And so… Jarnkrok is going. “It felt good,” he said of contributing offensively to an important win. “It took a little longer than I wanted it to, but it was a great team win.”
On the new look to the forward lines, Hakstol said, “Part of the thought process, [Johansson] and [Wennberg] playing together have some pretty good chemistry, and we have [Eberle] on that line, so you’ve got a guy on that line that can finish as well. With [Schwartz] going with [Jarnkrok] and Yanni [Gourde], those two guys play a certain way, and we felt Schwartzy with them would add to what that group does on the offensive side. And they’re going to defend well, they’re going to play hard and tenacious without the puck.”
Schwartz didn’t miss a beat without Eberle, scoring a goal and three assists on the night and rudely stealing first-star honors away from Grubauer.
Eberle saw his point streak end at seven games, but halting the losing streak at six games was clearly more important. Though he missed the scoresheet, Eberle still looked dangerous every time he touched the puck, especially in the second period.
We’ll go out on a limb and guess that assuming no injuries, these lines will stick for Wednesday’s game against Carolina.
Takeaway #3: Kraken reward fans for sticking with them
In the last “Three Takeaways,” we wrote about the response of the fans in the third period on Friday. When Seattle scored its first goal to make it 7-1, Climate Pledge Arena erupted as if it was the biggest goal the team had ever scored.
There was an underlying theme to Sunday’s post-game media availability that the gutsy 5-2 Kraken win over the Capitals—a game in which players were throwing themselves in front of every slapshot, and Grubauer was standing on his head—was for the fans.
Grubauer joked that he’s played in places where the crowd will “throw beer cans at you” for performances like Friday against the Avs, so the guys wanted to repay Kraken fans for their support against the Capitals on Sunday.
“Coming out of two nights ago, that hockey game… that stings,” added Hakstol. “That stings and that stays with you. The atmosphere in our building also stays with you. There’s probably a little bit of that mindset of how much support we had two nights ago on a really crappy night. And then to be able to come out tonight and do what we could to try to reward the people up there, and most importantly really take pride in our standard tonight, and that’s what happened.”
Now it’s up to Seattle to build off of this win. Ending a losing streak is one thing, but finding wins consistently in the NHL is a whole other ball of Jarn…krok.
Seattle Kraken versus Washington Capitals 6 p.m. Pacific time Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle, Washington TV: ROOT Sports Radio: AM 950 KJR
We’ve had this one circled on the calendar for quite a while. That’s right, folks, it’s finally Vitek Vanecek night at Climate Pledge Arena! The legendary former Kraken netminder is in Seattle for the first time since being selected in the Expansion Draft and then traded back to his old team, the Washington Capitals, without ever playing a game. Will he get a video tribute? Will fans honor him with a standing ovation? One can only hope.
While Vanecek’s first visit is certainly momentous, so too is the arrival of Alex Ovechkin, now No. 4 on the all-time goals list, and Mount Vernon’s own T.J. Oshie, the most famous of Washington-born NHLers.
Kraken look to stop the bleeding against Capitals
In case you haven’t heard, the Kraken have been in quite the tailspin since losing to the lowly Arizona Coyotes on Nov. 6. They’ve dropped six in a row, with their latest loss—a 7-3 drubbing by the Colorado Avalanche on Friday—making it feel like a bottoming out is fast approaching, if it hasn’t already happened. The Kraken do need to hit rock bottom before they can turn this thing around, so let’s hope that Friday’s game was as bad as this thing gets.
Coach Dave Hakstol is always even keeled when addressing the media, and he remained that way Friday night and at morning skate on Sunday. But he also confirmed that the coaching staff was not happy with the group’s overall performance against Colorado.
“There was a stretch of five or six games when we came back to this building off of our first road trip where we had mixed results,” Hakstol said Sunday. “But to my thinking, everybody in our dressing room would have been very proud of the standard that we had set during those games, results aside… the way we played, how hard we played, connected, and battling hard through those games. The game the other night, that’s not one that we can say we were proud of the standard that we set through that 60 minutes, and that’s what it looked like on tape as well.”
Bad performances where players can look themselves in the mirror and say, I need to be better next game can spark improved efforts. With pretty much every Kraken player leaving something to be desired on Friday, perhaps a collective moment of reflection will have a positive impact Sunday.
Here’s the thing, though. Even if the Kraken play better than they did on Friday, it’s more likely to be a “step in the right direction” or a “trust the process” type of moral victory than it is to be an actual win. Seattle faces a rolling Washington Capitals team that is 11-2-5 and 6-0-1 in its last seven games. It’s another example of how the timing of this very poor stretch of play by Seattle has been so damaging and could continue to worsen, as the opponents just get tougher and tougher.
Kraken shuffling their lines against Capitals
Hakstol stuck with a pretty similar mix of lines for the last couple games, but after Friday’s terrible performance, it’s no surprise he’s gone back to the drawing board, completely shuffling things up at morning skate.
For the first time since Jordan Eberle recorded a hat trick against the Buffalo Sabres on Nov. 4, he will be split apart from Jaden Schwartz. Eberle will start on a line with Alex Wennberg and Marcus Johansson, while Schwartz will go with Yanni Gourde and Calle Jarnkrok.
Eberle has been one of the few bright spots for the Kraken during this losing streak and is now up to nine goals and five assists on the season after adding a power play marker on Friday. He has points in each of Seattle’s last seven games.
Washington Capitals
For as tough as this matchup is on paper for Seattle, one bit of silver lining is that the Caps are on the second of back-to-back games with travel after they beat the Sharks in San Jose on Saturday. That most recent victory was a 4-0 shutout for Ilya Samsonov, his second in as many games. Coaches in the NHL almost never play a goalie twice in two nights, but there is an occasional exception to that rule if a netminder is coming off a shutout.
Will Peter Laviolette go right back to Samsonov to try to extend his streak? Or will he give the nod to Vanecek against his “old team?” Washington did not hold a morning skate on Sunday, so we will find out soon who will be in net. UPDATE: It will be Vanecek in net.
The Capitals’ goaltender selection is the least of Seattle’s worries. More concerning, Alex Ovechkin is on some kind of heater to start this season. The 36-year-old superstar is showing no signs of slowing down and has 14 goals and 15 assists in 18 games. He added his 743rd and 744th career goals on Saturday.
If you’ve never seen Ovechkin play in person and are going to the game, keep an eye on him when he’s away from the puck. It’s fascinating to watch him drift around the ice in a style that would drive most coaches up a wall. He lulls teams to sleep, and then suddenly strikes when they’re least expecting it.
Beyond Ovechkin, this is a deep team that comes at you with waves of offense all the way down its roster.
Washington is without Nicklas Backstrom, Anthony Mantha, and Lars Eller, but Oshie returned to the lineup Saturday, his first appearance since Oct. 27. UPDATE: Oshie is a late scratch due to a lower-body injury.
Saturday marked the first time that the Seattle Kraken have been completely run over by an opposing team on their home ice, as the Colorado Avalanche steamrolled their way to a 7-3 victory at Climate Pledge Arena. Despite having Nathan MacKinnon out since Nov. 6, the Avs have found their high-octane game and have now scored 24 goals in their last four contests. That’s six goals per game for those of you counting at home.
On the flip side of that coin, the Kraken have lost their way. No longer the aggressive forechecking squad that we saw at earlier stages of the season, Seattle is playing like it’s afraid to make mistakes. Kraken players seem well aware that every time they screw something up, the puck finds its way into the back of their net.
To sum Saturday up nicely, the Kraken made two mistakes in the first seven minutes, and they were down 2-0. Later in the opening period, Jaden Schwartz caught a stretch pass after a blocked Colorado shot and went in alone with all the time in the world. He beat Darcy Kuemper and… rang it hard off the post.
That was the way it went. That’s the way it has been going. Every mistake is a goal against, and every opportunity seems to just miss.
The latest loss extends Seattle’s streak to six games, and it has now dropped eight of its last nine dating back to the loss to the Rangers on Oct. 31.
Here’s what we’re taking away from this painful game.
Takeaway #1: That escalated quickly
Believe it or not, the Kraken played a better first period against the Avalanche than they did against Chicago or Minnesota in the two games prior. But Yanni Gourde tried to clear a rebound on an early penalty kill, and instead of getting it out of harm’s way, swept it across the front of the net and right onto the stick of Andre Burakovsky. That was at 4:04 of the opening frame, and already the Kraken were chasing, as they have done so many times this season. Then two minutes later, with Seattle on the man advantage, a bad pinch in the offensive zone sent Valeri Nichushkin in alone.
“The short-handed goal has a way of— that can take the wind out of your sails, for sure,” said coach Dave Hakstol.
Did it ever. By 5:33 of the second Cale Makar had scored his first of two goals, Burakovsky had scored his second of two, Chris Driedger was replaced by Philipp Grubauer, and the wheels were completely off the Kraken’s wagon.
When the horn sounded to end the second period, the Kraken had given up four goals in one frame and trailed 6-0.
As Mark Giordano said after the game, “It went from bad to really bad in a hurry.”
Takeaway #2: Have the Kraken hit rock bottom, or not yet?
We had a conversation with a fellow media member during the first intermission, when Seattle was down 2-0. It went a little something like this…
Us: “Losing streaks always have a rock-bottom point, and it doesn’t feel like the Kraken have gotten there yet. They haven’t had that game where they get spanked 6-0, you know?”
Fellow media member: “Well, it could be tonight.”
Fast forward 20 minutes of game play, and the Kraken were getting spanked 6-0. Now, the final score prediction wasn’t quite spot-on, but… you get the picture.
We are firm believers in Harvey Dent’s theory that the night is darkest just before the dawn. With more daunting opponents on the horizon, though, and with the Kraken playing downright bad hockey these days, it’s quite possible that we have not yet hit the darkest phase of this losing streak.
Heck, even on a night when Seattle never had a chance, positives could still be found in a third period in which the team found three goals. The players still sound relatively positive, and the resiliency and effort are still there. We hope we’re wrong, but it still feels like this streak is going to get worse before it gets better.
The night is darkest just before the dawn, and we do believe the dawn is coming. But how soon will it come?
Takeaway #3: Kraken fans don’t quit
Six minutes into the third, Jordan Eberle scored his ninth goal of the season, a power play rebound off a Vince Dunn shot, that extended his point streak to seven games.
The fans at Climate Pledge Arena erupted as if the Kraken had just scored the go-ahead goal, when in reality it was 7-1. When the Kraken scored the next two—Brandon Tanev added another power play goal at 8:30 and Colin Blackwell got his first as a Kraken at 15:12—you would have thought from listening to the crowd that Seattle was on the brink of leveling it.
We asked Giordano if the players noticed the fan reaction in the third. Here’s what he said:
“Absolutely. It was pretty cool to see our fans at the end of the game stay and cheer us off the ice. We’re obviously not happy with that effort in the second, but we made sure that we weren’t going to lose the third period there. We went in there with making a commitment to each other that we were going to play the right way, and it’s pretty cool that they stayed and cheered for us. It says a lot about the fans in this building for sure.”
Unsolicited, Hakstol also referenced the fans when asked about positives in the third.
“It’s good to see the power play go and execute. The biggest part of that is it gave our fans an opportunity to enjoy the third period. That’s pretty special when they’re still into it as much as they were in the third period. I think our players can be proud of showing that effort in a difficult spot.”
For as much negativity as we tend to see on social media (and we see a lot of it these days), the building was rocking just as much Saturday as it has been every game this season. These fans love their boys, and they showed on Saturday that they’re here to ride this out through thick and thin.
