For several weeks, we’ve had circled this pair of back-to-back Kraken road games against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers, expecting it to be an uphill battle. The two contests grew especially daunting when the Kraken were in the midst of a six-game losing streak and were looking ahead at their schedule to see things only getting harder and harder.
One of those two tests is now in the rearview, and unsurprisingly, it proved to be really hard. The other is coming later Saturday afternoon, and with the Panthers boasting an 11-0-0 record at home, well… Let’s just say the second test doesn’t look any easier than the first.
With the rapid succession of games, we’ve decided to go with a bit of a hybrid approach here, a “Three Takeaways” meshed together with a game preview. If you’re confused about how this might work, you’re not alone, but we’re going with it.
Let’s start with our three takeaways from a 3-0 Kraken loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Takeaway #1: Mark Giordano in COVID protocol
First, let’s address the elephant in the room, which is that captain Mark Giordano was a late scratch Friday due to being placed in the NHL’s COVID protocol. Coach Dave Hakstol said he found out Friday afternoon, so Giordano traveled with the team on Thursday.
“It’s not ideal,” Hakstol added. “But it’s part of our lives right now on all different levels. It’s happened before.”
Of course, the first concern is the health and safety of the individual, and the second is the health and safety of the players and staff around him. There are several reasons players can go into protocol, but assuming Giordano has contracted the virus, concern remains that it could spread amongst teammates, coaches, and staff.
There have been two separate instances of COVID in the ranks this season, but the team managed to keep those cases isolated. Calle Jarnkrok tested positive prior to the team’s first game, which sparked brief stints in protocol for four other players. But those players were all cleared in time for the opening game in Vegas, and Jarnkrok was the only player who missed time. Jared McCann and assistant coach Paul McFarland were positive a few weeks later, but again, the cases remained isolated to just those two.
Let’s hope that happens again this time.
Losing Giordano from the lineup just as the team had started to right the ship is damaging for Seattle. Aside from the fact that he leads the team as its captain, he also plays big minutes on the top defensive pairing and often quarterbacks the power play.
Takeaway #2: Lightning hand Kraken their first shutout
It’s hard to say if Seattle’s lack of offensive output on Friday had anything to do with Giordano’s absence, but having such a key piece out of the lineup is never a good thing. Frankly, there was not much push from the Kraken against the Lightning, and the shutout by Andrei Vasilevskiy—his second in a row—looked downright easy.
There were a few chances off rushes, but those were one-and-done scenarios, as the Kraken just couldn’t get set up in the offensive zone for any kind of sustainable pressure.
“We were a half-step behind tonight,” Hakstol said Friday. “Their puck speed got us. We never got them stopped in our zone, and likewise in the offensive zone we didn’t create enough possession.”
For the many difficult losses that the Kraken have racked up this season, they have always managed to find the back of the net at least once, even in the couple games they’ve gotten knocked around. They’ve always pushed back and tilted the ice at some point, but that didn’t really happen Friday.
Takeaway #3: Sometimes you have to just tip your hat
After the Kraken surprised the Capitals and the Hurricanes on Sunday and Wednesday, there was hope that Seattle might find a way to sneak past the Lightning as well.
But there’s a reason the Lightning have won two Stanley Cups in a row, and the way they shut down the neutral zone once they had gotten a lead against the Kraken was clinical. They simply know how to seize control of a game, and they demonstrated this for the umpteenth time on Friday.
Tip your hat and move on.
More lineup changes coming for Kraken against Panthers
The Kraken now look to quickly reset and shift their focus to the Florida Panthers. In his morning press availability, Hakstol indicated that more changes would be coming to the lineup for Saturday’s game against the Florida Panthers.
Riley Sheahan has since been recalled, so expect him to slide in.
The Seattle Kraken have recalled F Riley Sheahan from Charlotte.
With Sheahan back, that leaves just him and Will Borgen as healthy options. So if there are multiple changes (plural), as Hakstol implied there would be, then perhaps Borgen gets a look on Saturday. We shall see.
As more information becomes available, we will update this story.
UPDATE: Sheahan and Borgen are indeed in Saturday. Jeremy Lauzon, who had a tough turnover that led to Tampa Bay’s third goal on Friday, will be scratched for the second time this season. Colin Blackwell is also out for the first time since he returned from injury on Nov. 13. We do not yet know if either of these changes are injury or illness related or are simply coach’s decisions.
Chris Driedger in to face his old team
Chris Driedger was selected and signed by the Kraken from the Florida Panthers at July’s Expansion Draft. Things haven’t panned out the way he would have hoped coming into this season, as he’s only gotten three chances to play. When he has played, things haven’t gone particularly well.
In his first appearance, which came in relief against Philadelphia, he got injured. In his second appearance, which came almost a month later in Vegas, he gave up four goals on 23 shots. In his third appearance, a start against the Colorado Avalanche, he was pulled after four goals on 13 shots.
Driedger could really use a quality start Saturday to show to himself and to the team what he’s capable of. He put these Panthers on his back for significant stretches of last season, going 23-14-6 with a 2.07 goals against average and .927 save percentage, and surely a win against his old mates would be a massive confidence boost.
Florida Panthers
The Panthers are scary good. They had to change coaches after Joel Quenneville was implicated as part of the cover-up in the Chicago Blackhawks’ sexual abuse scandal, and even with that turmoil, they haven’t missed a beat. Now with Andrew Brunette behind the bench in an interim role, Florida has continued its winning ways to the tune of a 14-3-3 record, good for first place in the Atlantic Division, and perfect numbers at home.
Aleksander Barkov drives the bus, but the secret to Florida’s success is a balanced attack that gets production from all parts of the lineup. Jonathan Huberdeau, Anthony Duclair, Carter Verhaeghe, and Aaron Ekblad are all having great seasons offensively, while Sergei Bobrovsky has morphed back into the exceptional goaltender he once was after some early challenges in his Florida tenure.
Did we mention that the Panthers are 11-0-0 at home? That’s tied for the longest home winning streak to start a season in the history of the NHL, so if they beat the Kraken Saturday, they will set a new record. Sheesh!
Working in the Kraken’s favor on Saturday is that Florida is also on the second of back-to-backs after a rare 4-3 loss to the Capitals in Washington on Friday. Bobrovsky played that game, so we will likely see Spencer Knight on Saturday. Knight, the 20-year-old hero of this year’s World Junior Championship, is 5-2-1 with a 3.03 GAA and .903 save percentage.
Seattle Kraken at Tampa Bay Lightning 4 p.m. Pacific time AMALIE Arena, Tampa, Florida TV: ROOT Sports Radio: AM 950 KJR
The Seattle Kraken snapped out of their painful six-game losing streak with two wins to close out their homestand over elite teams in the Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes. But this stretch of difficult opponents is not yet getting any easier for the Kraken, who now enter back-to-back games with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers on Friday and Saturday.
This first game of a four-game road trip features the return of Yanni Gourde to face his old team, with whom he won two Stanley Cups. The Lightning presented Gourde with his second championship ring on Friday morning.
In Seattle’s two consecutive wins, Philipp Grubauer broke through after struggling for a lot of his first two months in the Kraken net. With 37 and 35 saves respectively against Washington and Carolina, he was the dominant backstop Seattle fans hoped they would get from the jump.
With Grubauer playing reliably behind them, Kraken forwards and defensemen seemingly gave everything they had in those two contests to keep pucks to the outside and block whatever they possibly could. They also rewarded Grubauer with timely goals of their own.
Can the Kraken keep the surprising performances going against two more outstanding teams in a row to start this east coast swing?
Calle Jarnkrok out, Nathan Bastian gone
Mason Appleton returned from a four-week stint on injured reserve prior to Wednesday’s game against the Hurricanes. It represented the first time all season that Seattle had its full group healthy at the same time. To make space on the roster for Appleton, the Kraken placed forward Nathan Bastian on waivers, with the hope that he would clear and be assigned to the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers.
Calle Jarnkrok—who had his best game of the season Sunday against the Capitals—injured his left leg on Wednesday when Jordan Staal fell on him early in the third period. Adding insult to injury, Bastian got claimed by his old team, the New Jersey Devils, on Thursday morning.
That was a not-so-nice Thanksgiving dish for general manager Ron Francis and his staff. In a way, forty minutes of a fully healthy team cost Seattle a useful 23-year-old forward with upside and a year left on his contract before he becomes a restricted free agent. Bastian is the third Kraken player to get claimed off waivers this season, after Dennis Cholowski was snagged on Oct. 14 by the Capitals and Alex Barre-Boulet was re-claimed by Tampa Bay on Oct. 22 after just two games with Seattle. Cholowski ironically played against Seattle on Sunday, and Barre-Boulet will play Friday.
We surmised in our “Three Takeaways” story after the Carolina game that the Jarnkrok injury could sting in more ways than one, and the prediction proved accurate.
Jarnkrok is currently not on the road trip, and Hakstol gave no update Friday morning, saying he’s “still being evaluated.” Ryan Donato, who was scratched against Carolina, will slide back into the lineup on Friday.
What the Kraken face in the Tampa Bay Lightning
It’s no surprise that Tampa Bay is again one of the better teams in the NHL. The two-time defending champion Lightning enter Friday’s game against the Kraken with a record of 11-4-3, good for third place in a top-heavy Atlantic Division.
They are rolling pretty well lately, too, with two straight wins, five wins in six games, and just one regulation loss in their last 12. Their most recent victory came in the form of a 4-0 home shutout of the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday. In that game, Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 34 of 34 shots for his first shutout of the season. The Big Cat, a perennial Vezina Trophy candidate, is now 9-3-3 with an impressive 2.22 goals against average and .924 save percentage.
In that Tuesday win, a fully healthy Steven Stamkos continued his torrid pace and had a goal and two assists. In all, he now has 10 goals and 12 assists in just 18 games. Meanwhile, Victor Hedman has remained a dominant force on the blue line and is scoring at close to a point-per-game clip, and Alex Killorn has been impactful up front with seven goals and 10 assists.
The Bolts are dealing with health issues to key players, as Nikita Kucherov is expected to be out at least another month with a lower-body injury, while Brayden Point got hurt last week and is expected to miss four-to-six weeks with an upper-body injury.
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.
