Seattle Kraken versus Colorado Avalanche 7 p.m. Pacific time Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle, Washington Watch: ESPN+, Hulu (streaming only) Radio: AM 950 KJR
There was a feeling coming into Seattle’s last game against Chicago that it was high time for the Kraken to break out of a compounding losing streak. Beyond that game, a sequence of tough opponents awaited, so a win seemed imperative for creating some good feelings going into this extra challenging stretch. But against the Blackhawks, Seattle lost its fifth straight and seventh in eight games, making us wonder if perhaps the streak was far from over. Things only get harder from here starting with the Colorado Avalanche, who will visit Seattle for the first time on Friday.
Chris Driedger has been given the nod in net for the Kraken, marking his first home start for the team. With his injury earlier in the season and coach Dave Hakstol’s heavy usage of Philipp Grubauer, Driedger has only made two total appearances. His lone start came in Vegas on Nov. 9, a 4-2 loss to the Golden Knights.
While Driedger is way overdue for getting more consistent starts, having his third appearance come against Grubauer’s former team is a tad surprising. Coach Dave Hakstol downplayed the significance, calling it “a good time to get [Driedger] back in net,” and said Grubauer will certainly get a chance against the Avs at some point.
Kraken chasing too many games
A contributing factor to this streak has been the way the Kraken have been starting games. All throughout this season—and especially recently—we’ve seen Seattle chasing games after allowing the first goal. Against the Blackhawks and Wild, they played tight defensive hockey in the opening frame, but produced almost nothing offensively and ultimately conceded the first goal each night.
In those games, the Kraken did eventually start pushing back, but not until they had fallen behind 3-0 in each, and they did not score any goals until late in the third period in either. That just can’t happen if the Kraken want to start winning games.
The players have indicated they are fully aware that starts need to be better, so keep an eye on this Friday to see if there’s more of an offensive push in the early going against the Avalanche.
Colorado Avalanche
The Kraken avoid all-world center Nathan MacKinnon, who has been out with a lower-body injury since Nov. 6. That said, plenty of starpower remains available for coach Jared Bednar with the likes of Gabriel Landeskog, Mikko Rantanen, and Cale Makar.
Another player who has had a surprising impact for Colorado is Nazem Kadri, who has 17 points in 13 games. He’s on a seven-game point streak and has notched three points in each of his last two games. In all, 13 of his 17 points have come during this streak, so he’s another guy for Seattle to keep a close eye on.
As a whole, the Avs did not have the dominant start to the season that many expected, but they’ve since righted the ship and have gone 5-1-1 in their last seven, including winning their last three straight. In those three games, they’ve scored 17 goals.
Darcy Kuemper gets the start for Colorado in net. He has been good in his first season backstopping the Avs and is 7-4-0 with a .916 save percentage and 2.56 goals against average.
Projected lineup
Yanni Gourde missed morning skate, but Hakstol called it a maintenance day, so he should be good to go. Aside from Driedger, the only other lineup change is Carson Soucy swapping back in for Haydn Fleury, who had a tough game against Chicago.
If you weren’t paying attention to what uniforms the opposition was wearing, you may have thought that Wednesday’s 4-2 Kraken loss to the Blackhawks was actually a replay of the team’s 4-2 loss to Minnesota on Saturday. It was practically a carbon copy, but this time Seattle held off on allowing the empty-net goal against until it had at least brought itself back to within one. That made things a lot more interesting in the end, but the Kraken still came up short.
The latest loss, Seattle’s fifth in a row and seventh in their last eight, again started slow. Chances were few at either end before Chicago scored late in the frame off a rush. Then the Kraken tilted the ice in the second, but somehow, as has become fairly common, gave up the only goal. In the third, they pushed back after falling behind 3-0 but couldn’t overcome the deep deficit against an outstanding Marc-Andre Fleury.
Does any of that sound familiar?
Another slow first period leaves Kraken chasing game
Off the rush, Patrick Kane carried the puck down the right wall. He stalled to allow the play to develop, then put a perfect pass through the seam to Alex DeBrincat on the opposite wall. DeBrincat appeared poised to one-time a shot on Philipp Grubauer, but instead he found a streaking Seth Jones right on the doorstep. Jones had Grubauer dead to rights and buried the puck in the open net.
It was a beautiful passing play—the kind that only a player of Kane’s ilk can start—that put the Blackhawks ahead 1-0 at 15:03.
Also similar to the first period for the Kraken on Saturday, there was not much of an attack against Fleury in the opening 20 on Wednesday. He faced just three shots and was only tested once.
Kraken still love second periods, but againcan’t connect
The second period also had similarities to past home performances by the Kraken, as they dominated possession with the long change. But as we have seen on several occasions before, they failed to capitalize on their copious opportunities.
Instead, DeBrincat scored the only goal at 2:01. He took a pass at the Chicago blue line from Kirby Dach, who was behind the goal line. DeBrincat raced through the neutral zone and outskated the much larger Jamie Oleksiak to create a partial breakaway for himself. DeBrincat got a shot away and beat Grubauer on the glove side.
Calle Jarnkrok and Jeremy Lauzon had the best chances of the period for Seattle. Jarnkrok had a puck bounce his way at the doorstep, and with the net open, couldn’t put it in before Connor Murphy somehow pinned it against the post and then kicked it out of harm’s way. Lauzon took a shot from the point through traffic that beat Fleury, but it struck iron.
Another late push comes up short
Early in the third, Brandon Tanev took a hard fall when Jake McCabe took his feet out from under him in the Kraken zone. Fans didn’t like the non-call, and adding insult to (near) injury, Vince Dunn got called for roughing just a couple minutes later.
On the penalty kill, Yanni Gourde made an outstanding play to win a puck in the neutral zone. He then created a short-handed chance, got whacked by Jones and challenged to a fight by DeBrincat. The two dropped the gloves and each landed a few good shots. All the while, Gourde had a huge smile, even when he was getting punched in the face.
After the game, he deadpanned, “Yeah, I like that stuff. It’s part of the game… Good for him, he gets a Gordie Howe hat trick.”
The third period also meant more possession for the Kraken, who ended the night with a 33-19 advantage in shots on goal and 61% of the attempted shots at five-on-five. Still, the Kraken couldn’t get it to go for most of the period against a version of Fleury that looked an awful lot like the version that won the Vezina Trophy in 2020-21.
Fleury said he really enjoys playing in buildings where he gets booed and fans give him the middle finger. That’s not the first time that opposing players have referenced finding motivation from Kraken fans flipping them the bird, so perhaps the Seattle faithful should consider classing it up a bit. But we digress, and we hope you realize we are just kidding here.
It was Kane who struck next, taking advantage of a pretty bad defensive breakdown by Seattle. Philipp Kurashev skated the puck into the face-off circle to Grubauer’s right. He was covered by Adam Larsson, but Dunn, who was playing his strong side for the first time this season, oddly also chased Kurashev, as did a backchecking Jaden Schwartz. With three players all going after the puck carrier, Kane was left all alone on the weak side.
That’s the wrong guy to leave by himself. Kane had plenty of time to pick his spot on Grubauer and put it off the cross bar and in.
The Kane goal came at 5:36, and the rest of the way, it was all Seattle. But as was the case against the Wild, the Kraken pushback was too little, too late.
Jared McCann, who expressed his general frustration with the way things have been going after the contest, was the player who finally got one behind Fleury. With Seattle on a power play following a Dach slashing penalty, Schwartz slid a puck across the goalmouth. Fleury was down against the post to his left, and McCann found the puck bouncing around and snapped it into a mostly open cage.
Saturday, Grubauer was summoned to the bench for an extra skater with 5:22 left, and Minnesota scored seconds later. On Wednesday, Hakstol held off on calling him until there was 3:39 on the clock, and this time the timing strategy almost paid off. Gourde scored on a rocket one-timer off a pass from Dunn to bring Seattle within one, but then with the Kraken pushing for the equalizer, McCabe flipped a puck from his own zone about 170 feet that found its way in. That sealed a 4-2 victory for Chicago, the Blackhawks’ fourth consecutive win since head coach Jeremy Colliton was fired on Nov. 6.
Things only get tougher from here
When you’re on a losing streak like the Kraken are on, the last thing you want to see is a murderer’s row of upcoming opponents. But that’s what Seattle gets next, as they take on Colorado, Washington, Carolina, Tampa Bay, and Florida.
Normally, I try to stay away from speaking in the first person here at soundofhockey.com, but I wanted to start this one with a personal anecdote. As Sound Of Hockey Podcast listeners know all too well, I grew up a Wild fan, and have been following them closely since their inception. Despite my shift in focus toward the Kraken, I still know the Wild roster very well.
At morning skate before Saturday’s game, I saw a diminutive Minnesota player that I did not recognize. When he got close enough, I was able to make out the number 16 on his helmet. A quick Google search reminded me that the Wild had claimed Rem Pitlick off waivers from Nashville during training camp. Hmm. Forgot they had that guy, I thought. Then I sipped from my coffee and went about my day.
Ok, anecdote over, usage of first person over.
The 24-year-old Pitlick had never scored an NHL goal in 15 career games entering Saturday’s matchup against the Seattle Kraken. When his 16th career game ended, he had scored three and almost single-handedly sent the Kraken to their fourth consecutive loss and sixth in seven games.
Things getting ugly for Kraken
Things are getting rough for the Kraken early in their inaugural season. Losing three in a row is a bad stretch, but four in a row, and we’re now using the phrase “losing streak.” There’s no doubt the players are feeling it, and they are fully aware that they’re dropping deeper and deeper into last place in the Pacific Division with every passing game and every missed opportunity.
“There’s definitely frustration, there’s no doubt about it,” captain Mark Giordano said after the 4-2 loss. “I mean, we’re not getting the results, we’re not winning games. You should be frustrated when you’re not winning games.”
Giordano, a 16-year veteran in the NHL, has been through times like this in his career. “From my experiences, you find a way to grind one out, get that one win, and then everyone starts feeling better about themselves, and we move forward.”
That did not happen on Saturday, though, and as is becoming too common for this budding franchise, the team found a new way to lose.
Here’s the irony. We would argue the team defense of the Kraken was actually quite good on Saturday. The Wild—even with sustained zone time in the first period—did not get much through to Grubauer when they were set up in the zone. What did get through in those situations was pretty low danger throughout the night, and Seattle ended the game with 62.5 percent of the high danger shot attempts and 55.78 percent of the expected goals for, according to naturalstattrick.com.
Heck, look at the five-on-five heat map.
If you take the three five-on-five goals away from Minnesota, scored off two breakaways and an awkward odd-man rush, things are looking pretty light in front of Philipp Grubauer. What doomed Seattle was a couple terrible turnovers in some of the worst possible areas.
A couple bad plays prove costly for Seattle
The first goal came at 12:33 of the first period off a slowly developing and downright awkward rush. Vince Dunn sent a soft shot toward Cam Talbot in the offensive end, but Alex Goligoski cleared it down the ice. The puck trickled deep into Seattle territory and toward the corner to Grubauer’s right.
Carson Soucy had to make the decision to try to win the race with Ryan Hartman or go to the front of the net and try to cut off a pass. He chose the race and lost. Hartman quickly got a pass to the netmouth and found Pitlick crashing, as a backchecking Marcus Johansson had stopped moving his feet. The puck just squeezed through Grubauer and limped over the line for Pitlick’s first career marker.
The second and third goals came in similar fashion to one another and featured the same cast of characters for Minnesota. Both were the direct results of bad second period turnovers in the middle third of the ice.
With Seattle rushing up the ice, Jared McCann, who somehow became the last player back, ran right into Hartman as he tried to make a neutral zone pass in transition. In one motion, Hartman again found Pitlick, sending him in all alone with all the time in the world to get Grubauer moving the wrong way. Pitlick executed to perfection, and he tapped it home at 7:44 of the second frame.
🚨REM PITLICK🚨 his second career goal and second of the night has the wild up 2-0 pic.twitter.com/DMqw6p4vGE
Then 11 minutes later, Giordano made an equally bad turnover at the Wild blue line when he… stop us if you’ve heard this one before… ran right into Hartman, who stripped him of the puck and quickly found Pitlick for a breakaway. Pitlick made the same move as his previous breakaway and buried it in a yawning cage as a smattering of hats from visiting fans hit the ice.
The timing of that third goal was also damning for Seattle. It came at 19:20 of the second, and instead of going to the dressing room trailing by two in a mostly tight-checking game, the Kraken now faced a practically insurmountable deficit against a strong defensive team.
Too little, too late for Kraken against Wild
To Seattle’s credit, it did push back in the third and injected some excitement into the home crowd at Climate Pledge Arena. Johansson got his first goal of the season on the power play at 9:19 to make it 3-1. After a few rounds of “one pass too many” to start the period had those home fans growing restless, Alex Wennberg found Johansson at the top of the crease. Johansson redirected it around the outstretched right pad of Talbot.
Interestingly, the Kraken power play had been in an absolutely dismal stretch and had recently dropped to last place in the NHL. Johansson returned from injured reserve Tuesday against Vegas, and in his first game back created a Jordan Eberle goal while playing the netfront role. Then Saturday, he scored on the power play in that same position. Coach Dave Hakstol said after the game he could sense in practice that the chemistry was starting to come on the power play, so perhaps that’s one area of Seattle’s game that is on the rise.
Seattle continued to push throughout the third, dominating possession and getting plenty of good looks on Talbot. With all the momentum, it felt like the game was on the brink of becoming a one-goal contest.
That’s also why it was perplexing to see Grubauer skating to Seattle’s bench with 5:22 left on the clock. It took all of 16 seconds for Nico Sturm to put the game back out of reach with an empty netter. We are aware that advanced analytics say you should pull the goalie early, especially when trailing by two goals. But when there are more than five minutes left and you have the ice tilted at five-on-five? That’s a head scratcher of a decision, about which we will certainly argue on an upcoming episode of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast.
With the net empty again, Wennberg did score his second goal of the season to bring Seattle back within two, but with under a minute left, it was too little and way too late.
The Kraken now have a couple days off to lick their wounds before welcoming a bad Chicago Blackhawks team to town on Wednesday. After that, they face a murderer’s row of opponents, so if they don’t get it figured out quickly and start playing with confidence, this losing streak could get much worse .
Seattle Kraken versus Minnesota Wild 7 p.m. Pacific Time Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle, Washington TV: ROOT Sports Radio: AM 950 KJR
We’ve said on several occasions that the time for excuses has passed for the struggling Seattle Kraken, who have lost three straight and five of their last six games. Most of the excuses themselves—new team, new building, new systems—evaporated as we eclipsed the one-month mark of the season. But there was always that one little “injury and illness” excuse bouncing around in the backs of our brains, and now even that excuse is almost entirely gone for the last-place Kraken (4-9-1), who desperately need to find a win Saturday at home against the Minnesota Wild (9-4-0).
At long last, Colin Blackwell will play his first game for the Kraken on Saturday, meaning coach Dave Hakstol will (almost) have his whole group available to him for the first time.
Colin Blackwell making debut, Riley Sheahan on waivers
Seattle held a lightly attended optional practice on Friday, so morning skate Saturday was far more structured than we’ve seen on other game days. The team had almost full participation and actually did line rushes and power play work, both of which are rare at morning skates.
The only players that weren’t on the ice were Jaden Schwartz (some members of the media thought they had seen him early on, but then Nathan Bastian took his place in line rushes) and Riley Sheahan. Hakstol confirmed Schwartz is available, so his absence is nothing to worry about, and Sheahan… well, Sheahan was placed on waivers to make room for Blackwell.
We at Sound Of Hockey were not surprised to see Blackwell inserted into the lineup, because it was obvious that he was getting closer and closer to returning from a nagging lower-body injury that had kept him out since the start of training camp. We were surprised, though, that the corresponding roster move was to waive Sheahan, who had played all 14 games for the Kraken to date. We thought Sheahan would come out of the lineup, but we also figured Will Borgen—who has not yet played a game—would be the one waived.
Of course, Borgen is younger and as a right-shot defenseman with upside is more likely to be claimed than a veteran grinder like Sheahan. So, it makes sense from that perspective, but it’s a reminder of what a brutal business the NHL can be. Sheahan had been a good soldier who played his role well, while Borgen is likely to continue watching games from the press box and not getting any opportunity to play games in either the NHL or the AHL.
Blackwell, an affable guy and big personality, was over the moon to be making his debut.
“I’m ready to go, finally,” Blackwell said Saturday. “It’s been a long process, just trying to get better every single day, and I’ve been feeling really good recently. I got cleared so really looking forward to tonight and finally getting out there with these guys. They’ve been battling for a little while, so wish I could have been out there. Just being out there at Climate Pledge [Arena] too for me, it’s going to be pretty special.”
Almost the full roster for Seattle
With Blackwell in for the first time Saturday, and Jared McCann back as of Thursday when he scored two goals against the Ducks, the Kraken will dress their deepest lineup to date. They’ve had COVID issues and several injuries to this point, and now with only Mason Appleton out with a lower-body injury, we will see what a (mostly) complete roster can do.
Blackwell was skating Saturday with Morgan Geekie and Brandon Tanev on what figures to be the fourth line. That’s a pretty unique fourth line, though, with more skill than you would typically see from a bottom trio. This should give Hakstol an opportunity to roll all four of his lines with a potential for offensive output from every layer of the forward group.
It’s also interesting to think how quickly the fourth line has evolved with guys coming back from protocol and injured reserve. For so many games we saw Sheahan centering Max McCormick and Nathan Bastian. Saturday, McCormick is in the AHL, Sheahan is on waivers, and Bastian is likely a healthy scratch for the second game in a row.
This is what happens when you get (almost) your whole group healthy at the same time.
Minnesota Wild
The Kraken take on the Minnesota Wild for the second meeting of the season. These two teams played at Climate Pledge Arena on Oct. 28, a night when Seattle really turned in a complete effort in front of Philipp Grubauer—who had one of his most solid performances of the season, stopping 30 of 31 shots—and came away with a 4-1 win.
That night, Seattle got the timely save by Grubauer that it has been lacking on a lot of nights. In the closing minutes of the second period, Yanni Gourde turned a puck over to Wild superstar Kirill Kaprizov in the neutral zone. Kaprizov came in all alone, and Grubauer made a huge save with his blocker. It’s a moment that stands out as exactly what Seattle needs more of to be successful.
On their first visit to Seattle, Mats Zuccarello was in COVID protocol, meaning Kaprizov did not have his favorite teammate dishing the puck to him. Zuccarello is back for Saturday’s game. Kaprizov and Kevin Fiala also had not been scoring prior to that contest, but they have since notched three and two goals respectively, and both have constantly looked dangerous.
The Wild have won four of their last five, but came up short in their last game Thursday against Vegas. They’ve been comeback kids all season long, so hold on tightly if the Kraken find themselves with a one- or two-goal lead in the third period.
