On a 20-hour trip to Estero, FL, to play the Florida Everblades, the bus carrying the Cincinnati Cyclones broke down somewhere in rural Georgia. It was miserably humid inside the faulty coach, but going outside meant being swarmed by mosquitoes and other creepy crawlies. So the Cyclones opted to spend most of the several-hour delay inside the sweltering vehicle, where they sweated it out but at least got relief from the bugs.
As Everett Fitzhugh, now the radio play-by-play voice of the Kraken, and the team fanned themselves inside the bus, there were players that were dealing with various injuries and needed attention from the team’s trainer. “So our trainer pulled out the table and started doing treatment on the side of the road in this abandoned gas station parking lot,” Fitzhugh said with a laugh. The treatment was given, bugs be damned.
Then there was the time when—on the road back from Indianapolis—a major snowstorm had the team’s driver white-knuckling the steering wheel and keeping the speed to about 20 miles per hour on the freeway. He eventually pulled into a Wal-Mart parking lot, where the whole group slept on the bus until about 9 a.m. They then got back on the road and rolled into Cincinnati with just a couple hours to spare before a 2 p.m. home game. Remarkably, the Cyclones won that game.
This was life in the ECHL. Fitzhugh wouldn’t trade those experiences for the world.
Rising through the broadcast ranks, Fitzhugh got his start as a student calling games for the Bowling Green University Falcons. He spent time in the USHL, then the ECHL, and eventually got a mysterious email from Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke that he first ignored, assuming it was spam. He ultimately replied to the message and had a conversation with Leiweke that led to his ascension to the NHL.
The ECHL, AHL, NCAA, and CHL are all meant to develop players on the ice. But what is often forgotten is that team employees who help run operations off the ice are honing their own skills to try to reach the upper echelons of sport.
The arrival of the NHL’s 32nd franchise to the Puget Sound area has allowed dreams to come to fruition on the ice, in the broadcast booth, and in the team’s offices. Decades of hard work and perseverance for people like Fitzhugh have finally paid off, thanks to the birth of the Seattle Kraken. And while there are similarities in the paths taken to get here, each individual has a story to tell about what they went through to work at hockey’s highest level.
The juice is worth the squeeze
One of Fitzhugh’s colleagues on the airwaves is Mike Benton, the studio host you hear between periods of Kraken games on AM 950 KJR. He has many similar memories from his own days with the Stockton Thunder and Alaska Aces of the ECHL and the Everett Silvertips of the WHL.
He remembers the fear he felt when—on a ride from Medicine Hat to Calgary during the 2019-20 season—the Silvertips were jolted awake with the violent swerving of the team bus in 30-mile-per-hour winds at 2 a.m.
Benton also recalls the occasional dread of shepherding entire ECHL teams through airports to catch commercial flights and avoid canceling or delaying games due to travel mishaps. Yes, he was the radio guy, but in developmental leagues, you wear a lot of hats, and one of Benton’s hats was de facto travel manager.
Mike Benton spent six years as the director of broadcasting and public relations for the Everett Silvertips. (Photo/Everett Silvertips)
“I am begging and pleading with anybody who’s got an official airline uniform on if they could communicate to the ground control over in Denver,” Benton remembers after a team’s flight was delayed en route to its layover stop. “If the next flight can seriously hold up the doors for us and ask our airplane if they can let our team off first, because it’s going to be just a major catastrophe to then try to get flights rearranged, to get bags rearranged all of that.”
On this occasion, the airline did hold the plane, as the whole team sprinted through Denver International Airport and got on their connecting flight to Boise. As the last player stepped on board, the flight attendants closed the door and away they went.
The resources in those lower leagues are more scarce than in the NHL, but for Benton, it was worth going the extra mile—both literally and figuratively—to be able to do what he loves for a living.
“It’s the one line of work I find true happiness with,” Benton says. “For what I do and for the people that I can connect with, it’s been a dream come true for me and a great ride.”
Current experiences prepare you for future endeavors in mysterious ways
De’Aira Anderson, now the corporate communications manager for the Kraken, also fits into the category of having risen through developmental leagues to reach the pinnacle of the sport. She took a slightly different route than Fitzhugh and Benton, though. Anderson got her start in hockey as a social media intern for the University of Pittsburgh men’s ice hockey team. She later became the communications and operations director for the Syracuse men’s hockey team, before leaving the sports world for a couple of years and working for InkHouse, a media and marketing agency.
The arrival of the pandemic—terrible as it was—eventually brought a positive change for Anderson, who found herself furloughed from her position at InkHouse. “When I first started working at my old agency, I told them, ‘I probably won’t quit for anything, but if there’s one thing I definitely will quit for, it’s if I get an NHL job.’”
Unexpectedly out of work, Anderson applied for an open position with the expansion Kraken. What initially appeared to be a major bump in the road ended up being the catalyst for Anderson landing her dream job. “I tried on a whim and somehow I convinced [the Kraken] to hire me, which is awesome, and I’ve been here ever since.”
It’s funny how some moments in your career prepare you for bigger and better things later in life, and at the time you may not even realize it’s happening.
“When I was working at Syracuse, I had the fortunate ability to start their communications program for their hockey team up there,” Anderson says, referencing the introduction of Syracuse’s NCAA Division I women’s program. “The Kraken are a brand new franchise, so I got to start from the ground up and again have a heavy input on how we built our social presence and how we came up in the community.”
Sure, Syracuse University’s hockey program is a smaller operation than an NHL team, but there’s no question in Anderson’s mind that her experience there helped her get ready for her current role. And the organization that she helped build there is still going strong, as employees and interns have come and gone, following in Anderson’s footsteps with the Orange.
“I didn’t expect to be like a catalyst for other people when I was on this trailblazing path to becoming what I wanted to become,” she says. “So I think that’s kind of cool because I was like, ‘Well, I don’t think that was what I was expecting.’ I was just really focusing on myself, but having a positive impact when you’re not even trying to [impact others] is really cool.”
Developmental leagues bring development for staff as well as players
While Benton, Fitzhugh, and Anderson all took slightly different routes to the NHL, it is easy to find parallels in their respective journeys. The most glaring connection between the three is that they all found value in juggling many different roles and responsibilities. In prior positions, the teams that employed them had fewer resources, lower budgets, and a fraction of the staffing in place.
“I wore so many different hats,” Fitzhugh said of his time in the ECHL. “I was the PR director, I was a social media manager, I was on the marketing side, I was team services. I did all the travel and hotels and meals and bus schedules and all that stuff, and oh, by the way, I had to broadcast 72 games a year.”
Says Benton of his time with the Silvertips in the WHL: “There was a greater ask of me to really help grow our brand on a digital side when I wasn’t on the air, which I was very, very happy to do. Those [different responsibilities] pretty much hit on all cylinders with what I had trained for, coming up as a college student, an intern, and an entry level employee.”
Fitzhugh estimates that at the ECHL level, he did the jobs of 120 of the approximately 200 people that are now employed by the Kraken. But he sees that as a testament to the quality of talent the organization has hired and the expectations that they have for themselves. “I think it gives you such an appreciation for just how hard everyone in our organization has worked and is continuing to work to put this product on and to be the best team in the best venue in the best organization in the NHL.”
Dreams do come true
Perhaps the 20-hour bus rides or the sprints through airports are metaphors for the journeys that folks like Fitzhugh, Benton, and Anderson have been on in trying reach this level of the sport they all love so dearly. And perhaps that’s why all three were so elated when they got offered jobs to work either for the team itself or—in Benton’s case—for its broadcast partner.
So what do you do when you get the call offering you your dream job, something you’ve been striving for your entire adult life and maybe even beyond? You cry, you smile, you hug, and you call your loved ones.
Knowing she had interviewed, Anderson says her parents had been checking in daily to see if she had any news. When she finally found out she was getting hired, she called them, along with her grandma, on a group FaceTime. “They were like, ‘Oh, we know that you’re calling to tell us you got it!’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, and I am really excited!’”
Benton says he did “about 15 Tiger Woods fist pumps,” then called his wife, Amy, who had been so supportive of him chasing his dream over the years. Together, they then called their loved ones and shared the news. “It’s one of those things that you always think of and you always dream and wonder, ‘What’s it going to be like?’ You put so much hard work and so much intense passion into what you do. It’s like when the moment finally hits you, it’s almost like you have an out-of-body experience.”
Fitzhugh remembers taking the call on speaker phone and sharing the very special moment with his wife, Shelly. “We were laughing and we were crying and we were so excited,” he says. “Then the first person that I called obviously was my mom. And you know, she’s over the moon and ecstatic. She was like, ‘Oh, my son’s going into that dream job!’”
When Fitzhugh’s news went public, the first offer of congratulations came from a surprise caller. It was Ty Eigner, the head coach of the Bowling Green Falcons. “I could tell he was fighting back some emotion,” Fitzhugh says. “He was like, ‘You know, this is just as big as if it were one of our players. We’re so happy for you here at Bowling Green, and you know you are a member of Bowling Green hockey.’ So that was really really cool.”
For Fitzhugh, the journey came full circle when he received that call from Eigner. For Benton, Fitzhugh, Anderson, and dozens of other Kraken employees, a goal has been reached, and now together, they work to reach the loftiest goal of all.
Cover photo by Brian Liesse.
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at Sound Of Hockey and the host, producer, and editor of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is an inconsistent beer league goalie who believes that five players have to make a mistake before the puck gets to him. Follow him on Twitter @DarrenFunBrown or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
When Kraken general manager Ron Francis announced that Matty Beniers would be the team’s first-ever selection in the NHL Entry Draft, Seattle fans rejoiced. The spanking new franchise had selected a future cornerstone for the organization, a young man with skill, tenacity, and an innate ability to lead his teammates.
Among seasoned hockey fans, Beniers became a household name in the leadup to the 2021 draft and was well deserving of his No. 2 overall selection. Not only was he a central figure on an outstanding University of Michigan team, he also played a key role for Team USA at the 2021 World Junior Championship, where the Americans won gold for just the fifth time in the 44-year history of the tournament.
Aside from third-string goalie Logan Stein, Beniers was the only player on the American roster that still had draft eligibility during last year’s tournament and was the youngest player on the roster. He scored a goal and two assists in seven games and averaged 17:05 of ice time as the team’s second-line center.
In May, Beniers took a step up to the IIHF World Championship, where he played with bona fide NHL players and notched a goal and an assist in six games, helping USA to a bronze medal. He was again the youngest and only draft eligible player on that roster.
Now, in his final year of eligibility, he’s back at Team USA’s World Junior Championship training camp with eyes on a massive role for the 2022 tournament.
“I’m excited,” Beniers said Monday on a Zoom call with members of the media. “I think after last tournament— it was awesome winning gold, but you know, I think I expected a little more out of myself to contribute, and I wasn’t able to do that in the point standings. I think this year it’s the same expectation that I’m going to be kind of that guy… Hopefully I can do that for the team.”
Beniers and the Americans accomplished something truly remarkable in 2021, taking down Team Canada to bring home gold. Although much of the roster has turned over, he’s hoping the players that were part of last year’s win can build off of the experience.
“I think we did something very special last year and it was really great, awesome,” he said. “But the next thing is here, and we’re kind of starting to turn the page and not forgetting about it. But remembering what worked and what didn’t work and try to implement that into the team this year, try to do the same thing, and try to do it even better.”
Teammates follow the lead of Matty Beniers
Though captains have not been named yet, Beniers will almost certainly factor into the leadership group for Team USA as one of six players currently in camp who participated in the tournament last year. He already serves as alternate captain at Michigan in just his sophomore season, and his teammates on Team USA confirm that they look to him to pave the way.
Another player returning from last year’s gold-medal winning group is University of North Dakota defenseman Jake Sanderson, who was selected No. 5 overall by the Ottawa Senators in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft. When Sanderson was asked Monday who he viewed as the leaders on the team, he didn’t hesitate in placing Beniers at the top of his list. “He’s not the most vocal guy, but when he is, guys listen. Just how he goes about his day, he’s a leader by example just by how hard he works, and he does all the right things.”
The Wolverines team on which Beniers plays his college hockey is special. There are seven first-round draft picks on the roster—an NCAA record—including four of the top five selections in 2021. The No. 4 overall pick was Luke Hughes, who is expected to make his first appearance at the WJC with Team USA later this month. We asked Hughes about Beniers on Monday, and he said, “He’s been a great resource for me and he’s a really good leader on our team at Michigan. I think he’s going to be a really good leader here too.”
Kraken keeping an eye on Beniers’ development
After Beniers was picked by the Kraken, there was some debate as to whether he would join Seattle right away or go back to Michigan for a second season. It wasn’t a surprise, though, to see Beniers and his cohort of collegiate superstars return to Ann Arbor.
Last season was wonky on a lot of levels, from having no fans in the stands at famed Yost Arena to the Wolverines getting disqualified from the NCAA Tournament at the last second due to positive COVID tests. After posting a point per game in 2020-21, Beniers is continuing to play well at the college level as a sophomore, notching 11 goals and 11 assists in 20 games. He is tied for the lead on his star-studded team in goals and is just one point off the team lead for scoring.
He is continuing to develop as a player, and Seattle is continuing to keep tabs from afar. Beniers says Troy Bodie, director of hockey and business operations for the Kraken’s future Palm Springs AHL affiliate, has been checking in with him regularly. “He’s kind of their development guy,” he says of Bodie. “He’s been to games and just mentions little things I can work on, but nothing too crazy.”
It’s a delicate balance for NHL teams to allow their drafted players to go through the process with their current teams and avoid interfering too much. “I think they understand we’ve got great coaches at Michigan where I’m playing, and [those coaches are] there every night, they’re there to help, and they kind of trust those guys that they’re going to help developing me and get me better. Once they kind of pass the torch, I’ll start to get more insight from the Kraken and what they think.”
So what does Beniers need to do to prepare himself for the jump to the NHL? “I think it’s just continue to get bigger, stronger, faster. The NHL, it’s a really fast-paced game. Everyone’s bigger and stronger and they’re all fighting to keep their job… I think that’s the biggest focus right now, and it’s always tough during the season to do that.”
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at Sound Of Hockey and the host, producer, and editor of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is an inconsistent beer league goalie who believes that five players have to make a mistake before the puck gets to him. Follow him on Twitter @DarrenFunBrown or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
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.
Hockey is a chaotic sport, and perhaps that’s what makes it so entertaining to watch. Every time you go to the rink, you just never know what kind of a game you’re going to see. Thursday’s 7-4 Kraken defeat at the hands of the upstart Anaheim Ducks, though disappointing in terms of the result, truly had everything you could possibly want in a hockey game. It was high scoring, high flying, high intensity, and high drama.
The disheartening result is damaging for Seattle and huge for Anaheim, which has now vaulted into second place in the Pacific Division with its sixth win in as many games. The third straight Kraken loss simply means the challenge of getting back in the race is even tougher now.
For the Kraken, the intensity didn’t switch on until the second period, and they were back to chasing the game from the jump. To their credit, they never quit and continued to battle back, even as one-goal deficits turned into two-goal deficits. Every time that happened, they picked themselves up and got back to within striking distance of a tying goal, but that equalizer proved elusive.
Every inch Seattle took it gave right back to Anaheim.
Slow start proves costly for Kraken against Ducks
Of their several defensive breakdowns in the first period, only one was costly, as Grubauer stood tall to turn away the other 13 shots he faced.
That most glaring miscue came fewer than five minutes into the game. In transition, Carson Soucy—playing left defense—found himself just a few feet away from partner Vince Dunn on the right side of the ice. That meant Max Comtois was gliding in all alone on the weak side. From the dot, he wound and fired a shot that Grubauer stopped, but as the puck bounced around in front of the net, 18-year-old Mason McTavish found it and buried his second career NHL goal.
There was no pushback offensively, and Seattle got just four pucks on the usually impermeable John Gibson. As the Kraken went to the dressing room, it was clear they would need to bring a lot more heat to break through.
Said Jordan Eberle, “We’re finding ways to lose. Tonight was a little different. I thought we started really slow, they really took it to us and [Philipp Grubauer] really kept us in it. We were lucky to be down one after one there.”
A very strange, high-flying period of hockey
The Kraken did break through in the second, but so too did the Ducks in a bizarre period of hockey.
It started with Jeremy Lauzon laying a high hit on Isac Lundestrom, which the Ducks did not like. Comtois went right after Lauzon, and the two tussled, both landing themselves in the penalty box. Oddly, Lauzon got an extra minor penalty on the play for his initial hit, while Comtois—who started the brouhaha—only got the one for roughing. That dustup set the tone for the strange frame.
Troy Terry used Mark Giordano as a screen to score his 10th (!!!) goal and 17th point of the season, giving Anaheim its first two-goal lead at 3:10. Terry looked dangerous every time he touched the puck, which is no surprise with the incredible hot streak he’s been on to start the season. The 24-year-old is just oozing confidence right now, and he showed it Thursday.
Jaden Schwartz answered 35 seconds later when he took a pass from Jordan Eberle off the rush and rifled it off the crossbar and in to bring the Kraken back within one.
Just when you thought the Kraken were starting to cook, Josh Mahura, off an offensive zone face-off win, blasted it through traffic. It beat Grubauer on a shot he never saw, and just like that it was again a two-goal deficit for Seattle.
The earlier issue with Lauzon was apparently not settled in the eyes of the Ducks, as Josh Manson challenged him, and the two dropped the gloves and threw a bunch of right jabs and crosses at one another, before Lauzon ultimately took Manson down to the ice.
The fight appeared to re-energize the Kraken, as Jared McCann, playing his first game since a bout with COVID, went hard to the net and a Ryan Donato pass bounced off him and through Gibson. In case you’ve lost count, the score at that point was 3-2.
The second period scoring was not quite done, though, as Kevin Shattenkirk re-established Anaheim’s two-goal lead at 15:46 on the one goal of the night that Grubauer would have wanted back. From the right dot, Shattenkirk snapped a shot that just squeezed through Grubauer’s armpit, and as soon as he realized it had gotten through, he looked skyward in disgust.
That brought the game to 4-2 to close out the second, and surely this thing was over, right?
Not so fast. The third period was every bit as wild as the second. Oh, and before we go there, just to add one bizarre cherry on top of a bizarre period, Gibson got in the grill of Brandon Tanev behind the play and held onto his stick for a good ten seconds. The referees stood and waited for them to sort it out, even though Gibson was visibly preventing Tanev from skating away.
It was all very strange.
Eberle stays hot, but Kraken come up short
Eberle continued his hot streak 3:57 into the final frame. On a two-on-one rush, Alex Wennberg sauced a perfect pass onto Eberle’s tape. As Gibson sprawled to cover the yawning cage, a confident Eberle buried it, putting Seattle back in business. That’s the sixth goal in four games for Eberle and his eighth in Seattle’s last eight.
Six minutes later, Hampus Lindholm pinballed one through traffic, making it 5-3. NOW it was over, right? Still no.
Exactly one minute elapsed before McCann took a pass from Donato while streaking into the offensive zone. He made a hard and deft cut to the middle, and in one fell swoop let go a howitzer that pinged off the right post and in to cut the deficit to one yet again.
The Kraken continued to push, and the line of Eberle, Schwartz, and Wennberg just missed on several prime scoring chances in the closing minutes. But an ill-timed goalie pull, just as that line was changing, gave Sam Carrick an easy empty netter and put the nail in the coffin.
Just to rub a little salt in the wound, Terry added another empty netter for his 11th (!!!) of the season and brought the final score to 7-4.
Frustrating loss against a good team
This latest loss was frustrating for players and fans alike on a lot of levels. The start was not good, but Grubauer bailed the team out in the first period and gave Seattle a chance going into the second.
Then as the game went on, the Kraken would gain ground but give it right back like they were engaged in trench warfare. That simply can’t continue to happen. For all the resiliency that this team has demonstrated, it rarely seems to get over the hump when it’s trying to mount a comeback. Giving back goals after working so hard to score just kills Seattle’s momentum, and it’s the latest troubling trend for this group.
As the standings climb gets more and more daunting, nights like Thursday are a stark reminder that the Pacific Division is better than it has been in recent years. The Ducks used to be viewed as easy points, but not anymore. Their long-standing youth movement is finally bearing fruit. They have evolved into a talented, fast, and exciting hockey club, with more young, impactful players still on the way.
The Kraken truly can’t afford to take more time to figure out ways to win instead of ways to lose. The climb back into the playoff race is getting steeper by the day.
Seattle will face the Minnesota Wild Saturday in the second game of this six-game homestand.
Seattle Kraken versus Anaheim Ducks 7 p.m. Pacific time Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle, Washington TV: ROOT Sports Radio: AM 950 KJR
As the saying goes, you have to make hay when the sun is shining. Of course, this is November in Seattle, and the sun almost never shines this time of year, but as it pertains to the Kraken, they are in last place and are now entering an uber-important six-game homestand. Sunshine or not, it’s time to make some hay.
The sun does shine in Anaheim this time of year, and it has been particularly bright there in the early stages of this season. A young team, the Ducks are on fire and represent a herculean task for the Seattle Kraken on Thursday.
Lineup questions
Coach Dave Hakstol was mostly coy in his morning press availability on Thursday (as he always is) about his lineup plans and indicated there will be a few “game-time decisions” for him and his staff. He did confirm that Jared McCann will play in his first game since entering COVID protocol two weeks ago.
McCann, who has seven points in eight games (3-4=7), is a key piece of the offensive attack for Seattle, and his absence was noticeable. He shared on Wednesday that he was hit hard by COVID, losing his senses of taste and smell, and lacked energy. Wednesday was also his first time back on the ice, so we shall see if he can perform to the best of his abilities Thursday.
In pre-season, McCann centered a dynamic line with Jordan Eberle and Jaden Schwartz that dominated at times. The trio was broken up early in the regular season, though, as Hakstol tried to squeeze goals out of his snake bitten group.
Toward the end of McCann’s absence, Alex Wennberg got slotted between Eberle and Schwartz, at which point Eberle got hot and scored five goals in three games. Interestingly, McCann was back in that spot at practice Wednesday and spoke as if he expects to play with Schwartz and Eberle.
What remains unclear is whether Yanni Gourde will be available Thursday. It is believed he was injured when he blocked a shot with his knee in the first period against Vegas on Tuesday. He did return after that and scored a goal but missed most of the third. He did not participate in practice Wednesday but was on the ice at Thursday’s optional morning skate. UPDATE: Looks like Gourde is in, as is Ryan Donato.
Goalie talk
The goaltending has gotten a lot of attention from the fledgling Kraken fanbase of late. Chris Driedger made his first start Tuesday in a 4-2 loss to the Golden Knights after Philipp Grubauer had a tough night in Arizona on Saturday. Neither netminder has particularly impressive stats, but we believe there’s improvement on the horizon for both.
Hakstol stressed Thursday that he doesn’t really care about their save percentages, but he does care about getting timely saves, which can have such a huge impact on the momentum of a game. At key points—like right after a Kraken goal, for example, or in the opening or closing minutes of a period—does Grubauer come up with the big save? Seattle hasn’t gotten that recently, so that will be something to look for as Grubauer returns to the crease against Anaheim.
Anaheim Ducks
These aren’t the same Ducks that had become so pleasant to play against in recent seasons. The youth movement that was put in motion several years ago—centered around players like Trevor Zegras, Troy Terry, Maxime Comtois, Sam Steel, and others—is starting to pay off, as Anaheim has gotten off to a great start to its season and sits in third place in the Pacific at 7-4-3.
Of course, the man who started that movement, general manager Bob Murray, has just resigned with allegations swirling about his treatment of those inside the organization and an investigation into his conduct underway. Murray’s fingerprints will remain on this roster for years to come, and while what he did behind the scenes is very much in question, the on-ice product appears to be dramatically improving.
Driving that improvement has been the emergence of Terry, who has been unstoppable in his 13 games played this season. The 24-year-old right winger is third in the league in goals with nine and has added seven assists. He scored the game-winning goal for the second straight game Tuesday in Vancouver, which led the Ducks to their fifth consecutive win.
There’s also been a feeling over the past few years that the rebuild in Anaheim has been wasting an exceptional talent in netminder John Gibson, who is now 28 years old. If this team does prove to be the real deal as the season wears on, Gibson will be a huge piece of the success. Gibson gets the nod Thursday. A shoo-in for Team USA in the upcoming Olympics, he is again proving tough to beat with a 2.34 goals against average and .927 save percentage.
Projected lineup
We’re basing this on lines from practice on Wednesday and guessing that Gourde will not play. Of course, this could change dramatically if he does go. UPDATE: With Gourde apparently… Gourde to go, the lines looked very different than they have before in warmups. This is reflected in the projection below.
Seattle Kraken at Vegas Golden Knights 7 p.m. Pacific time T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas, Nevada Watch: ESPN+, Hulu (Streaming only) Radio: AM 950 KJR
Back to where it all began, the Seattle Kraken are in Vegas on Tuesday to take on the Golden Knights for the second time in their existence and the first time since opening their inaugural season on the Strip. Circumstances are a bit different this time around, as we know a lot more about both teams, but this is still a tough building and a tough opponent, and it is again an important game for Seattle.
The Kraken are coming off a painful loss to the worst team in the league, the previously winless Arizona Coyotes, on Saturday. It was a game in which Seattle scored two goals and chased the opposing netminder in the very first minute of the game. In the second and third periods the Kraken allowed three unanswered goals to give Arizona a lead, then fought back to find the tying goal with 1:18 left. But just seconds later, a bad Adam Larsson turnover in the corner led to the game-winning goal by Lawson Crouse.
It was a night that Seattle fans hope to forget, but it will live on in infamy as the night those same fans completely lost it on Twitter for the first time (seriously, our mentions were… something).
Dave Hakstol acknowledged that it was a difficult game for the team, but hopes they can learn from it. “You gotta grow as a team out of some of the tough experiences,” he said Monday. “And that was a tough experience the other night. It was disappointing for all of us, but it gives you the opportunity also to learn something about yourselves and to be able to grow together.”
Tuesday, the Kraken look to right the ship against a banged up Vegas team.
Out goes Donato, in comes Johansson
Adding injury to insult on Saturday, Ryan Donato went head-first into the endboards on a very awkward play in the first period. He was slow to get up, but did eventually rise and looked ok in the immediate aftermath. He soon went down the tunnel, though, and did not return. Donato did not practice on Monday, but was back wearing a red non-contact jersey at morning skate on Tuesday.
Hakstol confirmed in his press availability after morning skate that Marcus Johansson will return against Vegas, so he will slot into Donato’s spot. Though the Kraken kept saying Johansson was still day to day, it’s not a huge surprise that he’s ready to go. He had been practicing in full, and nobody had been recalled from the AHL to replace Donato in the lineup.
Ironically, Johansson’s only game came at T-Mobile Arena on opening night, after which he somewhat mysteriously popped up on injured reserve and hasn’t played since. He had a big role in preseason and registered 16:13 of ice time with one shot on goal in that first game.
Chris Driedger starting Tuesday
On the previously discussed topic of our Twitter mentions, we hear your goaltending concerns loud and clear. You’re right that Philipp Grubauer has not been at his best so far and statistically has fallen toward the bottom of the league, but there is always context to consider with goalies.
First, Grubauer has been getting very heavily used. Some of that is the decision of the coach—after all, he did give the first five starts of the season to Grubauer—but some of that is simply terrible timing for Driedger to get injured. We all expected more of a 1A/1B platoon scenario, but that just hasn’t worked out. That can still come to fruition, though, and Driedger can start commanding more time with a quality start in Vegas.
Second, goaltending is a mentally taxing position that ebbs and flows during the course of an 82-game season, so give Grubauer time. He will get hot at some point, and you’ll go back to worshipping him as quickly as you might have stopped.
All that said, those that are clamoring for a Driedger start get their wish on Tuesday, as Hakstol confirmed he will go against Vegas. We did not anticipate that it would take until the twelfth game of the season before seeing him officially get the nod from the beginning of a game, but it’s better late than never.
Last season in Florida, Driedger was 14-6-3 with a 2.07 goals against average and .927 save percentage.
Vegas Golden Knights
Vegas currently has the following players listed on injured reserve: Mark Stone, Max Pacioretty, Nolan Patrick, Zach Whitecloud, and… Jack Eichel. William Karlsson is also out with a broken foot, though he for some reason is not officially listed on IR, and Alex Tuch and Peyton Krebs were traded in the Eichel deal.
That’s a lot of quality, regular players missing for the Golden Knights, who have been dressing guys like Michael Amadio and Jonas Rondbjerg to fill in. Paul Cotter is also expected to make his NHL debut Tuesday.
The Golden Knights beat Seattle on opening night, then lost four straight before rebounding—despite the injuries stacking up—for five wins in their last seven games. They did lose 5-2 in Detroit on Sunday, but have climbed back to .500 after a horrible start.
It’s an opportunistic team that showed how quickly it can strike the last time these teams played each other. That night, Seattle was playing an aggressive style that left things pretty wide open through the neutral zone. But the Kraken have adjusted their approach dramatically since then, so perhaps the goals won’t come quite as easily for the Golden Knights this time around.
Oh, and speaking of Eichel, holy cats, the Golden Knights traded for Eichel!
The disc replacement surgery that caused his rift with Buffalo has been scheduled for Nov. 12, then if all goes according to plan, the recovery should be about three months. So we won’t actually see him until at least February. When the superstar center does return, the Golden Knights are going to have to make some very tough calls to get themselves under the salary cap… but then they’ll have Eichel.
