SPOKANE – The game didn’t count in the standings, and to drive that point home the NHL didn’t send a statistician to tally who scored the goals. But to the Seattle Kraken franchise, its players, and fans, the game meant everything. It meant that NHL hockey was here.
Over 10,000 fans packed into the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena Sunday and cheered every move the Kraken made during a 5-3 preseason win over their would-be rivals, the Vancouver Canucks. Winning felt like icing on the cake.
Playing the game meant the Kraken had won no matter the final score.
“It was unbelievable to be honest,” Kraken forward Ryan Donato said. “I’m from the East Coast, so I’ve never been out here, and it just goes to show how exciting hockey is and how much it’s growing. Coming in here and seeing all the Kraken jerseys and how everything’s grown so fast, it’s truly awesome to be a part of it.”
Donato scored a power-play goal Sunday – Seattle would score three power-play goals despite little to no work on special teams during training camp – and his line with center Morgan Geekie and winger Joonas Donskoi continued to play well.
They were in the Canucks zone throughout the night and helped the Kraken earn nine of the game’s first 10 shots. As efficient as they were, they weren’t the only line to produce.
Jared McCann scored a goal and once again was put together with Jordan Eberle and Jaden Schwartz.
“We have the day off tomorrow, we’ll go back and re-evaluate that and look at the changes that we want to make and some of the new combinations that we want to look at,” Hakstol said. “There are things there that we liked. If we do go away from them to look at something different, we can always come back to that combination. But that’s something we have to really look at closely and we’ll discuss and talk about tonight and tomorrow through the day off.”
Lots of promise
The Kraken showed off what could be possible in the coming season.
While the Canucks iced a younger roster, they still stole their way to a 2-0 lead in the first period. The scores came against the flow of play and were of the odd variety.
The first goal came just after a Seattle power play had expired when Jack Rathbone came out of the box to pick up a loose puck and beat goalie Philipp Grubauer. Shortly after, Vancouver’s Brock Boeser flung the puck into traffic, and it struck a Seattle defender and deflected in.
Just like that, Seattle’s early work had been erased.
Seattle came out in the second period and stuck to the game plan. Riley Sheahan would convert a crafty pass from behind the net by Nathan Bastian to cut into the Vancouver lead. He also solidified himself as the answer to a future niche and borderline minutiae trivia question.
Seattle’s Jared McCann tries to score during the Kraken’s 5-3 preaseason win Sunday. (Brian Liesse photo)
McCann would get the game square when he somehow found an opening on the short side of Vancouver goalie Arturs Silovs’ position in the net.
“(You have to) just move the puck quicker,” McCann said. “I feel like we had to get them running around a little bit. They’re a hard forechecking team, they like to get on the puck a lot. Just make them skate and get tired and open up lanes for you.”
The Canucks would tie the game in the second period, but Geekie would score twice in the third to put the game away.
A moment in Seattle hockey history
It was a successful night for the Kraken on the ice and off.
Winning is nice, but the launch of the Kraken experience felt bigger. The wait was over and instead of debating about arena sites and parking, we can now talk about the Kraken forecheck that pinned Vancouver in its own zone for most of the night.
A full building four hours away from the Kraken’s home was impressive and proved this Kraken squad is in fact Washington’s team.
“To come here to Spokane and play in front of this kind of a crowd on night number one of the exhibition season was awesome,” Hakstol said. “You know, the Spokane Chiefs hosting us and taking care of both teams in this building was a great way to start the exhibition season.”
After a day off Monday the Kraken will next travel to Edmonton to play preseason game two against the Oilers on Tuesday.
The time has come! Here is a quick pre-game video from our own Andy Eide and Darren Brown, as well as the projected Seattle Kraken lineup as they get set to take on the Vancouver Canucks.
We’re hoping you’ll use the comments section on this page as your landing page to communicate with your fellow Kraken community members during the game.
SEATTLE – Kraken prospect Ryker Evans grew up in Calgary, Alberta, watching the Flames and defenseman Mark Giordano. Thursday morning, Evans found himself checking Giordano during quick passing drills on the first day of an NHL training camp.
Later, the two would play together.
“Out there being a D partner with him, it’s surreal,” Evans, 19, said. “I was just soaking it in and learning off of him.”
Learning is the reason Evans is at training camp with the Kraken.
Seattle selected the defenseman during the second round, with pick No. 35, of July’s NHL Entry Draft. Playing in training camp is a valuable experience for Evans as he prepares for his final year in junior hockey with the Western Hockey League’s Regina Pats.
“It’s been cool so far,” Evans said. “Just kind of soaking everything in, learning from those older guys. It’s a good pace out there. It was competitive and obviously that’s what makes it fun.”
With Regina last season, Evans led all WHL defensemen in assists with 25 in 24 games. He is poised for another big year with the Pats once he is inevitably sent back by the Kraken.
While he’s practicing against players that are bigger, stronger, faster, and more experienced than he is, this is not completely new territory.
“In the summer we skate with a lot of those pro guys so it’s not too big of an adjustment,” Evans said. “But you’ve just got to give them a bit more respect because they know what to do.”
Evans played half the season last year with budding hockey superstar Connor Bedard. The 15-year-old Bedard was the first player to be granted exceptional status in the WHL, which allowed him to play a year earlier than every other player. He responded by leading the league in scoring until he left to play for Canada in the U18’s where he would set more scoring records.
“He’s obviously a great player and it just came across easily,” Evans said. “We’re both offensive guys and just reading off each other we had a great team and a lot of success.”
For the rest of camp Evans is going to take in every moment, learn from the pros, and go back to Regina to finish his junior career off with a run he hopes will lead to a championship.
He isn’t the only 2021 Kraken draft pick in training camp this week. Third-round pick Ryan Winterton and fifth-round pick Jacob Melanson are soaking up the action with Evans.
Kraken prospect Ryker Evans is soaking in the experience of an NHL training camp. (Brian Liesse photo)
Battle drills and a hard day
The intensity of camp picked up a notch Friday as the Kraken took part in a number of battle drills that included one-on-one action, defensive zone work, and more hitting.
“It was more competitive,” Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol said. “But, you know, there was still a combination of systems and teaching within it.”
There was some hitting, more players knocked to the ice, and at one point Morgan Geekie and Giordano got tangled and crashed into goalie Philipp Grubauer in a moment that got everyone’s attention. All three skated away unscathed.
Going hard against teammates can be tough, but the Kraken managed through without any bad blood bubbling to the surface. The play was hard, it was intense, and it showcased the competitive nature and style the team possesses.
“There’s a boundary that you have to have, and maybe other teams or other camps, you see some fights or whatever, but you don’t want to expect that,” defenseman Vince Dunn said about the Kraken remaining calm. “But, at the same time there’s guys that need to solidify certain roles.”
The ramped up intensity of Friday’s training camp sessions were possible thanks to the work put in during the first day. A great deal of day one was spent on systems and because the team was comfortable, they could add the physical aspects to those systems.
Defenseman Cale Fleury leans on Mason Appleton during Kraken training camp Friday. (Brian Liesse photo)
Seattle is going to be a tough team to play against once the regular season kicks off on Oct. 12 in Vegas. One player referred to Friday’s camp as ‘hard,’ which suggests the Kraken may already be a tough team to play against.
Don’t expect the club to go backwards moving forward, as it’s safe to say that intensity will only rise from here on out.
“I mean we’ve been skating together for a couple of weeks,” defenseman Jamie Oleksiak said. “A lot of us [have], and it’s been a lot of scrimmaging and obviously not too physical. And now that we have a system, we kind of know what we’re doing in the D zone and we can ramp it up a little bit more and play a little more structured. So, I think it’s been a good camp so far and you know we just got to keep up that mentality moving forward.”
A top line may be emerging
Hakstol made a point Thursday of pumping the breaks on lines but did hint that they are beginning to put some combinations together to see how they mesh.
“I want to try to give most of the combinations that we’re starting with an opportunity,” Hakstol said Friday. “Not just one day at a time, that’s not enough to see the ups and downs. So, we’re trying to give each and every combination… a few days together, and maybe one or two exhibition games to really see how it comes together.”
For the second day, Jared McCann was centered between wingers Jordan Eberle and Jaden Schwartz. They played well and showed some chemistry, especially between the two wingers.
On Thursday, Eberle spoke on the connection the two have off the ice thanks to growing up near each other and common connections through their respective brothers. Schwartz echoed those connections on Friday.
“A lot of familiarity there and a really, really smart hockey player ever since he was young,” Schwartz added. “[Eberle is] skilled and sees the ice well, always knows where guys are and always finds a way to get to those open areas so just an easy guy to read off of when he has the puck.”
Biggest laugh of the day
During the morning session the team went through one-on-one battles in the offensive zone.
At one point Haydn Fleury’s stick got in the feet of Adam Larsson’s skates, dropping him to the ice. It was a clear trip.
Despite no refs on the ice, the penalty was still called as the remainder of the team yelled, raised arms, and called tripping.
The Kraken will be back on the ice at training camp Saturday as the team will play a full scrimmage in preparation for Sunday’s preseason opener in Spokane against the Vancouver Canucks.
…And what a day it was! Get caught up on everything that happened at the first day of the first-ever Seattle Kraken training camp with this very fun video that features two very fun Sound Of Hockey Podcast hosts.
It was hard to believe when NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced in December of 2018 that the league was granting Seattle an NHL expansion franchise. It started to feel more like this was actually happening when the team hired Ron Francis as general manager the following summer. Then there was the name and logo reveal and the hiring of Dave Hakstol as head coach this spring. In July, we met the first players at the Expansion Draft. All those events helped build momentum, but it’s going to finally become real when Kraken players step onto the ice at the Kraken Community Iceplex to open the franchise’s first training camp on Thursday.
NHL hockey is officially in Seattle.
There are questions facing Francis and Hakstol, which will be answered over the next three weeks as the team prepares for its Oct. 12 season opener against the Vegas Golden Knights. Camp is going to move fast as the team will play its first preseason game Sunday in Spokane against the Vancouver Canucks.
Portions of camp will be open to the public and for the first time ever, hockey fans in Seattle will watch their NHL team skating.
What will those fans see? What should they be watching for?
Here are some storylines to consider at Kraken training camp.
How will the Kraken lines and pairings look?
We know who the Kraken players are, but we don’t know how the lines or defensive pairings will look.
While Hakstol isn’t going to give us an answer on day one of camp, we can start to get a sense of who looks good together. We think the top line will be Jaden Schwartz, Alex Wennberg, and Jordan Eberle, but nothing has been finalized, and lines are always subject to change even when the season gets under way.
Over the course of camp Hakstol will put players together in different configurations. The same goes for the preseason games and over time we should see lines and defensive pairings start to emerge.
It’s important not to jump to conclusions at practice though. Hakstol will want to see everybody and at one point you can expect a number of combinations on the ice for scrimmages and drills. Take it all with a grain of salt.
Who is making the Kraken roster out of training camp?
The Kraken have some tough decisions to make at forward and on the blue line.
Up front there are 26 forwards in camp with 13 defensemen and five goaltenders. The top of the lineup – top six forwards and top four defensemen – seem somewhat predictable but what about the rest? If the team keeps 15 or so forwards and seven or eight defensemen on the roster, decisions are on the way.
How players perform in camp and in preseason games will determine who stays, who gets sent to the AHL’s Charlotte Checkers, and who gets outright let go.
Keep a close eye on guys like Morgan Geekie, Alexander True, and Carsen Twarynski up front, and Cale Fleury, Will Borgen, and Dennis Cholowski on the back end, as those players will be battling to make a lasting impression.
Practice will play a huge role in determining how someone is performing but so will preseason games. There are roster spots available which should lead to great competition on the ice. With this first camp, it’s one of the more intriguing questions.
Kraken goalies set for training camp
There is little question on the goalie front. Philipp Grubauer will be the number one after signing a six-year, $35.4 million contract during free agency in July. The 29-year-old is coming off his best NHL season to date and was nominated for the Vezina Trophy after guiding the Colorado Avalanche to the Presidents’ Trophy.
Grubauer is locked in, and training camp is where he’ll add the fine points in his game to prepare for the regular season.
Backing up Grubauer – or the 1B goalie – is Chris Driedger. The Kraken selected him from the Florida Panthers and signed him during the Expansion Draft. Driedger, 27, inked a three-year deal with Seattle for $3.5 million a season and is secure in his spot on the roster.
What to watch in camp is how the depth goalies look.
Most notable is Joey Daccord whom the Kraken picked from the Ottawa Senators during the Expansion Draft. With a ton of upside, Daccord, 25, is most likely AHL bound but is expected to be knocking on the NHL door in no time.
Kraken goalie Joey Daccord will use training camp to solidify the third goalie spot for Seattle (Brian Liesse photo)
A raised intensity should be expected at training camp
The Kraken players have been on the ice participating in informal ‘Captain’s Skates’ for the past couple of weeks. Those skates were important in building some team camaraderie and to get their hockey legs back under them.
The action was akin to a pickup game at times, and while fun, there was no contact and intensity was lacking. That should change starting Thursday morning.
Jobs are on the line in camp and that means players are skating with a heightened purpose and drive. There will be contact. That intensity and physicality will carry into the preseason games.
Drills, drills, drills
Practice at camp will consist of a lot of drills along with some scrimmaging mixed in.
Hakstol will want to install his systems and ensure they become rote for the new team. Hockey coaches have systems for all occasions. There will be neutral zone systems, forecheck systems, break out systems, and more. What’s the system if you lose the faceoff in the offensive zone, or defensive zone, or neutral zone? These will all be worked on during camp.
The players should pick this up quickly.
Hockey is hockey and while Hakstol has an idea on how he wants to play, his players have seen it before. They’ve either played in similar systems in the past, or against them.
Who is going to play on special teams?
Special teams are key in the NHL and will play a role from game to game and over the course of the regular season. Over the next couple weeks, Hakstol will begin to learn who he’ll rely on to perform on the power play and penalty kill.
There are some obvious answers here.
We can expect players like Mark Giordano, Eberle, and Schwartz to be on one of the power play units. But who else? Will Vince Dunn be on the point for one of the two groups? Will Wennberg be on the penalty kill? Will Adam Larsson?
Special teams most likely won’t be worked on day one, and maybe not even in time for the first preseason game in Spokane, but by the end of camp we should know who we’ll expect to see on special teams once the season starts.
With the opening of training camp fully in sight, the Seattle Kraken made one more move to bolster the forward depth on their inaugural roster last week, signing 25-year-old Ryan Donato to a one-year, one-way contract worth $750K.
It’s an intriguing signing for a couple of reasons. First, Donato is coming off of a two-year contract that paid him $3.8 million in total, so with that in mind, he could end up being a bargain if he excels in a potentially elevated role with the expansion franchise. Second, the Kraken have signed a plethora of middle- to bottom-six forwards on one-year contracts this offseason, and the addition of Donato to that group creates more competition for some of the players that may have already been on the bubble to make the NHL roster.
Donato joins the Kraken after a season and a half each in Boston and Minnesota, then one season in San Jose. His best year came with the Wild in 2018-19 when he played much of the year on a line with Mikko Koivu and Ryan Hartman and posted 14 goals and nine assists in 62 games. In all, Donato has 35 career goals and 42 career assists in 180 regular-season games.
How Donato’s role gets defined when Seattle breaks camp will certainly be worth monitoring, as will the fates of players like Morgan Geekie, Alexander True, and Carsen Twarynski, to name a few.
A Boston kid lives out his dreams
Ryan Donato’s father, Ted, retired from a long NHL playing career in 2004 and quickly became the head coach for the men’s team at his alma matter, Harvard University. Ted Donato had been behind the Crimson bench for a decade when Ryan matriculated and joined the team as a freshman for the 2015-16 season.
College hockey in the Boston area is special. Four major programs inhabit the city, along with the Bruins at the NHL level, making the area a hotbed for the sport. Those four major college programs get together annually for the Beanpot, a nationally covered tournament for bragging rights that pits Harvard, Northeastern, Boston College, and Boston University against one another at a packed TD Garden. Youth hockey players across the region dream of one day playing in the tournament, regardless of where their collegiate allegiances lie. Donato was one of those kids.
Playing for his father, Donato helped the Crimson do something they hadn’t done in 24 years by winning the prized Beanpot championship in 2017. He calls the tournament something he “always wanted to win as a kid,” and he played a big role in pushing Harvard past a BU team that featured the likes of Jordan Greenway, Clayton Keller, Kieffer Bellows, and Jake Oettinger. Donato scored a highlight reel goal to help seal the Beanpot final (at about the 5:45 mark of the below video).
That Crimson team also advanced to the NCAA Frozen Four for Harvard’s first appearance since 1994, but lost 2-1 to Minnesota Duluth in the semifinals. In his third and final year at Harvard, Donato was a Hobey Baker Award finalist and the Ivy League Player of the Year after posting 43 points in just 29 games.
The impressive ride through the amateur ranks didn’t end at Harvard for Donato, though. With NHL players being held out of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, he got the call to play for Team USA before vaulting right into the Bruins lineup later that season. “Participating in the Olympics was a complete— man, it was a blessing, it was unbelievable, it was a great experience,” Donato said. “And then, in the NHL, I got to play for my home team, which was nice and the team that I grew up watching in Boston.”
He was able to draw some similarities between playing in those Olympics and joining an expansion franchise in its first season. “We basically were all new guys playing on different teams that met up when we had two or three weeks, and then we were playing in the Olympics,” Donato recalled. “So I think that’s similar in the sense that you’ve got a group of guys that don’t really know each other. You might have played together in the past or played on different teams against each other, but now you’re all coming together. And, you know, you got to have that team chemistry right away, which really isn’t that easy to form that fast.”
How will Donato fit into the Kraken lineup?
If you’re scratching your head to figure out how all those players on one-year deals can slot into the Kraken lineup, you’re not alone. Donato himself isn’t sure where he fits yet, but he believes that if he gets an opportunity, he will contribute, as he has already shown he can do on his previous NHL teams.
“I think, personally, I just have the confidence. I know that any time that I’ve been put in a position to succeed, I’ve done well with it,” Donato said. “And it’s just a matter of keeping that position.”
It has been a pattern that Donato’s ice time has dwindled later in his tenures with his previous NHL teams. On whether or not he feels he should have gotten more time in higher roles in the past, he thinks he probably deserved more, but to him, that’s just the nature of a professional hockey player. “I think if you ask any player if they deserve more ice time, I think they would say yes,” Donato said. “Every guy in every organization on every team thinks that they deserve more, it’s just a matter of proving it.”
Donato knows that he does still need to prove to Seattle head coach Dave Hakstol and his staff that he can do the little things on the ice that help the team win. “When I do those things, the coach is more willing to give me those opportunities that I succeed with. So I think it kind of goes both ways. You know, you’ve got to earn those responsibilities, but whenever I’m given those responsibilities, I usually do pretty well.”
The challenge for Donato is that for much of his NHL career to this point, he has played bottom-six roles, where the focus is more on stopping the opposition from scoring than it is about producing offensively. But he’s a shoot-first player that was clearly bred to put up points, as demonstrated by his eye-popping numbers at Harvard and by his performance at the PyeongChang Olympics, where he tied for the tournament lead in goals.
The lasting question for him as an NHL player is whether he can be successful enough playing on lower lines to get extended opportunities on top lines. Still, as far as Donato is concerned, wherever he ends up in Seattle’s lineup, he believes he can contribute. “I’m not too sure where exactly I’m going to slot in, but for me, I know I’m confident playing in any position in any part of the lineup.”
“Everything has been top notch”
After a summer of uncertainty about where he would play this season, Donato is ready to get started with the Kraken and has so far been impressed with what he’s seen from the fledgling organization. “Everything has been top notch. I mean from getting to know the guys and communication between players and coaches and staff and the equipment guys, the medical staff, trainers, the food, just everything has been top notch.”
Donato also raved about the new Kraken Community Iceplex, where the team has been holding informal practices in the lead-up to training camp. “The new facility, obviously, is unbelievable. I mean, it’s kind of an understatement to say that, but it really is unbelievable. They’re really trying to set us up for success here.”
Will Donato himself be set up for success? If he gets opportunities to show that he can produce, Seattle could end up getting great value out of Donato. But Donato also needs to seize those opportunities to rise above the bottom-six logjam that now exists on the Kraken roster.
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.
