Three Takeaways – Kraken win streak snapped after 1-0 loss to Wild

by Darren Brown | Nov 12, 2022 | Three takeaways

After the Wild and Kraken played a snoozer in St. Paul last week, we were unsurprised to see a tight-checking, mostly low-event game Friday in Seattle. This time, the goalies were both sharp, and the outcome was a 1-0 drab affair. The result cost Seattle its winning streak, which was snapped by Minnesota at five games. 

While both goalies were good when needed, Marc-Andre Fleury was excellent for the Wild, earning a 28-save shutout and racking up a bunch of saves in the waning minutes, including three in the last two seconds before the final horn. 

28 saves was an appropriate number, as the Kraken became the 28th team Fleury has shutout in his career. The veteran netminder didn’t think anything of it, though, saying, “I think it just means I’m old, maybe. I’ve been playing for a while I guess.” The Kraken didn’t test Fleury as much as they have other goalies this season, but still, he came up big on a number of occasions.

Here are our Three Takeaways from a 1-0 Kraken loss to the Wild. 

Takeaway #1: Can’t win ’em all

The first five-game win streak in Kraken history was memorable. As we look back on this stretch, let’s all be sure to cherish the good times we had along the way. Sadly, losses eventually have to come, because that’s just how sports work, and Seattle experienced that Friday after a slogfest.

The way the loss happened was frustrating, as both teams played suffocating defense that made the game look eerily similar to the one played between these two teams in Minnesota last week. The difference between the games was that Fleury didn’t play particularly well on his team’s home ice but was dialed in at Climate Pledge Arena. 

Little was happening offensively Friday, yet it always felt like the Kraken were on the verge of breaking through. They just didn’t do enough to find an equalizer, and one Mats Zuccarello snipe was all Minnesota needed in the end. 

“We gotta find more shots on the inside,” Yanni Gourde said. “There was definitely a lot of outside plays. Even the shots we were taking— we gotta find second [chances], find rebounds, we’ve got to be netfront. If that goalie sees the puck, most likely he’s going to make the save.”

Give credit to Minnesota, though. While the Wild also didn’t generate much in Seattle’s end, there was a visible determination to hold onto their tenuous lead in the later stages. “They don’t give you much out there,” said Justin Schultz. “They’re a heavy, big team, and they made it tough on us.” 

The Kraken got a couple looks in the closing minutes with Martin Jones pulled for an extra attacker. The first good look came when Andre Burakovsky made a pass through the seam to Jaden Schwartz, but Schwartz partially fanned on the shot. The other came with just a couple ticks left on the clock, as Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand traded off banging away at pucks in front of Fleury. 

Nothing doing, though. On to the next one. 

During the streak, the Kraken did a great job of limiting the damage when they gave up goals. They would get right back on their horse and start pushing the momentum again. Now, let’s see if they can limit the damage on the larger scale and get right back to winning.

Takeaway #2: Let’s talk about the Kraken penalty kill

Early in the season, Seattle’s penalty kill was quietly becoming a liability and had dropped to one of the worst in the league. The team has turned that around in a big way, though. Since giving up two power-play goals to Vancouver in a 5-4 loss on Oct. 25, the Kraken have not conceded a single power-play goal since. That’s 16 consecutive kills and six whole games, bringing the Kraken up to a 75 percent success rate on the season. Friday, it was 3-for-3 once again. 

“I think we did a great job [on the PK],” Gourde said. “Our defensemen were blocking big shots. We made the [blue] line hard to get when they entered in as well. We know our pressure point, and we executed that pretty well.”

The Kraken had an especially impressive kill in the second period. After Burakovsky hooked Sam Steel to thwart a scoring opportunity at 15:11, the team’s killers completely suffocated every zone entry Minnesota tried on the ensuing power play. Seattle eliminated any opportunity for the Wild to get set up in the offensive zone, bleeding the clock with iced puck after iced puck. 

“With Jamie Oleksiak out, that’s a big hole to fill,” said Hakstol. “Guys stepped into that and didn’t miss a beat so that’s a real positive for that group in terms of the way they competed and got us through penalty kills.”

Meanwhile, Seattle’s usually dangerous power play had a tough night, going 0-for-4 and often looking out of sorts against an aggressive Minnesota PK. 

“I thought we could have been a lot better on the power play for sure,” Schultz said. “There were moments, but I don’t think we were close to what we have been this year. Definitely had our chances, but couldn’t be the difference maker tonight unfortunately.”

Takeaway #3: Keep an eye on Seattle’s blue line

Things are going to be a bit more interesting on the blue line for the foreseeable future now that Jamie Oleksiak is on injured reserve. The Kraken had found a nice balance of right- and left-shot defensemen, with a clear-cut first, second, and third pair. Now, things are suddenly murkier.

Cale Fleury played his first game of the season Friday, taking Oleksiak’s spot next to Schultz for most of the night. Being that both Schultz and Fleury are right-shot defensemen, there were moments against the Wild where Fleury looked unsure of himself trying to dig pucks off the boards on his off hand. In general, we thought Fleury looked uncomfortable in the early going, but he settled in as the night wore on. Despite Hakstol shuffling up the defense pairs in the closing minutes, Fleury was out for a shift very late in the game. 

“It’s not easy for him, coming in with that much time off,” Schultz said of Fleury. “I thought he did a great job. Made it easy, made simple plays, and he’s a great skater. He was good tonight.” 

“[Fleury] battled hard for us,” added Hakstol. “There’s gonna be some rough patches, and there was that, but he worked through it.”

The late-game shuffling of the D-pairs was interesting and a rare sight for what has been a steady three-pair defense corps this season. Though the team didn’t allow many great opportunities against Martin Jones, who stopped 20 of 21 shots, we will be curious to see if Hakstol tries any different looks on the blue line moving forward. After all Fleury has been through this season, watching the first 14 games from the press box, he deserves to stay in for a while. Hakstol does now have a left-shot available to him with Gustav Olofsson recalled from the AHL, though, and we can’t help wondering if Goose could get a look at some point. 

Three Takeaways – Kraken beat Predators 5-1 for fifth consecutive win

by Darren Brown | Nov 9, 2022 | Three takeaways

While most of the nation was anxiously watching and awaiting the results of the US mid-term elections Tuesday, the Seattle Kraken were busy knocking off the Nashville Predators, extending their franchise record win streak to five games. 

Seattle got off to a hot start in the first period and chased Nashville’s starting goalie, before sagging in the second. To their credit, though, the Kraken minimized the damage in the frame and regrouped before the third to seal another convincing win. 

“Good teams find a way to win, and that’s what we’re doing,” said Morgan Geekie.

Seems simple enough, but we’re still going to dig into Tuesday’s victory and try to understand what’s happening with the streaking Kraken. Here are our Three Takeaways from a 5-1 Kraken win over the Predators. 

Takeaway #1: The boys came out BUZZING

Seattle picked up right where it left off from its perfect road trip and wasted no time getting on the board against Nashville. After Andre Burakovsky caught an Oliver Bjorkstrand pass in the neutral zone, he looped back toward the Kraken end and found a streaking Jordan Eberle at the red line. Eberle dangled around Ryan McDonagh to gain the zone, then shot over the stick of former Kraken Jeremy Lauzon and past Juuse Saros. 

The goal came just 38 seconds into the first period, and just like that, the boys were once again off and rolling.  

“We started the game well,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “We were opportunistic on some turnovers that we created. In reality, we picked up where we left off at home.”

Added Geekie, “We haven’t really used our crowd to our advantage [this season], and I think tonight, we made it a point to do that, obviously with the start we had.” Seattle hadn’t been as dominant at home as it had been on the road—the team is now 3-3-1 at home versus 5-1-1 away—but the Climate Pledge Arena crowd was raucous Tuesday and had plenty to cheer about throughout the night.

By the 16:25 mark of the first period, Eberle had already scored two goals and hit a post, and he was only part of the offensive picture in the opening 20 minutes. His second goal was Seattle’s fourth of the night and sent 2021-22 Vezina Trophy finalist Saros to the bench, replaced by Kevin Lankinen. 

Also scoring in the early going was Will Borgen, who sniped a shot over Saros’s shoulder to make it 2-0 at 7:29, and Burakovsky, who took an Alex Wennberg pass and toyed with Saros to extend the lead to three at 15:16. 

By the time the first horn sounded, Burakovksy had a goal and two assists, Eberle had two goals, and Geekie, Bjorkstrand, Wennberg, and Borgen each had a point. It was the first time the Kraken have ever scored four goals in a period. 

Takeaway #2: Martin Jones is locked in

Seattle sagged pretty dramatically in the second period, but Martin Jones stayed hot and bailed his mates out on several occasions. He stopped 10 of the 11 Predators shots he faced in the period and 24 of 25 on the night, improving to 6-3-1 on the season with a 2.61 goals against average and .901 save percentage. 

“Solid. He’s been a rock for us,” Morgan Geekie said of Jones. “Obviously, he’s a new dad and stuff, so he’s playing for a little extra out there. But, he’s been awesome for us, and I can’t say enough good things.”

Geekie may be onto something there. Since Jones’s first child was born, he has won four consecutive starts with a .966 save percentage and a 1.00 goals against average. Those are eye-popping numbers and a welcome sight for a team that struggled so mightily in the crease last season. 

There are simply no wasted movements for Jones these days, and that comes from him reading the play exceptionally well. He’s in position to make saves in advance of shots, and once he’s set in the right spot, it’s just a matter of dropping to the butterfly and closing down as much of the net as he can. Plus, he’s tracking the puck. When opposing teams avoid shooting into his pads or chest, Jones is easily steering pucks into the corner with his blocker or catching them for a whistle. 

“He’s a calm goaltender in there,” Hakstol said. “Tonight he made a couple saves where his movements were pretty quiet, but there were a lot of good saves. Pucks that are coming form the outside through traffic, he was in good spots on, and because of that he also was able to be in good spots for some of the in-tight battles.” 

Takeaway #3: That’s five! 

Not to toot our own horn, but we accurately predicted on Episode 211 of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast that the Kraken were on the verge of getting on a run. Fast forward a week and a half, and they look like world beaters.

The reason we thought Seattle was going in the right direction was because even when it was losing games—like against Vancouver and Chicago—it was the better team. But turnovers, bad bounces, and five-minute lapses were costing the Kraken. We thought if they could stop letting mistakes compound on each other, they would start getting the results consistently, and that is exactly what has happened. 

Tuesday was an odd game in that the Kraken jumped to a 4-0 lead before the end of the first, and Nashville predictably came out looking pissed in the second, while Seattle had predictably eased off. 

“When you get up that early, it’s tough to stay on the gas like that, and I think we faded in the second period,” Geekie said. 

“You don’t want to be lackadaisical, but a lot of times that’s what happens,” said Eberle. “The second period obviously wasn’t great.”

But even when Seattle’s game dropped off in the second, it minimized the damage to just one goal against and still cruised into the third period with a comfortable three-goal lead. That’s the difference between this five-game streak and those Vancouver and Chicago games; even when the Kraken give up a rare goal, they don’t let that build into any kind of real momentum for the opposition. 

So how do they keep this streak rolling? 

“I think the biggest thing for us right now is to not get too high here,” said Eberle. “I know we’ve won five in a row, but we have a big homestand with some really good teams that we’re about to play.”

—

Jamie Oleksiak left the game early with an injury. Hakstol did not have an update on Oleksiak’s status after the game. The Kraken will have a team day off Wednesday before returning to practice Thursday. They will welcome the Minnesota Wild to Climate Pledge Arena on Friday.

Three Takeaways – Kraken rolling with good goaltending, different players contributing

by Darren Brown | Nov 5, 2022 | Three takeaways

The Seattle Kraken knocked off the Pittsburgh Penguins for the second time in a week Saturday, sweeping the season series and sweeping a difficult three-game road trip. Backed by another awesome performance by netminder Martin Jones, the Kraken came away with a confident 3-2 win. 

Jordan Eberle had said after morning skate on Saturday that another win against the Penguins could be a turning point for the franchise in terms of developing a winning culture. Is that what this is? Are the Kraken winners now? 

Here are our Three Takeaways from a 3-2 Kraken win over the Penguins. 

Takeaway #1: Seattle is rolling, sweeps road trip 

Thinking back to last season, on the rare occasion the Kraken would get wins, it almost always looked like they were giving everything they had to get to the final horn. Players would sell out to block shots, and as contests came down to the wire, you always felt like Seattle was on the brink of collapse.

When the Kraken have won this season, that has not been the case. They are playing with a certain swagger, where they seem to believe that even when they’re being outshot and out-chanced—as they were on Saturday—a positive result will come, so long as they stick to their structure. Desperation never seems to really set in, because this year’s Kraken rarely are desperate. 

“There were pieces here that weren’t all that pretty,” coach Dave Hakstol said of Saturday’s game. “But there was never a point in the hockey game where you felt like our group was rattled or coming apart in any way, shape, or form. Guys are calm, guys are looking what they can do next shift.”

Get ahead? Great. Seattle will shut the opposition down. Fall behind? Fine. Seattle will find clutch goals to tie and eventually lead. That’s what this team is right now.

“We’re playing as a team, and it’s really fun to play that way,” Yanni Gourde said. “All four lines, all [six defensemen], [Martin Jones] has been unbelievable in net, so it’s been really team wins since the beginning of the year.” 

While the first win of this three-game road trip, a 5-4 result over the Calgary Flames, required some serious tenacity, most of Seattle’s seven victories this season have felt like calm, confident wins that were well deserved. Though Seattle was outshot 37-28 in Pittsburgh, it never looked under duress, even in stretches when the Penguins were pushing. 

“That’s the mindset and the goal we had setting out to this road trip,” Brandon Tanev said. “In the three games we played, we beat three good teams, and that’s the idea we wanted to do.”

The Kraken have won four games in a row for the first time in franchise history, and they just swept a tough three-game road trip that spanned three time zones and the entire North American continent. With the latest victory, Seattle improved to 7-4-2 and took sole possession of second place in the Pacific Division from the Edmonton Oilers. 

Takeaway #2: Brandon Tanev and Yanni Gourde come up big

You know a team is playing with confidence when every night it seems like it’s winning in different ways with different guys stepping up and contributing. On Saturday, it was Gourde and former Penguin Tanev who made the difference. 

With 12:12 left to play and the game tied 1-1, Tanev redirected an errant Morgan Geekie pass with his shinguard, right onto the tape of Gourde at the top of the crease. Gourde wasted no time in swatting the puck by an unprepared Tristan Jarry to give the Kraken a 2-1 lead. 

Then, after Matty Beniers had inadvertently deflected a Jake Guentzel pass into Seattle’s net to make it 2-2, Gourde returned the favor to Tanev, who showed his finishing abilities to give Seattle the win. 

“Personally, that’s great for me, but I think it’s more important that the team got all six points on this road trip,” Tanev said. Turbo finished the night with a goal and an assist, while Gourde had a goal and two assists.

Morgan Geekie got elevated to play with Tanev and Gourde late in the game and assisted on both of their goals, bringing him to seven points in his last seven games.

Takeaway #3: The Kraken have good goaltending

A big piece of the swagger we mentioned in Takeaway #1 comes from the team’s confidence in its goaltending. Hakstol’s defensive systems revolve around keeping shots to the outside and allowing the netminder to make the saves he’s supposed to make. Martin Jones has done that and then some in the last three games.

Jones has returned to the form we saw from him in his earlier San Jose Sharks days, when he arrived and immediately demanded the starter role. After stopping 22 shots to earn a shutout in Minnesota on Thursday, Jones was razor sharp against the Penguins Saturday and stopped 35 of 37 shots. He has a .968 save percentage and 1.00 goals against average in his last three games. 

Tanev called the goaltenders on this road trip—Jones and Joey Daccord—the “backbone” for the team. “We fed off them and we got some timely goals, and I think as a group we played and understood what we needed to do,” he said. 

“Our goaltending has been really good throughout this road trip,” Hakstol added. “It started with Joey in Calgary, and Jonesy picked up right where he left off from his home performance a week ago. You have to have that in order to have success on the road, especially in a game like this. His performance is critical for us.” 

What’s remarkable about Jones is how unremarkable he makes most saves look. Even on Pittsburgh’s best chances Saturday, Jones was always in position, wasting no movement, and simply closing off any holes from Penguins shooters. 

Not only that, his rebound control was impeccable.

On nights when Jones hasn’t been at his best—the Oct. 27 game against Vancouver comes to mind—Jones has still looked calm and in position, but he hasn’t tracked the puck as well. Both Thursday and Saturday, you could tell he was dialed in by how pucks were hitting off of him and bouncing out of dangerous areas.

Jones hasn’t allowed many second chances lately, as he has been kicking pucks into corners or swallowing them up for face-offs. 

Having Seattle’s No. 2 goalie playing the way Jones is playing right now is encouraging. Whenever Philipp Grubauer returns from his injury, if he too can pick up where he left off, Seattle’s goaltending will finally be where we hoped it would be a year ago. 

Three Takeaways – New dad energy powers Kraken past Penguins

by Darren Brown | Oct 30, 2022 | Three takeaways

The Seattle Kraken earned an important 3-1 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins Saturday. It got them back to .500 at 4-4-2 and allowed them to finish their homestand 2-1-0 before heading out on a tough three-game road trip that will span all across the continent. 

A couple new dads were the heroes for Seattle, as Martin Jones and Jordan Eberle—each one day removed from the respective births of their sons—played key roles in the win. 

Here are our Three Takeaways from Saturday’s Kraken win over the Penguins.

Takeaway #1: Dad strength 

We knew both Jones’s and Eberle’s wives—Alex and Lauren—were very close to giving birth, and we wondered how the timing would work out. Not only were both players able to be present for the births of their new babies, but both were back in the lineup Saturday and played huge roles in the victory. 

After Seattle fell behind 1-0 at the midway point of the game, Eberle got the Kraken on the board with a goal that actually counted (more on that in Takeaway #2). He got the play started with a good, hard play on the forecheck to pitchfork the puck around to Jaden Schwartz behind the net. Schwartz moved it out front to Matty Beniers, who made an elite pass across the goalmouth to set Eberle up for an easy tap-in goal. 

Eberle joked after the game that Schwartz was going to be his new son’s godfather, but with that pass from Beniers, he may have to reconsider. It was Eberle’s first goal of the season, and in the game narrative, it was pivotal. 

Jones, meanwhile, was outstanding all game. After giving up four goals on 18 shots Thursday in a 5-4 loss to the Canucks, the Seattle netminder turned away 32 of 33 Penguins offerings Saturday. 

“Very special day [Friday], obviously,” Jones said. “And to come out and get a great win today was— yeah, very special.” 

His best save of the night came early in the third period with the Kraken on the penalty kill and grasping a tenuous 2-1 lead. Evgeni Malkin found his long-time mate, Sidney Crosby, at the backdoor for what looked like a sure goal. Jones read the play and got across with his left pad to rob one of the best players ever. 

“I can’t really control what comes at me there,” Jones said. “I just got to be ready for what does. I was able to come up with a big save early [in the third], and the boys did a great job the rest of the way.”

“He was unbelievable,” Eberle said of Jones. “That was for sure his best game of the year. He made some unbelievable saves, especially late when they were pushing.” 

We do not think it was a coincidence that Jones appeared to have a hard time tracking the puck Thursday, a day before the birth of his first child, and was razor sharp Saturday, a day after. 

“It’s been a lot, to be honest,” Jones said. “It’s been a roller coaster. Just tried to wrap my head around playing hockey today, and sometimes when you’re not thinking too much, you know— things work out for you, so that might have been the case today.”

This is the second child for Eberle and his wife. His first was born in the throes of the pandemic, when the NHL was on pause. So, he said it was extra special to be able to score a goal the day after his son came into the world. 

“When you have kids it puts things into perspective,” Eberle said. “A lot of times you’re known as a hockey player and your highs and lows go by what happens in the rink, but as soon as you have kids, it changes… You’re able to come home to a smile no matter how good or bad the game went.”

The post-game smiles were extra big on Saturday.

Takeaway #2: Kraken overcome two negated goals 

After the Kraken had put the puck in the Penguins net three times, they still only had one goal on the board. It looked like Seattle had taken a 1-0 lead at 8:09 of the second period, when Eberle—on a two-on-one with Ryan Donato—made a great play to slide the puck behind Casey DeSmith and onto Donato’s stick at the doorstep.

Donato, returning to the lineup after a couple games as a healthy scratch, appeared to score an easy goal. But Penguins coach Mike Sullivan challenged for offside and won, bringing the game back to scoreless. 

Jake Guentzel scored Pittsburgh’s lone goal of the night soon after the negated Donato goal. Seattle responded quickly with an Andre Burakovsky goal, but that one was also negated, thanks to another successful challenge by Sullivan. This one was waived off because replay showed that Alex Wennberg had used a high stick to intercept a Pittsburgh clearing attempt just before the goal. 

To Seattle’s credit, it didn’t let the negated goals derail its hopes. Instead, it took all of 10 seconds for the Kraken to finally get one that would count, as Eberle tied the game at 11:20 of the second. 

“Getting that third one that finally stuck got the crowd going a lot,” Jones said. “We definitely got some momentum off that one for sure.”

“We just went and played the next shift every— whatever the situation,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “There’s gonna be momentum swings, and tonight, some crazy things happening, you know back and forth in the hockey game, especially with the disallowed goals. But that’s part of the game.”

Takeaway #3 – Fourth line comes through again 

Seattle’s fourth line of Morgan Geekie, Brandon Tanev, and Daniel Sprong starred in Seattle’s 5-1 win over Buffalo on Tuesday. With a slightly different look to the bottom trio Saturday, Donato, Geekie, and Sprong played together and again contributed in a big way. 

After Vince Dunn (who, by the way, also had his best game of the season) picked off a pass at Seattle’s blue line, he sent Sprong and Geekie the other way on a two-on-one rush. DeSmith stopped Sprong’s shot with his toe, but Geekie drove hard to the net to put away the eventual game-winning goal. 

The role played by the fourth line would have been even bigger had Donato’s goal counted. 

Having four forward lines that can contribute offensively is a huge boost and will be key to Seattle’s success if it is to remain competitive throughout the season. 

Three Takeaways – Kraken lose 5-4 to Vancouver, giving Canucks their first win

by Darren Brown | Oct 28, 2022 | Three takeaways

A wise admiral once said, “It’s a trap!” That’s exactly what Thursday’s home Kraken game was against the previously winless Canucks. Vancouver came in determined to do everything in its power to finally put something in the ‘W’ column in the standings. Not only that, Seattle went 0-4-0 against that team in its inaugural season, so we knew coming in that a loss—even against a seemingly hapless opponent—was a real possibility. 

A good example of Vancouver being willing to do whatever it took to get a win Thursday, JT Miller laid down in front of an Andre Burakovsky shot with two seconds left on the clock in the third period. The shot hit Miller in the ankle, and he couldn’t put any weight on it as the horn sounded. His teammates mobbed Miller to congratulate him for the unselfish play before realizing he was injured and giving him space. That’s who the Kraken were up against. 

To Seattle’s credit, it was the better team for most of the night but was done in by two bad bounces and a tough game on special teams. 

Here are our Three Takeaways from a disappointing 5-4 Kraken loss to the Canucks. 

Takeaway #1: Two bad bounces…

Aside from multiple fights—which we’ll get to shortly—the opening period was eventful in general. Vancouver got its first of two fortunate bounces after a nothing shot from the corner hit the blocker of Martin Jones, then Justin Schultz, and landed right on the stick of Ilya Mikheyev. Mikheyev made it 1-0 at 4:38. 

In the third period, Luke Schenn sent a soft shot toward the net, which Carson Soucy knocked out of the air with his stick. But the puck bounced off the ice, came right up for Elias Pettersson, and Pettersson batted it past Jones to give the Canucks the lead for good. 

“Five on five— you know, you’re not going to be able to carry momentum all night, but we carried momentum for a lot of the night,” coach Dave Hakstol said.

He was right. Seattle outshot Vancouver 36-19 and had 58 percent of the expected goals for (xGF), so it certainly stings for Kraken fans to see their team leave without any points. It stings more knowing Seattle had bad puck luck, and the loss came against a close geographical rival that was reeling and winless. 

Takeaway #2: …And a tough night for special teams

Jamie Oleksiak and Jared McCann scored in quick succession at the end of the first period to give Seattle a 2-1 lead heading into the dressing room. 

But two power-play goals against in the second period helped the Canucks get through 40 minutes with a 3-3 tie and gave them a chance to steal two points.

“We were the better team for most of the night,” Hakstol said. “But they beat us on specialty teams by one, and that was ultimately the difference in the hockey game.”

Seattle had gotten through the first minute of each of the two respective kills that cost it the game. In both cases, Karson Kuhlman had chances to clear, but he couldn’t get the puck out of harm’s way.

On the first one, Kuhlman broke up a pass but lost the puck in his skates. Sheldon Dries dug it out and found Mikheyev, who slipped it through Jones for his second of the game. 

On the second power-play goal against, Kuhlman fired a clearing attempt up the wall, but Pettersson cut it off. The Kraken couldn’t recover before Miller connected with Andrei Kuzmenko for an easy tap in.

“It was a matter of finishing,” Hakstol said of the PK. “We did everything right, except we didn’t get the clears, and maybe on that second one, either a clear or a save, and that makes all the difference.” Seattle’s PK has become a problem and is now 31st in the league with just a 64.5 percent success rate.

Speaking of “a save,” it wasn’t the best night for Jones, either, who stopped just 14 of 18 shots. The goalie has to be your best penalty killer, and he wasn’t able to bail out his teammates enough times. We thought in the first period that although Jones had only given up one goal, he didn’t seem to be tracking the puck especially well. He was getting away with it at first thanks to good positioning and limited chances, but Vancouver managed to sneak a few shots past him during the course of the game. 

There are nights when goalies just don’t see and track the puck as well as they do on other nights for whatever reason, and we think Thursday was one of those for Seattle’s netminder. 

Jaden Schwartz did register a power-play goal to draw the Kraken back within one after Conor Garland had scored an empty netter, but that was too little too late. The Kraken are now on pace for 92 power-play goals this season after registering just 32 last season.

Takeaway #3: The boys came out swinging

When you’re playing a desperate team that had your number the previous season, and that team happens to play its home games just 140 miles north of your arena, it’s easy for things to get a little feisty. On Thursday, both teams literally came out swinging. 

“It’s hockey,” Hakstol said. “There was good intensity out there, and our guys were ready to go.” 

Before four minutes had elapsed, two fights had already broken out; one between Adam Larsson and Tanner Pearson after a heavy hit by Larsson, then another between Carson Soucy and Miller.

“They came out and I think wanted to send a message and fought two of our guys,” Matty Beniers said. “I thought we had a good start, but it was a physical game, and you could see it right from the get-go.” 

Morgan Geekie also ended up in a rare scrap with Kyle Burroughs after the Kraken forward threw a heavy hit behind Vancouver’s net.

—

Jordan Eberle scored his 600th and 601st career points on Thursday.

Oleksiak scored for the second game in a row, Beniers scored for the third game in a row, and McCann scored for the fourth game in a row. 

Canucks coach Bruce Boudreau recorded his 600th career victory. He very comically had to pause his post-game press conference to let out a big sneeze.

The Kraken will play again at home on Saturday against the Pittsburgh Penguins. 

Three Takeaways – Fourth line shines in 5-1 Kraken win over Sabres

by Darren Brown | Oct 26, 2022 | Three takeaways

Tuesday was a fun night at Climate Pledge Arena for a variety of reasons. The Kraken looked good from top to bottom, but the fourth line of Daniel Sprong, Morgan Geekie, and Brandon Tanev was especially impressive. The power play also clicked twice, and Martin Jones was solid in net, turning away 15 of 16 shots to help lead Seattle to a 5-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres. 

Also in this game, we had Sprong ripping Casey Fitzgerald’s stick out of his hands and throwing it across the Buffalo zone, Rasmus Dahlin catching the puck in his glove and throwing it halfway down the ice, and Kraken video coach Tim Ohashi successfully initiating an offside challenge. Like we said, it was a fun night.

Here are our Three Takeaways. 

Takeaway #1: Have the Kraken found a fourth line? 

The “Shane Wright needs more ice time” crowd won’t love this take, but that’s the best a fourth line has looked for the Kraken… maybe ever. The combination of Tanev, Geekie, and Sprong was dangerous practically every time it was on the ice and was involved in three of Seattle’s five goals. 

Sprong set up Jamie Oleksiak’s first goal of the season to get Seattle on the board early. A few minutes later, Tanev spotted Geekie streaking into the offensive zone and lofted a perfect high pass up and over Owen Power. The lob landed right on Geekie’s tape, and he raced in and extended Seattle’s lead to 2-0 with a beauty of a goal just 5:39 into the game. 

“I called for it,” Geekie said. “[Tanev] yells at me all the time, so I figured I could yell at him back, and he heard me tonight.” 

The line struck again in the second period when Tanev deflected a Vinnie Hinostroza clearing attempt, and the puck caromed right onto the stick of Sprong. With the Sabres expecting to get out of their zone, Sprong found himself in behind their defense with nobody around to even challenge him. He had all night to dangle and deke Eric Comrie out of his pads, and the Dutch forward made no mistake. 

“Just a good bounce, hit Turbo’s skate, came right to me,” Sprong said. “And then, alone on the goalie, you make a fake, he slides, and you have a wide-open net. You’ll take those any day.” 

Geekie and Sprong joined Oleksiak in scoring their first respective goals of the season. Geekie also set up a goal in the game against Chicago Sunday and nearly added a second goal late in the game Tuesday off a nifty pass from Sprong. Meanwhile, Sprong finished with a goal and two assists and first-star honors, and Tanev had two assists and was named the second star of the game. 

Throughout the night, there was great chemistry from the fourth line. “We played in Edmonton that last pre-season game together, and we had some good looks,” Sprong said. “We can all skate, we’re big boys, and I thought our line really complemented each other tonight.” 

“In that role, you’ve got to do a good job in a 200-foot sense, but for that group, they were able to contribute tonight offensively,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “That’s important for our group to have that depth in scoring.”

Hakstol doesn’t typically shuffle the lineup much after a good win, so we would not be surprised to see a similar look with this fourth line intact Thursday. “Our team needs to have depth,” he said. “That needs to be a strength of ours, and tonight that was a real positive for us.”

Takeaway #2: The power play is different this season

Though Seattle’s power play came up empty against Chicago on Saturday, it connected two more times against the Sabres to rise back up to a 29 percent conversion rate, good for seventh in the NHL. 

“The power play’s been good all year,” Hakstol said. “We went out, and we generated and did a pretty good job.” 

Hakstol pointed to the timeliness of Jared McCann’s goal at 16:07 of the second period. The goal gave Seattle back its three-goal lead after Dylan Cozens had gotten Buffalo back within two. The McCann marker all but sealed the game, even before the third period started. 

The arrivals of Andre Burakovsky, Oliver Bjorkstrand, and Matty Beniers (for the full season) have been hugely helpful to the team’s chances with the man advantage. As a group, they look way more creative and way more dynamic than they ever did in their inaugural season. Last year, you almost never saw Kraken players connecting on passes through the seam, instead typically sticking mostly to the perimeter. 

McCann’s goal came off a perfect seam pass from Burakovsky. With time to tee it up, McCann showed off his outstanding shot again, rifling it past Comrie for his fourth of the season. 

Burakovsky has been especially noticeable in helping to move the needle on the power play. “Burky in that spot [on the right half wall] has been really good,” Hakstol said. “He’s got a couple different elements. He’s good on entry, which is a huge part of a successful power play. But he’s becoming a bit of a dual threat over there because he can shoot it from that spot on that flank, and he’s also showing that he can find seams and make plays through the box.”

The power play got on the board again in the third period after some quick movement around the left side. Sprong passed to Justin Schultz, who then went down low to Beniers on the right. Beniers got a good bounce off Lawrence Pilut for Seattle’s second power-play tally of the night and Matty’s third goal of the season. 

Takeaway #3: Are these the Kraken we’re looking for? 

Tuesday’s resounding win, in an odd way, is another example of why this team has been so perplexing in the early stages of this season. One could argue the Kraken have been the better team in all but two games, yet they have still only won three times. 

In Tuesday’s victory against the Sabres, Seattle seemed to have learned from the mistakes it made against the Blackhawks on Sunday. “I think it’s just about falling into a lull,” Geekie said about why it has been tough for the Kraken to hold onto leads. “You start cheating a little bit, get away from your game. I think tonight, maybe a couple shifts we had that, but it was maybe one shift here and one shift there, and then we got back on track.” 

It feels like the Kraken are on the cusp of going on a nice run. They’re now 2-1-1 in their last four, and they absolutely should have won against Chicago but frittered that one away with costly mistakes.

When they’ve avoided allowing mistakes to compound on one another, they have won. Can they continue to limit those mistakes for the remainder of this homestand? Or will costly turnovers and defensive lapses return in the next couple games? Which team is the real Seattle Kraken? 

Bonus Takeaway: More talk about Shane Wright’s usage

Hakstol was asked again about Wright’s usage, as the 18-year-old rookie played under six minutes Sunday and was a healthy scratch Tuesday. 

Here’s what Hakstol said: “[Wright] played a good game in Colorado. We got him a few more minutes there, he did a good job. The game in Chicago didn’t go the way we wanted it to, but that’s not indicative of one individual player, and certainly not just Shane. We had a real good work day with Shane [Tuesday]; we’ve got a good plan moving forward.” 

We did see Wright doing extra skills work with Kraken staff long after morning skate ended Tuesday, so that checks out. 

“You know, it’s all about making small progress,” Hakstol added. “There’s no big, huge leaps and bounds that we’re looking for. We’re looking for great work and slow progress and continued progress, and that’s the biggest thing for us.”

If the fourth line of Geekie, Sprong, and Tanev keeps playing together and keeps performing the way it did Tuesday, it may be a couple games before we see Wright back in.