The Kraken kept it rolling Tuesday with a convincing 5-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres that caused Rasmus Dahlin to smash his stick over the net in anger (it’s not the first time he’s shown frustration against the Kraken) and the home fans to boo their team off the ice.
In this game, we saw what a (mostly) healthy (except for Pierre-Edouard Bellemare) Kraken forward corps can do, as all four lines looked dangerous at different stages of the game.
Jaden Schwartz returned to the lineup with a goal and an assist, Will Borgen and Eeli Tolvanen had two assists each, and Joey Daccord had 34 saves in an outing he made look easy.
It was Seattle’s seventh straight win and 11th in a row with standings points (9-0-2). Here are our Three Takeaways from a 5-2 Kraken win over the Sabres.
Takeaway #1: Jaden Schwartz is so back
Losing Jaden Schwartz to an upper-body injury on Nov. 28 was a real stinger for the Kraken, and it contributed to the team’s decent into the eight-game winless abyss that ran from Nov. 24 through Dec. 10. Schwartz had been arguably Seattle’s best player in the early stages of the season, so losing him with a long-term affliction was damaging to this club.
With Schwartz out, Joey Daccord eventually put the struggling team on his back (I’m making sure to throw that in for the comment-section naysayers that have recently accused me of not being pro-Daccord enough, which is patently ridiculous [wink emoji]), and the Kraken turned the season around.
Now, Seattle has been rolling, and the group got another boost Tuesday with Schwartz’s return to the lineup. After coach Dave Hakstol has eased the oft-injured Andre Burakovsky back into the lineup the last couple weeks on the fourth line, he threw Schwartz right onto the second line Tuesday with Alex Wennberg and Brandon Tanev.
The result was VERY positive, as Tanev and Schwartz each assisted on Wennberg’s goal that made it 3-2 at 2:08 of the second period, and then Schwartz followed that up with a goal of his own by getting a second tip on Will Borgen’s point shot at 11:34 of the second.
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE SCHWARTZ! 🚨
Both Brandon Tanev and Jaden Schwartz looked like they got touches on a Will Borgen point shot, and it's 4-2 #SeaKraken.
“I’ve played lots of games with [Schwartz], and it feels like we were reading off each other pretty well,” Wennberg said. “And I mean, it’s just fun to see him coming back, and it’s like he hasn’t missed a step.”
Takeaway #2: Deeper than ever
NOW perhaps folks see why I was calling for the Kraken to acquire another impact forward during the offseason. My thinking was always that one more skilled winger could create a trickle-down effect that would make the team even deeper than it was last season by pushing one or two of their top-nine guys down.
Ever since his acquisition, Tomas Tatar has looked at home on the top line with Matty Beniers and Jordan Eberle, and as a result, now Jared McCann and Burakovsky have been pushed to the fourth line.
McCann told me on Saturday, “It’s probably one of the better fourth lines in the National Hockey League.” It’s hard to argue with that logic, and although that line was the only one that didn’t score Tuesday, Tye Kartye got robbed by Devon Levi halfway through the first period, and Burakovsky helped set up Vince Dunn’s power-play goal late in the opening frame with a perfect seam pass.
Do you want the good news or the better news?
The good news is Vince Dunn is back after a painful shot block sent him down the tunnel earlier.
The better news is he just scored a power-play goal after nice movement and a fine seam pass by Andre Burakovsky.
Meanwhile, each of the other three lines contributed at least a goal apiece, with the Schwartz / Wennberg / Tanev line coming through twice.
“That line was credited on the scoresheet for a couple of goals,” Hakstol said. “But really, I give them a lot of credit for the Beniers goal as well. They had a hell of a shift in the offensive zone, they changed one at a time out of the offensive zone, and set the table for the next line up.”
That’s the beauty of having four lines that can contribute. As long as this group stays healthy [knocks on wood], Seattle fans should—at least on paper—get used to seeing a different trio of forwards step up nightly.
By the way, we were curious to see how Hakstol would manage the minutes of the forwards, and every player on the team got at least 13 minutes, except Kartye, who had 12:51.
Takeaway #3: Kraken (and Joey) stay hot
Seattle didn’t get out to a great start to this game, and we heard multiple players during the broadcast say some variation of being surprised by Buffalo’s start and/or the early goal against by Jeff Skinner waking them up. But in the end, the Kraken overwhelmed the Sabres with three second-period goals, five unique goal scorers, 11 different players on the scoresheet, and more outstanding goaltending by Daccord.
With his 36 saves and .947 save percentage on the night, Daccord has at least a .920 save percentage in 10 of his last 11 games, with the one game below that .920 mark coming in the 4-3 overtime loss the Dallas Stars on Dec. 18.
It’s almost becoming automatic that Daccord stops breakaway opportunities. Off the top of my head, I remember at least three 1-on-0 chances that Joey stopped on this night, and I’m sure I’m forgetting a couple.
The win gets Seattle off on the right foot to start this long, six-game trip. The vibes, as they say, are high.
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
It wasn’t always easy or perfect, but Joey Daccord was awesome yet again, and the Seattle Kraken got a 4-1 win over the Ottawa Senators, their sixth straight win and 10th game in a row with points (8-0-2).
It was another round of Seattle getting the saves it needed and snagging a few opportunistic goals to earn a victory, and—believe it or not—this one got the Kraken (at least temporarily) back into a playoff spot. It’s bonkers to think about where this team was just a few short weeks ago, and now here Seattle is, with a positive 16-14-9 record and a position in the postseason.
“We’re playing great,” Daccord said. “We’re sticking to our game plan, we’re executing it well, and it’s nice to see the results go our way.”
Here are our Three Takeaways from a 4-1 Kraken win over the Ottawa Senators.
Takeaway #1: Joey Daccord is on another planet
A lot has been written about Joey Daccord of late, but it’s hard not to focus on him when he continues to make save after save that we don’t expect him to make.
He had another right-to-left stuff job on Tim Stutzle Thursday, which mimicked the save he made on Jack Eichel to preserve his shutout late in the Winter Classic.
Daccord also set a franchise-record shutout streak of 158:35 (we had the time wrong in our tweet below), spanning from Travis Konecny’s first-period goal in the Flyers game on Dec. 29 until Parker Kelly just barely squeezed a tipped point shot through Daccord’s wickets on Thursday.
D'oh! Daccord's shutout streak is over.
Parker Kelly gets a tip, and it JUST sneaks over the line. Dunn was trying SO HARD to save that for his goalie.
“It would have been nicer if I got another shutout,” Daccord quipped. “No, the win’s great, and I’m happy to just keep this train rolling.”
You could tell Vince Dunn desperately wanted to keep that one out of the net for his goalie, but he just came up a hair short of reaching it before it limped over the line.
Daccord is brimming with confidence right now, so much so that he pulled off something we’ve never seen a goalie do before in a game. After Adam Larsson and Jared McCann took back-to-back penalties in the first period, Seattle had nearly four minutes of penalty kill time, including 17 seconds of 5-on-3 time.
Not only did Joey make a couple outstanding reads and saves on the extended stretch of PK, he cleared a puck himself by sending a high… BACKHAND… flip the entire length of the ice.
Is Joey Daccord just the coolest?
Watch this backhand high flip the length of the ice! Don't think we've ever seen that from a goalie before. Unreal.
Do you know how hard it is to even lift the puck off the ice on your backhand when you’re wearing a goalie catch glove? It’s quite difficult, given the lack of dexterity that comes with the bulky trapper, so seeing him send it as far as he did in the air was mind-blowing.
“As I was making that play, I was like, ‘I really hope this gets out, because if not, I’m going to be in trouble,’” Daccord said. “I’ve worked on my stick handling and puck skills a lot over the years, and backhand is definitely way harder than forehand, so happy I got enough wood on it to get it out.”
Added coach Dave Hakstol, “That was a heck of a play. There are certain plays that have some risk to them. That’s just great skill and the right play at the right time. That was a big clear at that time.”
We are hereby predicting Joey Daccord will become the first goalie in history to score a backhand goalie goal at some point (we don’t know for sure that it hasn’t happened before, but it seems highly unlikely, because… again… catch gloves make stick handling hard).
Takeaway #2: Burky gets one
It’s been a hard road for Andre Burakovsky since he tore his groin in a Feb. 7 loss to the New York Islanders last season. That injury ultimately ended his season and cost him the entire Stanley Cup Playoffs.
He had surgery and rehabbed in the offseason, returned in time for the start of the new season, and lasted just six games before getting thrown shoulder-first into the end boards by Jacob Trouba and missing a month and a half. He returned for (almost) one game on Dec. 7, when Kevin Bahl hit him into the same boards and put him back on the shelf for most of December.
Burakovsky returned Dec. 29 against the Flyers and has been spending time on the fourth line with Kailer Yamamoto and Tye Kartye. The winger scored his first goal of the season Thursday, at 19:03 of the second period, and it was an important goal that effectively put the game out of reach for Ottawa.
Tim Stutzle fell down and lost the puck in the offensive zone, handing it over to Yamamoto and creating a 2-on-1 the other way. Yamamoto made a nice pass, and Burakovsky showed his finishing ability to make it 3-0.
Stutzle blows a tire, and that sends Yamamoto and Burakovsky off to the races.
Great dish by Yamamoto, great finish by Burakovsky for his FIRST GOAL OF THE SEASON!!!
“It feels good to have some luck on your side,” Burakovsky said. “I mean, I’ve been having a lot of bad breaks for me this year and last year, so it was good to see it go in, for sure.”
Added Hakstol, “You go back over the last 12 months, it’s been a long road. There’s been a lot of challenges for him there, but he’s been able to handle it, and great to have him back in the lineup, and again, to see him have some success tonight.”
Good for Burky. Now, it’s time for Jaden Schwartz to get back in, and suddenly, this Kraken roster is going to look quite deep again.
Takeaway #3: A playoff spot?!
A hockey season can be a wild ride. Fans that stuck with the Kraken through the first half of this season—and especially the eight-game losing streak—are getting rewarded now and can enjoy a brief moment of basking in the playoff picture before Seattle almost surely falls back out of its current wild card spot while idle over the weekend.
Still, a lot of fans and media (ourselves included) were starting to abandon hope during that losing streak, so to see this team pull itself together in such a swift way has been stunning to watch.
The Kraken will take Friday off, practice Saturday, and then head out on a two-week odyssey through Buffalo, Washington, Columbus, Pittsburgh, New York Rangers, and Edmonton (that last top is a weird one, geographically).
Let’s see if they can keep this thing moving.
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
If you told us on the morning of Dec. 12 that the Seattle Kraken would close the calendar year and roll into the Winter Classic on an eight-game point streak, a four-game win streak, and with a .500 record, we flat out would not have believed you. Things swung from the “lowest of lows” to the “highest of highs” seemingly overnight for this team, though, and with their 2-1 overtime win against the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday, the Kraken moved back to within two points of a playoff spot.
“I think we’re just sticking with it,” said overtime hero Justin Schultz. “And guys are working hard, and we know it’s there, it just wasn’t coming for us. We believe in this group. We have almost the same group as last year so we know we can do it, and like I said, we’re heading in the right direction now. We’ve just got to keep her going.”
Joey Daccord was outstanding yet again, making 27 saves on 28 shots, including this early robbery on Sean Couturier to set the tone for another low-scoring game.
Here are our Three Takeaways from a huge 2-1 Kraken overtime win against the Flyers.
Takeaway #1 (Darren): Good feelings for Justin Schultz
It’s been a rocky stretch for Schultz, a veteran of 13 seasons and 704 career games in the NHL. Since Ryker Evans was recalled from AHL Coachella Valley on Dec. 6, it has been Schultz getting scratched from the lineup most frequently, including the two games prior to Friday’s contest.
Against the Flyers, the defenseman got some vindication and made future decisions to scratch him tougher on the coaching staff. His game-winning goal came at 2:35 of overtime, as he got himself into the right spot on the doorstep next to Carter Hart. Oliver Bjorkstrand, playing his 500th career game, sent a high-to-low pass that Schultz simply redirected through the wickets on Hart.
“I just tried to come and help the team as best as I can,” Schultz said. “And we’ve got a great group here. It’s been doing a great job the last couple of weeks. So, it feels good to have two points tonight.”
You could tell there were a lot of good feelings in the dressing room for Schultz, who Dave Hakstol praised as a consummate pro. The coach spoke at length about the tough decision to take the veteran out of the lineup and what he has meant to the club.
“The decisions that are made are always what we feel is best for the team,” Hakstol said. “We’re pushing for success right now, but we’re also looking towards the future and future development, and those two things have to go hand in hand. Ryker’s here because he’s earned the opportunity to be here.
“You know, Schultz, he’s a guy that’s played in this league for a long time. And all you have to do is look at his performance tonight to know how good of a pro he is and how great of a teammate he is. I mean, when we talk about wanting to have team-first guys, selfless guys in this room… I’m sure it was very difficult for him, personally, to come out of the lineup. That hasn’t been the case many times for him in his career, yet, the way he handled that really pushes the group inside of this dressing room, the right direction.”
Takeaway #2 (John): Another low-scoring affair
The Kraken have averaged just 2.33 goals per game over their last six, boasting a record of 4-0-2 in this stretch. While the lack of scoring might typically raise concerns, it’s worth noting that they faced two of the most defensively sound teams in the league during this span. Winning games without consistently scoring four or more goals is crucial for long-term success in any season.
“We’ve been in some low-scoring games,” Daccord said. “I think we’re confident in our structure, and we have a blueprint for how we need to win games. And I think when we stick to that, and we have a full group committed to the team and in the structure that we’ve set up in our game plan, good things happen.”
Although goals are the ultimate measure of offensive performance, they occur relatively infrequently during a game and may not provide a comprehensive picture of the team’s overall capabilities. Against Flyers, the Kraken had an impressive 57 shot attempts, marking their sixth-highest shot attempt total of the season and the most since their 7-1 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks on Dec. 14.
While there’s a legitimate cause for concern regarding recent scoring struggles, the team continues to generate a significant number of shot attempts. It’s when these shot attempts become scarce that genuine apprehension should set in.
Takeaway #3 (John): Burky’s back
Andre Burakovsky returned to the lineup after another three-week stint on injured reserve. When healthy, Burakovsky is one player you can expect to chip in some goals. We discussed his imminent return on the latest Sound Of Hockey Podcast, since his place in the lineup was not abundantly obvious.
Last night did not clear up where Burakovsky fits into the forward corps now that the team has been winning. He spent the first half of the game with Kailer Yamamoto and Tye Kartye on the fourth line, but the rest of the game, he bounced all over the lineup. By the end of game, he had roughly five minutes with Yamamoto and Kartye, another five with Alex Wennberg and Brandon Tanev, and the rest of his 14-plus minutes of ice time were spread across Jordan Eberle, Matty Beniers, Yanni Gourde, Oliver Bjorkstrand, and Eeli Tolvanen.
Hakstol seemed fine with Burakovsky’s efforts. “You know there’s gonna be a little bit of rust… He had the one shift in the first period where he generated a great offensive opportunity, and then the puck came off his tape for a breakaway against. But in all honesty, that’s probably the one mistake he made with the puck.”
Quite the sequence here… Yamamoto just misses a beautiful goal, but then Burakovsky turns it over to Farabee, and Joey Daccord makes another great save on the breakaway. pic.twitter.com/j3coLSOb3Q
Where Burakovsky lands in the lineup longer term is still to be determined, but it is great to see him back. Aside from that blunder at the blue line, he did have some excellent offensive plays and a positive night.
Other odds and ends
Prior to last Friday’s game, the Kraken were 0-6-4 in their last 10 games when the opposing team scores first. The Flyers scored first, but Seattle still won.
The last six games have been decided by one goal.
That was just the Kraken’s fourth win out of 13 games that required overtime this season and the first overtime win since their Tampa Bay game on Oct. 30.
It was the first game the Kraken have won this season when they trailed in the third period.
Friday was Oliver Bjorkstrand’s 500th career NHL game. He is sixth all time in NHL games played by a Danish national. He assisted on both of the Kraken’s goals.
What a night for Chris Driedger, who triumphantly returned to NHL action for the first time since May 1, 2022, and backstopped the Kraken to a 2-1 win over the Calgary Flames.
Seattle took a familiar route to victory in this one, getting heavily outshot but cashing in on a strong goaltending performance and a couple quick offensive strikes at key moments in the game.
“We were far from perfect tonight, but our effort was really good,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “We had some good individual performances, and that adds up to two very valuable points.”
Those two points were Seattle’s 11th and 12th in its last seven games (5-0-2). Here are our Three Takeaways from a 2-1 Kraken win over the Flames.
Takeaway #1: Chris Driedger night
If you were surprised to see Chris Driedger get the nod from Hakstol Wednesday, you were not alone. Joey Daccord has been on fire, and although he had started the previous seven games in a row, Seattle was coming off a three-day holiday break. So we too assumed it would be Daccord between the pipes once again.
But it was an unusual road game day, in which the team traveled to Calgary the morning of the game instead of its typical night before. Hakstol felt that with the odd day, it was as good a time as any to get Driedger into a game, so he pulled a Kansas City Shuffle. In went Driedger for the first time since tearing his ACL at the IIHF World Championship after Seattle’s inaugural season.
“Today’s not an easy day,” Hakstol said. “It’s not a perfect day by any stretch of the imagination. To wake up, jump on a plane, fly to a different time zone, a lot of different things involved. Bottom line is Driedgs was the guy to go today, and he was ready for the opportunity. He played extremely well.”
Driedger had been good in Coachella Valley this season before getting recalled on Dec. 10, but you never know how a goaltender is going to perform in these scenarios, especially after he had been watching Daccord from the bench for two-plus weeks.
The 29-year-old former Calgary Hitmen netminder did not disappoint in his return to his old junior barn and stopped 37 of 38 offerings by the Flames to earn a storybook win.
“It’s definitely some of the most adversity I’ve ever faced in my career,” Driedger said of his journey back to an NHL crease. “It’s been a long road, a lot of hours spent with the medical staff, putting in hours while the guys are skating and just kind of doing my own thing and watching from the stands. So to come out and finally get back in, it was pretty emotional.”
The Kraken skaters didn’t do a great job of easing him back in, either, allowing plenty of volume (a hallmark of every Flames/Kraken game, since Calgary is a high-volume team), but also significant quality. Driedger dazzled with 2.69 goals saved above expected and a .974 save percentage on the night.
“He did amazing,” Alex Wennberg said. “It’s been a while, but you can just tell how good of a goalie he is. I mean it takes a lot to actually come in—you play games down there [in the AHL]—but it’s a different game up here. And just making those big saves, I mean, he’s obviously winning that game for us.”
Here was Driedger’s best save of the night, a sprawling right-pad robbery on Elias Lindholm at the end of the second period.
This game had a similar feel to Seattle’s Dec. 20 win over the Los Angeles Kings, when the Kraken relied heavily on Daccord and used just enough opportunistic offense to get through to a 2-1 win.
On this night, the team got its goals on two elite plays, and those two plays proved to be enough in the end.
The first was Vince Dunn’s stretch pass to spring Kailer Yamamoto for an early icebreaker at 2:24 of the first period. Dunn was falling to his left in the corner of Seattle’s zone, yet somehow—in one fluid motion—found Yamamoto and whipped the puck 100 feet to hit the winger in stride.
YAMA-GOAL-O! 🚨
The #SeaKraken strike early. It starts with a Vince Dunn outlet pass from deep in Seattle's end, and Kailer Yamamoto gets the finish.
Wennberg always takes flak from Kraken fans for not shooting enough (John Barr will have none of that!), but he chooses his spots wisely. In this scenario, the pass to Brandon Tanev at the backdoor was cut off, so after receiving the pass from McCann, he quickly snapped it into the smallest of openings in the top corner over Jakob Markstrom.
“It’s a great sauce pass, and I feel like Turbo was open on the back side,” Wennberg said. “[So maybe] the goalie was cheating a little bit on it, and I mean I didn’t really see where it went, but it was a good result for sure.”
That goal came at a big moment, too, six minutes into the third period.
Takeaway #3: Kraken officially rolling
For the first time this season, Seattle has won three games in a row, and now, since snapping an eight-game skid, has racked up points in seven straight. If they can manage another win Friday against Philadelphia, the Kraken will hit the .500 mark in the standings, which would also be a first for the current campaign.
“There’s got to be urgency, we’ve got to fight for each other, and that’s what we’re doing right now,” Wennberg said. “Tonight it’s not really a pretty win, but I mean we’re working hard, and we just try to find a way to win.”
With the latest victory, the Kraken jumped over the Flames and are up to fourth place in the Pacific Division. They are three points out of a playoff spot but still have plenty of work to do to get back into that bubble and have to leapfrog over three teams.
Even so, considering how dire things felt a few weeks ago, this team is finding ways to win even on nights when it perhaps should not. That goes a long way for a group’s confidence, which should be reaching higher levels with every passing victory.
Bonus Takeaway (John) – Scoring first
We had a little miscommunication on this edition of Three Takeaways, which resulted in John throwing together an extra one. You’re welcome.
The Kraken have scored first in six out of the seven games on the current point streak. Conventional wisdom suggests that a team scoring first has a better chance of winning the game compared to the trailing team. League-wide, statistics support this notion. Of the 541 games played this season, the team that scored first won the game 66.7 percent of the time. However, for the Kraken, this has not been the case for most of 2023-24 so far.
The Kraken scored first in 11 out of their first 20 games but managed to win just three of them. It is challenging to pinpoint what has changed, but they have recently bucked that strange trend of scoring first and then losing.
Playing with the lead enables teams to dictate pace and gameplay. It also provides the players, including the goalies, with the confidence to play more freely rather than worrying about making mistakes. This game against Calgary is how it’s normally supposed to go when Seattle scores first, so it was good to see the boys get rewarded with another win.
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
The Kraken gave their fans a nice Christmas present by taking five out of a possible six points on their road trip and heading into a three-day holiday break on a high note. The latest win was far from perfect, and the Ducks had the better of the play for a lot of the game, but the Kraken got more outstanding goaltending and more opportunistic scoring and skated away with a 3-2 win.
Now, since its eight-game losing streak was snapped on Dec. 12, Seattle has grabbed standings points in six straight games (4-0-2) and is inching closer and closer to getting on the right side of .500 for the first time this season.
“We’re playing very consistent, so this doesn’t change how we feel about where we’re at,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “Our guys are playing hard regardless of what our lineup may or may not look like. Whoever is available is going out, doing the job, working hard together. We’ve put a good string together here.”
Here are our Three Takeaways from a 3-2 Kraken win over the Ducks.
Takeaway #1: More solid play from Joey Daccord
It is no coincidence the Kraken heated up at the same time goaltender Joey Daccord caught fire. In nine games in December, Daccord has a .936 save percentage and a 1.90 goals-against average, and in his seven consecutive starts, he has posted a .920 or better in every game but one (the overtime loss in Dallas, where he had a .857 save percentage).
The win Saturday in Anaheim was more of the same from Joey, although in this one—unlike in the previous game against Los Angeles—Seattle’s defenders didn’t do a great job at keeping shots to the perimeter. In fact, in this one, the Kraken conceded 65.62 percent of the expected goals to Anaheim, their worst shot quality share in a win all season and their second worst in any game (win or loss).
The eyeball test and shot quantities didn’t give us the feeling that Joey “stole” the game (Daccord stopped 32 of 34 shots compared to Lukas Dostal’s 19 for 22), but those analytics tell us Anaheim deserved better, if not for the Kraken goaltender.
Daccord had several 10-bell saves on breakaways and odd-man rushes, including these two on Mason McTavish.
Eventually, Daccord will need a break, but for now, the games have been nicely spaced to allow Hakstol to continue rolling with the hot hand. Let’s hope Daccord can keep this stretch of outstanding play going for a while, because if he does, he just may help get the Kraken back into playoff contention.
Takeaway #2: That top line is cooking
Not to toot my own horn (toot toot), but I did call for a trade just like the one Seattle made for Tomas Tatar, and early returns have been very positive. So far, the man they hilariously call “Tuna” has fit in perfectly on the top line with Matty Beniers and Jordan Eberle, who both were struggling tremendously before the veteran’s arrival from Colorado.
It’s easy to make comparisons to the impact Eeli Tolvanen had when he got claimed off waivers around this same time last season. Vince Dunn jumped right to those comparisons after the game Saturday.
“[Tatar’s] been great,” Dunn said. “I think you can probably relate it to the Tolvanen pickup; kind of a sneaky pickup that no one really sees coming, and then he comes in here and makes a statement just like Tolvy did. So, he’s been great for us. The chemistry he’s found with Ebs and Matty is terrific.”
To Hakstol’s credit, he hasn’t been afraid to throw the veteran right into the fire on Seattle’s top forward trio, and the decision has brought life to that line.
“Tuna comes in in a little different situation [than Tolvanen],” Hakstol said. “But equally, he was really excited and hungry to come in, and for a veteran player with that type of presence and the type of ability that he has, he immediately has found some chemistry now with Matty and with Ebs. And that’s a real positive when you see that happen on the front end of a guy coming into the lineup.”
The chemistry was again on full display Saturday, as the line contributed to two of Seattle’s three goals. When Vince Dunn scored his easy tap-in goal at 16:24 of the first period, it came off crisp passing from the forward line all the way up the ice.
Beniers stole the puck in the defensive end, passed to Eberle at the half wall, and he hit Tatar in stride in the neutral zone. Then Tatar made a quick little dish to Beniers, who was coming into the offensive zone with speed, and Matty made an elite pass to Dunn.
VINCE Winter DUNNderland! ❄️ 🚨
Two more huge saves by Daccord, then after the face-off, the #SeaKraken march down the ice. Sick sauce by Matty to Vince, who has an open net.
Tatar is taking full advantage of the newfound opportunity, after seeing his ice time sink to under 12 minutes per night with the Avalanche.
“It feels great to have that opportunity,” Tatar said. “Hockey feels right again, you know? I’m very grateful for the guys, how I came here to Seattle, it wasn’t easy to do. It was pretty fast, everything happening in a split of 48 hours. But it looks like me, Matty, and Ebs are building some chemistry, and I’m having a lot of fun.”
Takeaway #3: A big night for Vince Dunn
Dunn, by the way, assisted on both Oliver Bjorkstrand’s power-play goal and Tatar’s dazzling, dangling backhander that proved to be the game-winning goal.
Look how Dunn drops the puck to Tatar, then pretends to continue stickhandling and driving to the net, creating some subtle interference on Brett Leason.
IT'S THE FEAST OF SEVEN FISHES SO BRING PLENTY OF TATAR SAUCE! 🚨
What patience and what a goal for Tomas Tatar, his second as a #SeaKraken.
Dunn’s drive created the lane for Tatar to loop through the slot, and that was all he needed to sneak his second goal as a Kraken past Dostal.
The three-point night put Dunn back in front as the team’s leading scorer, one point ahead of Bjorkstrand.
“I think a lot of things went my way,” Dunn said. “And guys played really well as a group to make the plays happen. I think, obviously, you see on my goal, it doesn’t take much for me to put that one in.”
Bonus Takeaway: Trevor Zegras does some neat things
We must at least mention Trevor Zegras’s goal that got the Ducks back within one in the third period. In his first game back since suffering an injury on Nov. 7, Zegras was back to his old tricks. In full stride, he swung behind the net, scooped up the puck with just the toe of his stick, and threw it over the shoulder of Daccord.
Whoa. Trevor Zegras with a Goal of the Year candidate.
We saw people replying to us on Twitter and saying Connor Bedard’s lacrosse-style goal against the St. Louis Blues on Saturday was even better, but you know what? Both goals were pretty neat, and both could be Goal of the Year candidates.
Worth noting, both dazzling goals came in losses, as the Ducks lost 3-2 to the Kraken, and the Blackhawks lost 7-5 to the Blues.
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
That was a huge 2-1 win by the Seattle Kraken over the Los Angeles Kings, extending their point streak to five games (3-0-2) since snapping out of their miserable eight-game skid.
Joey Daccord was outstanding, but his teammates did a fantastic job of keeping the Kings’ shots primarily to the perimeter. Still, you can only win in that fashion if your goalie plays great, and Daccord did just that on Wednesday, tying his own franchise record for saves in a game with 42.
Here are our Three Takeaways from an impressive Kraken win over the Kings.
Takeaway #1 (Darren): The old formula
The Kraken did the damn thing against a very good Kings team, and they did it using a time-tested formula; solid goaltending, team defense, and opportunistic scoring.
Daccord did bail out his mates a few times, like on the below save against Matt Roy in the waning moments of the first period. But for the most part, he was able to see the many shots the Kings threw his way from afar, and he did his part in gobbling up those shots.
When the Kraken got through the first period with a 0-0 tie, despite a 20-8 shots-on-goal disadvantage (more on that in John’s Takeaway #3), we had a feeling they would be the ones that got on the board first in the second period. Sure enough, Brandon Tanev scored his first goal since Nov. 22 at 5:19 of the second, and that put Seattle in the driver’s seat for the rest of the night.
O TANEV-BAUM! 🚨
Right off the face-off, Tanev goes to the net, gets his own rebound, and then throws the monkey off his back after his first goal since Nov. 22.
Playing the way they played can work. Bend, but don’t break, keep as much as possible to the outside, and strike when the opportunities present themselves.
Once Jordan Eberle took advantage of a breakaway chance created by a sick pass by Matty Beniers in the third, the game was on the rails.
JORDAN ELF-ERLE! 🚨
GREAT stretch pass by Matty Beniers, who finds Eberle at the offensive blue line. Eberle just stays onside and scores on the breakaway.
That line is continuing to show chemistry this game…
Of course, there was that gaffe by Justin Schultz to give Blake Lizzotte an easy goal, and there were two late penalties, but this one was NEVER A DOUBT!
Good job sticking to the structure and the gameplan. Big win.
Takeaway #2 (Curtis): Aggressive penalty kill delivers again
Once a source of concern for these Seattle Kraken, the penalty kill unit has played very well of late. Entering Wednesday’s game in Los Angeles, the Kraken penalty killers had held their opposition to just one goal in the last 19 man advantage opportunities dating back to the beginning of the last home stand–a 95 percent kill rate.
How have they managed it? The Kraken have played well in front of their net suppressing high-quality chances and have blocked outside looks at a high rate. Most important from our vantage, though, has been increased aggression pressuring the puck carrier when the puck reaches vulnerable areas of the ice.
A prime example of this aggressive play came at a critical moment in Wednesday’s game. At 12:40 in the third period, with the Kraken leading 2-1, momentum had swung to the Kings’ side following Lizzotte’s shorthanded goal. Justin Schultz took a dangerous boarding penalty on Carl Grundstrom. (On that point, we’re thankful that Grundstrom got up and skated away, and that Schultz wasn’t hit with a major penalty or worse.)
Anze Kopitar won the ensuing face-off for the Kings in the left circle. After a few passes, Kevin Fiala sent a low-angle centering pass that was blocked and bounced back towards the corner. Sensing a strategic opportunity, Adam Larsson pressured Fiala in the corner, and the other strong-side Kraken player, Alex Wennberg, attacked in unison farther up the boards. Their coordinated work led to a clear that killed off an additional 20 seconds of the power play.
Seattle used repeated efforts like this one to post yet another shorthanded shutout Wednesday, killing four out of four Kings power play opportunities. Seattle allowed just two shots on goal in 6:29 of shorthanded time Wednesday–less than a shot every three minutes. (By way of comparison, the Kings had 39 shots in 46:29 of five-on-five time–which equates to a shot every 1:11 of game time.)
And this work was all the more impressive because the Kraken were facing a hot power play unit. Los Angeles’ power play had scored a goal in six straight games entering Wednesday’s contest.
The Kraken penalty kill was too passive earlier in the season and was rightfully maligned as a poor-performing unit based on the shot quality it was conceding. Over the last few weeks, however, the Kraken have adjusted their approach to killing penalties and the changes have worked.
Takeaway #3 (John): Minimizing quality shots against
The Kraken were outshot 20-8 in the first period, and if it was not for a brief push by Seattle, the gap would have been more extreme. Getting outshot by a two-to-one ratio is not a recipe for success but as pointed out by Eddie Olczyk and Brian Boucher on the TNT broadcast, the Kraken did an outstanding job at limiting quality opportunities.
Suppressing high-danger shots over the last five games has been one of the keys to the Kraken’s success as of late. I pointed it out in Monday Musings, and the theme has continued over the last two games.
Here is an updated chart of high-danger shots against.
The shot count ended 43-30 in favor of the Kings on Wednesday, but Seattle had seven high-danger shots to the Kings’ six. Meanwhile, both Seattle Kraken goals were on high-danger shots. The goaltending has been great, but as I am sure Daccord would acknowledge, limiting high-danger opportunities is one of the contributing factors. Let’s see if the Kraken can keep it rolling in Anaheim on Saturday.
