Kraken goalie Chris Driedger did what he could Wednesday night, but his mates couldn’t find the offense in support of him. Driedger, making his fourth start in five games, kicked away 32 shots, but it wouldn’t be enough as the St. Louis Blues outlasted Seattle in a 4-1 win at the Enterprise Center.
Driedger gave Seattle (22-41-6) a chance, but the Kraken took too many penalties and could not cash in on opportunities against the Blues and goalie Ville Husso who turned away 28 shots.
After Jordan Eberle pulled the Kraken to within 2-1 in the second period, Jordan Kyrou delivered what would be the deciding blow at 2:34 of the third period. With the puck bouncing in close, Kyrou would knock it out of the air and past Driedger for his 23rd of the season and gave the Blues a two-goal lead at 3-1.
“Batted it out of the air,” Driedger said. “It’s kind of a tough one to read off a couple guys and it just pinballed around you. Good hand-eye by him. Tough to react to that one when it’s right in front of you. Obviously want to stop them all so would have liked to have that one, but unfortunately it didn’t work out that way.”
Ryan O’Reilly wrapped the scoring up with an empty-net goal to make it 4-1 at 18:45.
The Blues entered the game with the NHL’s second ranked power play and got seven looks with the man advantage Wednesday. Seattle killed off six of those chances thanks to Driedger’s play, but killing that many penalties takes a toll on a team and disrupts flow and line combinations.
“When you have to kill seven minor penalties thats takes a lot of energy,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “Our killers did a good job tonight, but it’s seven power plays to none until very late in the third period, that tilts the ice.”
Brayden Schenn had two assists and St. Louis (39-20-10) got goals from four different scorers to pull the Blues within one point of the Minnesota Wild for second place in the Central Division.
Eberle had the lone goal for the Kraken and Ryan Donato set a new career high in points after picking up an assist. While the final deficit read three goals, the Kraken played better than that might indicate.
They took 57 percent of the unblocked shot attempts at 5-on-5 but were unable to capitalize in what is a familiar refrain this season.
“We had opportunities, that wasn’t a problem. We had chances to score,” Eberle said. “You got to finish those but at the other end, we gave up too much and Driedgs was there and played well. Driedgs was there to make a lot of saves. I think we got to tighten up defensively and just dial it in a little bit offensively.”
A harbinger of how the game would go, Driedger and the Kraken penalty kill had to endure three St. Louis power-play chances in the game’s opening nine minutes. They almost got through it and had several chances themselves to score shorthanded. But after one such chance, the Blues got the puck going the other way, had numbers, and Robert Thomas cashed in at 8:38 of the first with a wrist shot to Driedger’s right to make it 1-0.
“We had a good kill going,” Hakstol said. “We had a couple good opportunities, and we got a little bit greedy and that led to a quick breakdown. That was a huge momentum piece in the game.”
It was the only shot that the Blues garnered on the power play while Seattle managed three.
The Blues doubled their lead, 2-0 at 7:56 of the second after Schenn’s cross-ice pass found Justin Faulk at the back door with an open net waiting for him.
Eberle cut the lead to 2-1 with a goal on the doorstep at 9:55 after Will Borgen’s shot rebounded off bodies in the crease.
“Tonight is disappointing,” Hakstol said. “I’m not sitting here saying I’m not disappointed because we didn’t come here to lose close. Seven minor penalties is too much. I would like to have had another opportunity or two on the power play that I felt like we earned with some of these close, close calls. But that being said, there’s things that we can do better. We’ll look at what we expect ourselves to do a little bit better in those areas for the back-to-back tomorrow night in Chicago.”
Tentacle Tales
+ Donato’s assist on Eberle’s goal was his 26th point this season which eclipsed the 25 he totaled in 2018-19 between the Boston Bruins and Minnesota Wild.
+ Thomas tallied to extend his point streak to seven games (4-8—12) and establish a new career high.
+ Seattle defenseman Cale Fleury played his first game since being called up from the American Hockey League’s Charlotte Checkers Wednesday. He totaled 13:44 of ice time.
Before midweek back-to-back games Wednesday in St. Louis and Thursday in Chicago, the Seattle Kraken got in a quick practice Tuesday morning at the Kraken Community Iceplex.
Quick was the key word as the team skated for about 35 minutes so they could get on a plane Tuesday afternoon headed for St. Louis.
“Trying to take advantage of the minutes and make sure we’re taking the time that we need, but also not trying to overdo it,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “If you look at our game in the last couple of weeks here, we’ve played a pretty simple game. We’ve played hard so we’re just trying to continually reinforce the basic areas systems-wise. We can do that by touching on one or two drills, whether it’s morning skate or practice or by doing it through a little bit of quick video before and after practice and games.”
Entering the game against St. Louis on Wednesday, the Kraken are 5-4-1 in the last ten including wins over the Dallas Stars and on the road against the Los Angeles Kings, two teams either in the playoffs or fighting for a spot.
A familiar face at practice
Defenseman Cale Fleury was in Charlotte Monday, getting ready to tee off at a team golf tournament when he got the call that the Kraken were going to bring him up to Seattle. He finished the front nine before leaving the course to pack and get on a plane to Seattle.
“I think it should be good to kind of help set myself up for the future here and kind of show guys what I can do,” Fleury said. “I think I performed pretty well last time I was up here. I felt like I fit in pretty well and I think it’s just kind of a confidence thing coming into the spot.”
Seattle has been playing the last couple of games with no healthy scratches as Haydn Fleury and Jaden Schwartz continue to be out with injury. There was no update on the injured players from Hakstol, but having Cale Fleury with the big club gives the team some insurance.
Hakstol hinted that we might see Cale Fleury in one of the two games during the week.
“Cale was up earlier in the year, did a really good job,” Hakstol said. “When we were in Boston and New York he played with a lot of poise at that time. He’s gone back, and he’s been a top guy in Charlotte and done a really good job there and helped them to a real good playoff position. He’s earned the opportunity to come up and play and get a good opportunity to get in on this road trip.”
With the Checkers in the AHL, Fleury has scored seven goals, with 26 assists and 33 points through 58 games.
His brother, Haydn, did not practice on Monday but did last week with a no-contact jersey and had a long workout in the morning prior to Friday’s game with Vegas. It’s unknown if the two Fleury brothers will play as a pair as they did when Cale was called up earlier in the season.
“Obviously, it’s always good even when we can see each other,” Cale said. “I like when I can stay at his place when I’m here, especially with his young kid.”
Lineup questions
Hakstol didn’t give any hints to what his lineup will look like in St. Louis, but the forward lines at practice Monday were the same as they were for Sunday’s win against the Stars.
The coach was mum about which goaltender would get the call first. Both have been playing well, especially Chris Driedger who has started three out four games and won twice. He was especially good in the third period on Sunday when he made 13 saves to preserve what was a one-goal lead for most of the frame.
“Driedgs is coming off of a performance where he battled hard and he got the win,” Hakstol said. “That’s a good situation going into the next game, so we have a decision to make… That’s their job, to make that decision a difficult one and then my job is to make the choice as to who is starting.”
As the Seattle Kraken wind down their inaugural season in the NHL, fans will undoubtedly start to turn their attention to the 2022 NHL Entry Draft. The Kraken were very active during their first NHL trade deadline in the middle of March when they made six trades that returned 10 draft picks over the next three years. Combined with three draft picks they accumulated before the start of the 2021-22 season, plus the standard seven picks per year that all teams get, the Kraken will have 34 picks over the next three NHL Entry Drafts.
Seattle also has the second most picks in the upcoming 2022 NHL Entry Draft with 12 picks.
To help better understand the value of those draft picks, we are going to spend some time framing how these picks translate to NHL players and when we might expect some of them to make it to the NHL. For the purposes of this analysis, we are excluding goalies from the data. Goalies have a very different timeline on their path to the NHL and will be the subject of a future story.
Long-term outlook by draft round
Every player’s path to the NHL is different, and some take longer to develop into regular NHL players. So it is not just about when they break into the league, but what they do when they get there. We will be using ‘games played’ as the metric to assess the long-term contributions of draft picks. Of course, there are other ways to evaluate a player’s ability and contribution, but for now, this metric will let us keep it simple.
Here is a look at the games played by draft round for players drafted from 2010 to 2017.
This chart signifies the importance and value of first-round draft picks as almost sure things to make the NHL. Returns for players selected in the second round tend to drop off quite a bit, as 28 percent have yet to play an NHL game. The steeper drop comes in the third round where close to 50 percent of the players have not and might not ever play in the NHL.
It is important to note that the data could be understating expectations since several players are still active and will continue to accumulate games played as their career continues. For example, Kraken forward Kole Lind was drafted by the Vancouver Canucks in the second round of the 2017 draft. He has only played in 20 career NHL games and is poised to be a regular in Seattle’s lineup next year.
It is not a perfect projection, but directionally, we feel this is a good indicator on setting the expectations for eventual returns from draft picks.
This also does not mean that players taken later than the third round are useless. Johnny Gaudreau, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, and Jaccob Slavin were all fourth-round picks that have played over 300 games in the NHL. The chart should just drive the point home that the more picks you have, even in the later rounds, the better your odds that you may find the next John Klingberg (fifth round), Brendan Gallagher (fifth), or Mark Stone (sixth).
First season expectations
It is also important to evaluate when we should expect a drafted player in the NHL. It is rare that we will see players drafted in the summer and then playing in the NHL the following season. In fact, there are usually fewer than five players drafted that play more than 25 games the very next season.
Here is a look at the players that made the jump to the NHL immediately after their draft year.
Based on this information, it is safe to assume that we will not be seeing any of the Kraken’s four second-round draft picks playing in Seattle next season. But the question is, when can we expect them to play in the NHL?
We looked at when players “make it” in the NHL by determining when a player plays his first 25-plus-game season in relation to his draft year.
As expected, players taken in later rounds take a bit longer to break into the NHL compared to earlier rounds. For first rounders, the biggest spike of players (57 players) breaking into the NHL comes in the second season after their draft year but years three (44 players) and four (40 players) still have a lot of first-round draft picks breaking into the NHL. Second-round draft picks tend to break into the NHL in seasons four (39 players) and five (34 players) in relation to their draft year.
This should temper some expectations on when we will see the likes of Ryker Evans (second-round selection in 2021) and all the other future second-round draft picks putting on the Kraken jersey.
Ron Francis draft track record
There is a general feeling in the hockey world that Ron Francis drafts well. Sebastian Aho and Jaccob Slavin are often the poster boys for this belief in Francis’ drafting abilities, but how does he do across all draft rounds compared to his peers?
If we isolate the Carolina Hurricanes draft picks while Francis was the general manager, we can compare his drafted players with the rest of the league in that same timeframe.
This is a relatively small sample size, but you can see that Francis’ first-round draft picks might have under-performed a bit compared to the rest of the league. But across the rest of the draft, he does better than the rest of the league. This should be encouraging for the Kraken who have 11 picks after the first round in this upcoming draft.
It is also worth noting that two of Francis’ picks are about to jump tiers. Both Jake Bean (first round, 2016) and Morgan Geekie (third round, 2017) are expected to bump into the 101 to 200 games tier this week.
The draft pick outlook
Francis’ track record is solid, and the early evaluations of the Kraken draft picks selected last summer have been encouraging. Kraken fans should also feel good about the bounty of picks accumulated at the trade deadline, but remember that it can take time for players selected to become regulars in the NHL.
Kevin Korchinski picked the puck up at the half boards on a Seattle Thunderbirds power play during a January game against the rival Portland Wintherhawks. He thought about shooting but instead held on to the puck, stickhandled past a defender, and slung a shot from the slot. The puck made it through traffic and was tipped in by one of Korchinski’s teammates for a goal.
It just happened to be ‘Teddy Bear Toss’ night at the acesso Showare Center, an annual charity event were the fans throw stuffed toys onto the ice when the home team scores the first goal. As Korchinksi hugged his teammates, they found themselves in a shower of plush bears, lions, and other animals.
Korchinski’s play was subtle, but it allowed traffic to form in front of the net, and his shot was perfectly placed to allow his teammate to tip it in for a goal.
It’s that kind of offensive acumen that has landed the defenseman on the NHL Central Scouting list as an ‘A’ rated prospect for the 2022 NHL Draft. Korchinski, 17, is the highest-rated prospect from the U.S. Division and is one of the Western Hockey League’s best defensemen.
“I’m excited about my game,” Korchinski says. “It’s improved at both ends and I think I’m more confident. The stuff in the offseason paid off, and I’m kind of seeing the work get rewarded, so it’s been awesome.”
Seattle selected the 6-foot-2 defenseman with the 10th overall pick during the 2019 WHL Bantam Draft and this year he’s a big reason the Thunderbirds are having a resurgent season. Korchinski runs the offense, mans the power play, and logs top minutes for Seattle, which is looking to make a long playoff run this spring.
He benefited from the COVID-shortened WHL schedule last year. With a young roster and no playoffs to worry about, the Thunderbirds gave Korchinski more ice time in elevated situations that a 16-year-old rookie might not normally get.
“It really helped me kind of see the pace of the league,” Korchinski says. “Get to know the guys and just kind of see what I had done offseason and the work I had to put in heading to this year.”
Korchinski is projected to be a prospect that hears his name called sometime in the mid-first round to mid-second round in July.
Kevin Korchinski the player
Nobody is going to confuse Korchinski for a throwback, stay-at-home defenseman. He is every bit the modern defenseman who is an offensive threat, can skate, and move the puck with the best of them.
He’s a power-play quarterback and through 61 games with the Thunderbirds this season he has four goals and 51 assists – 24 of which have come on the power play.
“Definitely my skating, my puck moving ability and just my offensive instincts,” he says, self-scouting his strengths. “I’m always trying to create offense and always trying to put the puck in the back of the net, whether it’s a pass or shot.”
Korchinski’s game has drawn a lot of comparisons to Vegas Golden Knights defenseman Shea Theodore. Those that have seen them both play feel that they have similar skating ability and can take the puck from coast to coast. Theodore looked to score more while Korchinski is happy to set up teammates.
Those comparisons have made it back to Korchinski and he’s just fine with it.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that a lot,” he says. “Being compared to guy like that, it’s unbelievable. He’s one of my favorite players. He’s unbelievable. And just being an ex-Thunderbird, it’s really cool.”
By comparison, Theodore scored 19 goals, 31 assists, for 50 points in 71 games during his draft year with Seattle.
Korchinski is not only looking to hear his name called by an NHL team this summer but wistfully looks at the potential of some day representing Canada at the World Junior Championship, something he certainly is on pace to be in the mix for.
“It’d be an honor to go to the World Juniors,” he says. “ It’s something that I grew up watching… I actually went to it in Montreal in 2015, flew down there with my family. It’s something that I just love. It’s something that every Christmas I watch and my dad’s really passionate about so it would make him really happy if I played.”
One player on the gold medal winning Team Canada that season in Montreal? Theodore.
Like most junior defensemen, Korchinski knows that he has to continue to work on his strength. He says that is the offseason plan, but for now, he wants to help the Thunderbirds go as far as they can in the postseason.
Korchinski on film
On this play, Korchinski shows off his skating, stickhandling, and vision as he circles the zone and finds a wide-open teammate on the doorstep for an easy tap in goal.
It’s not all offensive play however. Here, Korchinski retrieves the puck, gets away from two forecheckers and gets the puck up the ice and out of his own zone.
One of the things I look for in translatable NHL qualities is how a player handles pressure with little time and space. Touch passes. Quick releases. etc. Kevin makes a lot of pressure puzzles seem simple to solve. #2022NHLDraftpic.twitter.com/ME84VdB79M
Korchinski controls the play and can make even-strength play look like a Seattle power play. Here he reads the ice and makes a perfect pass for a goal.
In this clip, he calls for the puck, gets it, walks the blue line to create a lane and shoots. His shot is deflected and Seattle scores on a rebound.
Seattle Thunderbirds defenseman Kevin Korchinski is rocketing up our draft board at @FCHockey (currently 14th and he could go higher) and this clip is a good example as to why
He wants that puck, and then when he gets it he uses his superb footwork to open up a shooting lane pic.twitter.com/Q8esriJDaJ
The city of Los Angeles is known for its mind numbing traffic but perhaps that inspired the Seattle Kraken Monday night. Seattle attacked the Los Angeles Kings net, and goalie Cal Petersen, with traffic all night on their way to a 6-1 rout at Crypto.com Arena.
A game after Petersen was able to settle in and be comfortable in net, Monday he had to deal with bodies, screens, and waves of Kraken taking the puck to the goal. Six different goal scorers found the back of the net for Seattle (21-38-6), which ends its road trip with a 2-1-0 record.
“It’s a key to this game,” Yanni Gourde said. “If you want to score goals, you got to go to the paint, you got to be determined to go there and create chances… you have to do that in this league to have success. And eventually you get bounces, and they go in for you.”
Lost in all the scoring was a 36-save night for Chris Driedger who made his first start since March 10.
“I felt pretty good, felt patient,” Driedger said. “Just felt like I was in good position for the point shots and I got a couple of good sticks on those and just felt like I was meeting it at the top of the crease. I felt like myself.”
Petersen made 32 saves for the Kings (35-23-9), who lost ground to the Calgary Flames for the Pacific Division lead.
Kraken get early jump
During Saturday’s loss to the Kings, the Kraken struggled in the first period. They corrected that on Monday and scored 14 seconds into the game when Ryan Donato’s wrap around chance was stopped but Alex Wennberg followed up and potted the rebound to make it 1-0.
“We’ve gotten off to some good starts, we didn’t the other night,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “This time of year, it’s hard to play from behind. It’s tough to play from behind and dig out of a hole. We earned that lead tonight. It’s an important way to start the game, especially coming off the loss two nights ago.”
The Kings tied the game 1-1 at 6:23 on a power-play goal from Arthur Kaliyev, but it was all Kraken after that.
At 8:24, the Kraken went ahead 2-1 when Adam Larsson flung a puck through traffic for his career-best sixth of the season.
“Larsson’s goal, if you look at it the second goal, we have great net presence on the flash screen coming through their goaltender’s eyes,” Hakstol said.
Victor Rask scored his first as a Kraken to make it 3-1 at 13:55 of the second period. It was another goal scored through traffic after Rask raced into the zone, put on the breaks, and fired a shot to score his first since Jan 14.
“We had a guy come in late on that play that I thought he might slide right to the middle of the rink but he held it,” Hakstol said. “The real key is the net front presence on those on those goals. We real good net front presence with guys stopping at the top of the blue paint.”
Jordan Eberle extended the lead with a breakaway goal in the third period. Seattle then made it 5-1 on a Jared McCann goal when he and Morgan Geekie created a 2-on-1 break down low.
Daniel Sprong would score his third goal since joining the Kraken at 12:13 of the third when his shot rebounded off Petersen and then hit Jordan Spence in the face before falling in the net.
“It was a pretty complete effort. everybody chipped in,” Hakstol said. “Things went right for us offensively, but I felt like we earned it. We got some breaks late in this game, but we earned everything in the first 35 minutes of this hockey game. We played hard with the puck, we put some miles on them defensively and that has a way of paying off later in games and it did tonight.”
Tentacle Tales
+ Vince Dunn had two assists and has eight in his last seven games.
+ Sprong became the first Kraken to score in each of his first three games with the team.
+ Karson Kuhlman assisted on Rask’s goal for his first point as a member of the Kraken.
+ Wennberg’s goal was the fastest goal to start a game in Kraken history.
+ Kings coach Todd McLellan coached his 1,000th career NHL game. He previously coached the San Jose Sharks and the Edmonton Oilers.
