Don’t look now, but the Seattle Kraken are suddenly cruising, having won four of their last five games, and the Sound Of Hockey Podcast is here to talk about it (because of course it is)!
This episode starts with Darren needing to get something off his chest, so he dives right into a Get Off My Lawn, while Andy and John desperately try to calm him down. Then they get to their Kraken talk, which is plentiful.
After beating Washington and Carolina at home, Seattle has been on the road, where it has beaten the Florida Panthers and Buffalo Sabres, but lost to the two-time defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning. There’s lots to unpack from these victories, including an injury and an illness, impressive play by Will Borgen, and improved goaltending.
Once the Kraken talk dies down, the guys tour around the NHL via Serious Business, where they discuss the waiving of Matt Murray and Evander Kane and the firing of Marc Bergevin and… well… pretty much everyone else in Montreal.
Segments this week include Weekly One-Timers, Goalie Gear Corner, and Three Stars.
It was the revenge game of all revenge games for Seattle Kraken goalie Chris Driedger Saturday night at FLA Live Arena.
He was facing the Florida Panthers, his former team who oh, by the way, are the top-scoring club in the NHL and had yet to lose at home. At the other end of the rink was Spencer Knight, the 20-year-old, former first-round pick by Florida whose arrival late last year essentially made Driedger expendable.
And it was the second of a back-to-back for the Kraken after losing 3-0 in Tampa Bay on Friday.
None of that mattered Saturday.
After struggling through his first two starts with Seattle, Driedger was on and on early, making 33 saves as the Kraken (7-13-1) denied the Panthers (14-4-3) a chance at setting a record 12th straight home to win to start a season by winning 4-1.
“[Tonight’s win] is about as good as they feel,” Driedger said.
Seattle got two goals from Jordan Eberle who was playing in his 800th career NHL game along with two points from both Jamie Oleksiak and Joonas Donskoi.
“It was a real competitive game for us, a competitive game both ways,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “We went start to finish tonight and we knew we needed to do that in this building against this team that hadn’t lost in this building yet this year. So it was a good 60-minute performance for us.”
Eberle opened the scoring for Seattle in the first period, but the dagger came at 5:57 of the third period when he picked up a rebound off a Yanni Gourde chance and backhanded his second goal of the night to put Seattle up 3-1.
The goal was the insurance score that Seattle needed to put away the Panthers.
“That’s typical Gourdie,” Eberle said. “He’s hard on the puck and doesn’t really give up. He made a great play, just missed the shot and I was there to put in the rebound. That was all him.”
Kraken lean on Driedger
Driedger thwarted a Jonathan Huberdeau short-handed breakaway chance early in the first period which gave a clue that he was dialed in. When Seattle was in the throes of its recent six-game losing streak, those chances seemingly always resulted in goals.
In the second period, the Panthers pushed back, down 2-1. Florida outshot the Kraken 13-7 in the second, took 67 percent of the quality shots, and led in high danger chances 5-2. Despite the tilted ice, Driedger stood tall while hardly looking rattled.
“The first two, or three [starts] you could say didn’t go my way,” Driedger said. “I just needed to go in there and feel good, make some saves and get the confidence back. A lot of buzz coming back into this building. Pretty happy with the performance of our group, that’s about as good as I’ve seen our group play, hat’s off to them.”
If Driedger’s confidence is back, and with the resurgence of Philipp Grubauer over the last three games, the Kraken just might be starting to see the goalie tandem they envisioned when the season began.
Seattle gets off to an early start
The first period has been an adventure for the Kraken, but it’s slowly been getting better and Saturday’s opening period was perhaps the best of the season.
Seattle went to the power play 25 seconds into the game and cashed in at 2:22 to take a 1-0 lead. After Driedger’s big save and with time running out in the power play, Donskoi found some space and drew the penalty killers to him as he deftly sent a cross-ice pass to Eberle who knocked in his 10th goal of the season.
It was the seventh time in the last nine games that the Kraken scored a power-play goal.
Florida tied the game at 6:59 of the first period when a MacKenzie Weeger shot from the point was deflected past Driedger by Patric Hornqvist in front of the net.
Jamie Oleksiak blasted a shot from the point at 10:40 of the first and it was deflected in by Ryan Donato to give the Kraken a 2-1 lead. It was Donato’s third goal of the season.
After Eberle’s third-period goal to give the Kraken a two-goal advantage, Oleksiak would put the final nail in the coffin with his first goal as a Kraken at 16:35 when he scored from deep in his own zone on the empty Florida net.
“We didn’t like the outcome last night, it was a tough outing for us,” Hakstol said. “It didn’t feel good walking away from the rink last night. So, your next opportunity was tonight, and the guys did a real good job in terms of being ready to go and play hard together for 60 minutes.”
Tentacle Tales
+ After a rough six-game losing streak, the Kraken have three wins and six points in their last four games. Those points come after playing four of the top teams in the NHL (Washington, Carolina, Tampa Bay, and Florida) in succession.
“Honestly, I believe we’re past the building blocks, and we’re just trying to put wins together,” Hakstol said. “We went through a tough stretch, where we couldn’t find a result that would go our way. We hit a few speed bumps and wobbled a little bit, but we had to push back, and the pushback has come in a real tough stretch on the schedule in terms of playing high level teams.”
+ Will Borgen made his Kraken debut Saturday. The former Buffalo Sabres defenseman has been practicing with Seattle all year only to be a daily healthy scratch. He ended the night with 13:51 of ice time and one shot.
+ Seattle owned the dot on Saturday, winning the faceoff battle easily. Morgan Geekie went 11-for-14 on the draw and former Panther Alex Wennberg won 13 of the 16 faceoffs he took.
+ The Kraken were again without captain Mark Giordano who remains in the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol. Calle Jarnkrok was also out of the lineup for the second straight game after sustaining an undisclosed injury in Wednesday’s 2-1 win over the Hurricanes.
Things were bad… then they were really bad… then they were good! The Seattle Kraken snapped a miserable six-game losing streak with an impressive win over the Washington Capitals on Sunday, and the Sound Of Hockey Podcast is here to break down the roller coaster ride that has been this past week.
Within the Kraken section that starts the show, the guys really get into what the fan reaction was during the very tough stretch and what it meant to the team, as well as some mascot news. John, Andy, and Darren then look ahead at upcoming matchups for Seattle, before diving into their usual segbits.
You will get plenty of Kraken talk from this one, folks!
The segbits this week include Three Stars, Weekly One-Timers, and Tweets of the Week.
You are warned, this thing gets really off the rails toward the end to the show, as Darren and Andy try to force in a late addition “Down on the Farm.”
SEATTLE – Kraken forward Mason Appleton was back skating with his teammates Tuesday at the Kraken Community Iceplex and was a full participant. He took regular reps playing on the wing with Jared McCann at center and Brandon Tanev on the other wing.
It looks like he’s close to returning, but head coach Dave Hakstol wouldn’t budge on any insight. “He’s close, he’s day to day right now,” Hakstol said. “It was nice to get him in practice, first full practice on a line so that’s another nice step for him.”
Once Appleton is able to return the Kraken will have a tough choice to make with their roster. A player will have to go to make room for Appleton. Nathan Bastian practiced Tuesday but did not participate in line rushes. He would be the 13th forward, and it seems unlikely he would go as that would leave the club thin up front.
On the back end, Will Borgen and Haydn Fleury would be in the crosshairs with an Appleton return. Both players would need to clear waivers and would be likely candidates to get claimed. With Appleton close, a roster move is imminent.
Revenge game with the Carolina Hurricanes
There is a lot of cross over between the Carolina Hurricanes and the Kraken. It starts with former Carolina player, coach, and general manager Ron Francis, who now of course runs the Kraken. But, the connections go deeper.
Television broadcaster John Forslund, head scout Robert Kron, Fleury, and Morgan Geekie all have ties to the Hurricanes, who just happen to be in Seattle for a game Wednesday night at Climate Pledge Arena.
Geekie was a third-round draft pick of Francis and the Hurricanes in 2017 and played parts of the last two years with Carolina. Francis nabbed Geekie again in July’s NHL Expansion Draft.
“Obviously, they had other plans and I wasn’t a part of them,” Geekie said. “But it’s a business and there’s no hard feelings. Everyone’s got their plan. Obviously, they’re having success and doing things well, but I’m excited for the opportunity to kind of get back at them a little bit.”
Fleury was a first-round pick of Carolina’s in 2014 and spent four seasons with the Hurricanes before being traded to the Anaheim Ducks at last year’s trade deadline. Seattle took him in the Expansion Draft.
With the Kraken, Fleury has yet to take a foothold as a regular player in the defensive rotation. He’s been a healthy scratch in all but three games in November. While he’s looking forward to seeing his old teammates Tuesday, it’s not clear if he’ll be in the lineup.
Marcus Johansson sparking Kraken power play
Johansson played with the Kraken on opening night but then was injured and missed time. He returned to the Seattle lineup on Nov. 9 in Vegas and immediately had an impact with the club’s struggling power play.
Johansson helped snap an 0-for-23 power-play drought with an assist and since then the Kraken have been on fire with the man advantage.
Marcus Johansson has three points on the power play since returning to the Kraken lineup. (Brian Liesse photo)
With Johansson often parked in front of the net, Seattle’s power play is 5-for-10 over the last four games.
“He has veteran presence and he’s positive but in a pretty stern way,” Hakstol said of Johansson. “He brings that leadership, he’s outstanding getting us in the zone. He’s been in that spot that he’s in right now for us for a lot of years, and he’s seen a lot of different things there.
“So, he brings a nice level of execution and that’s been a part of it, for sure. It was good timing to have him come back into our group as our group was starting to get that swagger.”
Kraken with a tough test with Carolina on Wednesday
If it feels like every night, the Kraken are playing a top opponent these days, it’s because they are.
Carolina is coming off an overtime loss on Monday in San Jose, but they enter Wednesday’s game at Climate Pledge Arena with a 14-2-1 record and are tied with the Florida Panthers for the league lead in standings points with 29. Oh, by the way, Seattle plays at Florida on Saturday.
The Hurricanes have only allowed 34 goals, which makes them the league’s stingiest team.
“All that sounds close to the team we played two nights ago,” Hakstol said. “Not giving up very much and great goaltending. So, we have to go out and play a full 60-minute game, have a real good 60-minute effort, and have some extra effort in certain areas. But ultimately, just to have everybody go out and do the things that they do well for our team and bring that consistent level of play throughout the 60 minutes.”
We’ve been hearing rumblings about attendance being down across the NHL, so we wanted to take an early-season look at some of the figures from around the league to see what the data actually shows. The intent is not to take shots at any team’s fanbase or paint the league in a bad spot. The numbers are the numbers and should just be used as an indicator of how the league is doing, identify any teams that are showing improvement, and other teams that could be doing better.
League attendance
Last year was obviously challenging, and comparing year over year is not realistic or fair. It has been widely reported that all sports leagues and teams are facing attendance challenges in what we all hope is the tail end of the pandemic. The light is (hopefully) at the end of the tunnel, and perhaps soon the vast majority of fans will feel comfortable coming back to crowded environments like sports arenas.
Team by team change in attendance compared to 2019-20
Comparing how teams are doing compared to last season would be an easy exercise considering several arenas were not allowed to have fans in attendance as we navigated the pandemic. A fairer comparable is to see how teams are doing this season vs the beginning of the 2019-20 season. Let us take a look.
As you can tell by the amount of red on the chart, most teams’ average attendance is down this season compared to 2019-20. There is not much explaining to do here other than the pandemic continues to impact the in-person attendance of events.
Team detail attendance
Here is a look at how teams are trending by game number of the season compared to the same game number from 2019-20.
Here are a couple notes on individual teams’ attendance performances:
We would anticipate the Ducks, Flames, and Kings to see increases as the season goes on. The Ducks and Kings are putting much better teams on the ice compared to 2019-20, and fans will start to come back to the arenas.
The Blackhawks continue to see declines as the team struggles on (and off) the ice.
The Carolina Hurricanes are one of the few teams that are seeing an increase in attendance. They have an exciting team that has being building for years, so expect this trend to continue if the Canes continue to play well.
It is hard to get a read on the decline by the New York Rangers since, even in challenging years, they end up selling most of their games out at Madison Square Garden. The team has been better on the ice, but that has not translated to an increase in attendance.
The attendance in Buffalo looks rough. They are usually a loyal fanbase that shows up through the darkest of times, but even Sabres fans have a breaking point, and it looks like they have hit it.
It is early
There is no sugar coating it, the NHL attendance numbers do not look great, but it is too early to identify if there are any long-term trends to any one team here. As vaccination rates increase and COVID case counts decline, the numbers should start to trend back up to where they were pre-pandemic, but it might take a season to fully recover.
If you have any questions or thoughts, feel free to share them in the comments section of the article.
