If you had told me coming into the season that the Kraken would come home with four out of six possible points on their tough three-game road trip through Minnesota, Dallas, and Nashville, I would have been quite pleased with that. Indeed, they headed home Tuesday with a stolen shootout win over the Wild on Saturday and a convincing 7-3 victory over the Nashville Predators on Tuesday.
There were a few shaky moments in this one, like when Seattle coughed up a two-goal lead in the first period, or when Brady Skjei tied the game a second time at 17:17 of the second, sending it to the third period tied 3-3.
But every time the Predators pulled level with the Kraken, Seattle found a way to get right back in the driver’s seat. At the end of the night, the Kraken pulled away with four third-period goals and an impressive ‘W.’
Here are our Three Takeaways from a 7-3 Kraken win over the Predators.
Takeaway #1: Seven unique goal scorers
With every passing game, I find myself trying to decide if this new version of the Kraken is more similar to the successful playoff team from 2022-23 or more like last season’s disappointing squad that took itself out of contention by mid-March.
Last season, the Kraken got off to an abysmal start, losing their first four games (one of which came in a shootout against the Blues) and totaling just three goals across those contests. They were shut out Sunday in Dallas, but even so, Seattle has racked up 14 goals across its first four games this season.
On that front, Tuesday brought an offensive outburst in which seven different players registered goals, and six different players notched two points. Now that sounds like a 2022-23 stat.
They scored in a variety of ways, including point shots, odd-man rushes, hard forechecking plays, and dazzling individual efforts.
Our two favorite goals of the night were Jaden Schwartz’s eventual game-winner at 1:19 of the third period and Jared McCann’s cleanup goal after Matty Beniers stickhandled through the entire Nashville defense.
The Schwartz goal started below the Kraken goal line when Adam Larsson won a board battle and sent a breakout pass to Chandler Stephenson at the blue line. Stephenson tapped it to Oliver Bjorkstrand, who touched it to Schwartz, who had speed coming into the neutral zone. Schwartz ran a simple give-and-go with Bjorkstrand, but Bjorkstrand’s cheeky pass between the legs of superstar defenseman Roman Josi and Schwartz’s forehand-backhand finish made this goal memorable.
The McCann goal started similarly with Jamie Oleksiak passing from Seattle’s goal line up to McCann at the blue line. He one-touched it to Beniers, who immediately dangled around Ryan O’Reilly and kept going over the red line, over the blue line, and between four converging defenders before shoveling it to McCann at the goalmouth. Even McCann’s finish on the play was impressive, as he initially didn’t make clean contact but spun around, found the puck, and chipped it up and over Saros.
That was a fun game to watch.
Takeaway #2: Joey Daccord was excellent
On the eve of the regular season, coach Dan Bylsma said he thought the goaltending tandem of Philipp Grubauer and Joey Daccord could be a strength for the Kraken this season. Both netminders have shown some positive flashes in these first few games, and I thought Daccord’s outing Tuesday was very impressive (worth noting, his 0.11 goals saved above expected was lower than Grubauer’s 0.77 goals saved above expected on Sunday in Dallas, according to MoneyPuck).
Daccord stopped 30 of 33 shots Tuesday and looked mostly in control throughout the night. The three goals he allowed all came in somewhat similar fashion, off shots into traffic from the point, followed by rebounds either off Daccord or off the scrum in front.*Editor’s Note: I got called out in the comments for the previous explanation of the three goals, so I’m changing my wording here.* The three goals Joey allowed all came off cross-slot passes and/or from pucks bouncing off traffic in front of him, requiring lateral movement and looking around bodies. Nothing beat him cleanly on this night.
In the few moments when the game started to feel like things were going sideways, Daccord stood tall and calmed things down for the Kraken.
“He’s got a next-play mindset about his career,” Bylsma said of Daccord. “And when he’s in net, he doesn’t need to stop all 33 shots for it to go well for him. Sometimes they do go in the back of the net, and it’s always the next play, and I think he shows a great deal of competitiveness with how he plays the position.”
His best save of the night came late in the second period, when the Kraken were trying to kill a 4-on-3 Nashville power play. Josi saw an open lane to Filip Forsberg and rifled a pass right into the forward’s wheelhouse. Forsberg got full wood on the shot, but Daccord got a strong push off his left skate, slid across with full extension, and solidly rejected what looked like a sure goal.
The play wasn’t over, though. Forsberg then tried to bank it in off Daccord’s body, which Daccord managed to keep out by swinging his right foot under him. When Steven Stamkos launched the follow-up shot off the glass, Daccord tracked it, caught it, and got a desperately needed whistle.
Man, what a sequence.
Takeaway #3: Are the Kraken finding chemistry?
The forward lines have certainly not been set in stone so far, as Bylsma has shaken things up in search of the right mix. For a few games now, I’ve thought the fourth line of Tye Kartye, Yanni Gourde, and Brandon Tanev has been the most consistent. Those three were impactful again Tuesday, combining for a goal and a solid chunk of ice time (Gourde led the trio with 15:59, good for third among all Kraken forwards).
It seemed like Bylsma may have found a spark Tuesday by putting Schwartz and Bjorkstrand with Chandler Stephenson and Beniers with Andre Burakovsky and Eeli Tolvanen, while keeping Jared McCann with Shane Wright and Jordan Eberle. Throughout the game, we saw what Bylsma might call “connected” hockey, something he’s been striving for.
“I think maybe we think alike out there,” Bjorkstrand said of his new line, first assembled Sunday in Dallas. “[We were] able to get some good chemistry. We had [a couple] periods together last game, so got familiar with each other. And then today, I think, naturally, we just kind of clicked.”
Indeed, Bylsma did use the word “connected” when talking about how his team played. “We talked about our execution and cohesion and playing connected, and it’s evident in the first goal,” Bylsma said, though he was referring to the team’s second goal, scored by Bjorkstrand off a 2-on-1 with Stephenson.
While Bylsma says the team is still a “work in progress,” there was a lot to like in this game. Have the Kraken found a winning formula?
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 capped off the first week of the season with a 0-2 loss to the Dallas Stars on Sunday night. In their first three games of the regular season, they managed just two out of a possible six points in the standings. Despite this, I am encouraged by these early games. In their matchup against the St. Louis Blues, the Kraken looked like the better team for 55 minutes, with only a few defensive lapses that directly led to two of the three goals the Blues scored.
The Kraken showed resilience in the Minnesota game, coming back three times to force and eventually winning in a shootout. They also came back from a two-goal deficit to win, something they didn’t manage all of last season. The team seems more capable now, with a stronger belief in their ability to get back into games. Goals were hard to come by last season, and the challenge of coming back from a two-goal deficit might have seemed insurmountable. Now that they’ve done it, it should give them more confidence moving forward. I felt that same resilience show in the Dallas game, where the Kraken tried to come back from a two-goal deficit again. It’s obviously not a habit you want to fall into, but it’s nice to know the game isn’t over when the other team builds a two-goal lead.
Goaltending has been fine
I’m not suggesting that the goaltending has been outstanding, but it has been solid, and I wouldn’t pin either of the two losses on Grubauer. Joey Daccord’s performance, despite what the advanced analytics might say, was good. According to evolving-hockey.com, Daccord’s expected goals against was 2.98, but he allowed 3.83 (per 60 minutes). I don’t take issue with Evolving-Hockey’s numbers, but this is one of the challenges with public metrics—they don’t have passing data to factor in the difficulty of shot attempts that come off dangerous passes. More on this in a bit, but the goals from Ryan Hartman and Mats Zuccarello came from passes behind the net, which are extremely hard for goalies to track. I’m sure some Grubauer critics are ready to grind their axes, but relax—it’s early.
Areas of oppportunity
I’m sure the coaches are already doing some root cause analysis, but I see three areas that could be addressed in the coming weeks.
Penalty kill
The Kraken are currently 24th in the league in penalty kill percentage. However, they killed all three penalties against Dallas on Sunday, so the improvement might already be happening. In the St. Louis and Minnesota games, though, it felt like the Kraken were often out of position on the penalty kill, chasing the puck rather than holding their formation. Ironically, neither of the two power-play goals scored against them came directly from those instances, but the disorganization is something that needs to be cleaned up to avoid future struggles.
Power play
The Kraken are now 1-for-7 on the power play this season after going 0-for-4 against Dallas on Sunday. Once set up, the power play has looked more threatening than last season, but they’ve struggled to get set up. On Sunday, they managed six shot attempts in eight minutes of power play time, compared to seven shot attempts in three minutes on Saturday. This suggests some progress, but on Sunday they had trouble getting into their setup. This could be due to Dallas’s aggressive penalty kill or early-season adjustments as players learn each other’s tendencies.
One issue I noticed on the power play, and the data supports this, is that the Kraken are struggling to gain possession after faceoffs. While not a perfect proxy for possession, faceoff wins are a leading indicator. The Kraken have won only 31% of their power-play faceoffs, well below the league average of 54%. With an extra skater on the ice, this number should be higher. It’s something to keep an eye on over the next few games.
Unchallenged shots allowed from the slot
Whether it’s early-season rust or too many Jucy Lucys at Shamrocks the night before, the goals the Kraken allowed on Saturday were just too easy. Mats Zuccarello and Ryan Hartman both scored off passes from behind the goal line, which are difficult for goalies to defend. Kirill Kaprizov had an easy path to the top of the crease to tip in a pass from the point, and Matt Boldy’s goal, while on the power play, came from having far too much time and space to get an unchallenged shot. This issue only popped up in the Minnesota game, but it was concerning. You don’t often see unchallenged shots from high-danger areas that aren’t part of a rush. The Kraken battled back but were lucky to get a win given the defensive breakdowns that led to goals.
Again, it’s only three games, but there’s a lot to be encouraged by—especially when compared to the first six games of last season, where they managed just two points. I’m not suggesting this is a playoff team yet, but they’re better than last season’s team.
Other musings
I audibly groaned when I found out Marc-André Fleury would be the starter for the Wild against the Kraken on Saturday. Going into that game, Fleury was 5-2-1 with a save percentage of .930 against the Kraken. He owned them.
Despite the public sentiment, the Kraken were decent in shootouts last season, winning three out of seven games that went to a shootout.
The Kraken never led in Saturday night’s win against the Wild—a feat they only accomplished once last season when they beat the Flyers in overtime at the end of December.
The boys were shut out on Sunday, but they’ve scored six goals in three games so far. That’s not a lot, but last year they only had two goals in their first three games. We still haven’t seen any goals from Oliver Bjorkstrand, Andre Burakovsky, Eeli Tolvanen, or Matty Beniers yet.
Shane Wright looks good, but not great. He seems to be building on each game and will probably be due for a couple of goals by the end of next week.
The Kraken Hockey Network’s studio is beautiful.
It was mentioned on the broadcast last night, but it’s nice to see the reconstruction of a fourth line that can create chances. Yanni Gourde, Brandon Tanev, and Tye Kartye are looking very good relative to their roles.
I saw that Nikita Kucherov had a hat trick over the weekend. Two of his goals were empty-netters, which I found mildly amusing.
After starting their WHL season 1-4-1, the Seattle Thunderbirds have won their last three games, including a big 6-5 win over the Portland Winterhawks. I’m not blaming the slow start on the goalie, but since returning from Buffalo Sabres training camp, goaltender Scott Ratzlaff is 3-0-0.
Do yourself a favor—make an effort to see Landon DuPont play for the Everett Silvertips this season. The exceptional-status defenseman has 12 points in nine games already, and he’s only 15 years old.
Player performances
Dylan Guenther – The former Seattle Thunderbird has five goals in three games this season, including the first goal in Utah Hockey Club’s history. Andrei Loshko – The 4th-round pick for the Seattle Kraken in the 2023 NHL Draft had five points in two games for the Niagara IceDogs in the OHL. He has 12 points in six games this season. Justin Kirkland – The 28-year-old has played 11 NHL games in his career and scored his first NHL goal over the weekend. I love stories like these.
Jared McCann scored his first of the season when he jumped on the ice as the extra skater during a delayed penalty. It was a huge goal for the Kraken and likely played a key role in their victory.
The Kraken came back from a two-goal deficit on Saturday, something they didn’t do at all last season. They also lost after being up by two goals when they allowed St. Louis to come back and win in the season opener. Last season, the Kraken won 82% of the games in which they took a two-goal lead at any point. Here are the % of wins based on a goal differential reached within their games.
The week ahead
The Kraken have one more road game against the Nashville Predators on Tuesday before returning home for a five-game homestand. They will face the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday, and on Saturday they host the currently undefeated Calgary Flames. It’s a low bar, but I feel the team needs at least three out of a possible six points to feel good about the start of the season. Five points or more would be ideal and would put them back on a decent pace. It’s too early to overemphasize any set of games, but after last season’s slow start, it would be nice to not spend the whole year playing catch-up in the standings.
How is everyone feeling out there? Any of you starting to hit the panic button?
For the second night in a row, the Kraken looked sluggish out of the gate and found themselves in a 2-0 hole, this time against the Dallas Stars. They did battle back to tilt the ice more in their favor for good portions of the second and third periods, but they couldn’t any of their 25 shots past Dallas backup goalie Casey DeSmith.
The slow start, combined with a disjointed 13-second stretch, gave the Stars all the scoring they needed to slide past Seattle.
“We make two critical errors, really,” Kraken coach Dan Bylsma said. “The game is full of mistakes, but we make two critical errors, and they end up in the back of our net and got us fighting back for half the game.”
Here are our Three Takeaways from the Kraken’s 2-0 loss to the Stars.
Takeaway #1: 13 ugly seconds
In Seattle’s season-opening loss to the St. Louis Blues last Tuesday, the Kraken were the better team for most of the game. But a two-minute lapse in the second period was enough to give the Blues three goals and an eventual 3-2 victory. A goal against happens—handle it right, and it’s no big deal. But if you let it compound into two or three goals, it becomes a much bigger problem.
This game was a little different from the one last Tuesday. In that game, the three goals came sandwiched between good stretches of Kraken play. But in this one, the two first-period goals from Sam Steel and Wyatt Johnston came during a horrendous opening frame where Seattle was outshot 13-6 and didn’t look ready to face one of the best teams in the NHL. It felt like the dam was bound to break—it was just a matter of time before Dallas broke through.
The first goal came when Will Borgen and Josh Mahura—temporarily paired together with Vince Dunn out of the lineup—got crossed up in coverage. Mahura ended up on the right side, and Borgen found himself shading that way too. He realized the left side was open and started shifting back, but he couldn’t recover in time to take Sam Steel’s stick away at the far post. He tried to deflect the puck, but short king and former Kraken forward Colin Blackwell somehow threaded the needle between Mahura, Borgen, and Philipp Grubauer, and Steel got an easy tap-in.
Just 13 seconds later, the Stars struck again. Off the center-ice face-off, Jamie Benn carried the puck over the blue line, dropped it to Johnston, and drifted toward the net, tying up both Ryker Evans and Adam Larsson in the process. Chandler Stephenson was taking away the cross-slot pass, and Jaden Schwartz was a step too slow in tracking back on Johnston. The result was Johnston having all the time and space he needed to rip a shot off the far post and past Grubauer. More on that in Takeaway #2.
Takeaway #2: Grubauer took heat, but he had a good game
It doesn’t take much for the Grubauer haterz to come out. I understand he’s had ups and downs with the Kraken, and yes, in the context of the game, making a stop on Johnston would have been preferred, especially since it was an unscreened shot from the right dot.
Playing devil’s advocate (and from a goalie’s perspective), Johnston was moving fast, had all the time in the world to pick his spot, and fired a perfect shot. The more concerning issue was the defensive breakdown immediately after the team had just given up a goal. The coverage was, frankly, nonexistent.
If Grubauer “wanted that shot back,” as the saying goes, then he did a great job recovering and keeping Seattle in the game. With the Kraken pressing to create offense in the third, he came up huge with consecutive breakaway saves on Tyler Seguin and Mason Marchment.
In total, Grubauer stopped 22 of 24 shots for a .917 save percentage and 0.77 goals saved above expected, according to MoneyPuck. Meanwhile, his team couldn’t muster any offense at the other end. Despite the Johnston goal, I would call this a positive outing for the netminder.
“I thought Grubi played really well,” Bylsma said. “A couple of times in the first period, there were barrages around the net, and he stood strong. And in the third period, he made those two big breakaway saves that kept us in the game and gave us a chance.”
I’m curious to hear what the comment section thinks about Grubauer’s performance. What say you, folks? Any haterz?
Takeaway #3: Really liking the fourth line
With the promotion of Shane Wright to full-time NHL center and the acquisition of Chandler Stephenson, it seemed throughout the summer that Yanni Gourde was destined for a fourth-line center role. Indeed, he seems to be settling in nicely between Tye Kartye and Brandon Tanev.
Two seasons ago, when the Kraken racked up 100 points and came within one goal of the Western Conference Finals (falling to these same Dallas Stars in seven games), a huge part of their success was the fourth line pushing the pace every night. When the top three lines struggled to generate offense, the fourth line consistently stepped up and gave the team a spark.
In the last two games, I’ve seen signs that something similar could happen this season. Kartye scored a crucial goal Saturday to get the Kraken level with the Wild, and while the fourth line didn’t score against Dallas, one could argue it helped turn the tide in the second period. When they were on the ice, the trio dominated possession, registering 70 percent of attempted shots and 76 percent of the shot quality, according to Natural Stat Trick.
There’s been plenty of talk about Tanev being a trade target because of his relatively high salary for a fourth-liner and the team’s cap situation. But mayyyyyyyybe Seattle should hang on to him, at least until they start stringing together some wins.
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 was a fun night at Xcel Energy Center, where the Seattle Kraken jumped on the coattails of captain Jordan Eberle and rode his two goals, plus the deciding shootout tally, to their first win of the season—a 5-4 victory over the Minnesota Wild.
The Kraken trailed by two, erased that deficit, and then trailed by one twice more but continually fought back.
“I don’t think you want to get into the habit of having to do that,” said head coach Dan Bylsma, who also earned his first victory as Kraken head coach. “But it was the story of the game. We got it back 2-2, they got another one, we got a great goal by the [Tye Kartye] line, and then they scored again, and we had to come up with one late to claw back into it.”
Indeed, it was a resilient performance by Seattle, which did not always look like the better team on this night but found a way to earn two points in the end.
Here are our Three Takeaways from Seattle’s 5-4 shootout win over the Wild.
Takeaway #1: A big night for Captain Ebs
Seattle was fortunate to reach the first intermission trailing just 1-0 after the Wild appeared to score a power-play goal at the horn. However, the green light (indicating 0.0) appeared behind the net just before the puck crossed the line, and the Kraken briefly avoided that two-goal deficit. With plenty of penalty time left, Minnesota’s potent power play went right back to work at the start of the second, and Matt Boldy struck to officially make it 2-0.
At this point, it felt like things were heading in the wrong direction for the Kraken, but Eberle sprang into action. Just 40 seconds after Boldy’s goal, Eberle went hard to the net and kept pounding away until the puck snuck through a sprawled Marc-Andre Fleury and trickled over the line to make it 2-1.
“It’s getting to the blue paint and having a presence in the blue paint,” Bylsma said. “It took two or three whacks to get it in the back of the net, but Jordan Eberle gets his 300th career goal right where it should be, right in the blue paint.”
Then, six minutes later, the Kraken power play connected on its first opportunity of the night. After hitting multiple posts and keeping Minnesota on the ropes for a bit, Andre Burakovsky sent a hard shot-pass toward Eberle at the far post, and the puck caromed in off his skate.
Boom. Two-goal deficit erased.
“We were kind of snapping it around, which was great,” Eberle said. “The power play, in my opinion, is all about momentum and confidence, and hopefully we can continue that.”
As if the two goals weren’t enough, Eberle followed Oliver Bjorkstrand’s beautiful equalizer in the shootout with a well-placed snapshot of his own, the eventual shootout winner after Boldy fired his attempt wide of Joey Daccord.
Before the season, I hypothesized that Kartye could be ready for a bigger role and more production. He has a huge shot and was a prolific scorer at the AHL level, so with almost a full season of NHL experience under his belt, my theory was that he would find more ways to put his shot to work. He did that Saturday to give Seattle another response goal just 1:06 after Kirill Kaprizov made it 3-2.
With linemates Brandon Tanev and Yanni Gourde battling in the corner, Kartye went to the left circle and did well to find just a little area of quiet space. The Wild defenders were puck watching, and by the time they realized Kartye was unmarked, the puck was on and off his stick and into the back of Minnesota’s net to tie the game 3-3.
Not to be outdone, Jared McCann notched another equalizer for the Kraken at 16:34 of the third. Eberle (who else?) had gone hard to the net and drawn a penalty. On the delayed call, McCann slid down the wall, took a pass in his wheelhouse from Ryker Evans, and launched a heat-seeking missile that whistled past Fleury’s ear and under the bar.
“It’s just Jared McCann being Jared McCann on a great shot there,” Bylsma said. “It allowed us to get to overtime and allowed us to get to the shootout, and it’s great to claw out a win that way.”
Takeaway #3: Vince Dunn injured?
One negative from this game was Vince Dunn taking a heavy hit into the endboards from Marcus Foligno near the end of the third period and heading to the bench hunched over and furious. He stayed on the bench for a bit in visible distress before trying a “test-it-out” twirl at the last stoppage of the game. After just a couple seconds on the ice, Dunn went down the tunnel and did not return for the overtime period.
When asked if Dunn would play Sunday in the Kraken’s back-to-back game against the Dallas Stars, Bylsma said, “That’s a wait and see. We’ll see. He was smiling after the game, so we’ll see what it is for tomorrow.”
The fact that Dunn is being considered for Sunday is a good sign, but I’ve been fooled by these kinds of signs before. Dunn missed significant time last season and is one of the cornerstones of this team, so Kraken fans will be holding their breath to see if he emerges with the team in Dallas.
Another angle here is that Seattle is cap-strapped and only has space for one extra player, Josh Mahura, who is on the trip. If he gets pressed into action, the decision to keep Mahura (a defenseman) over John Hayden or Ryan Winterton will prove to be a good one. However, if Dunn misses time, and then another player has to leave the lineup for any reason, things could get very interesting.
For now, just keep your fingers crossed that Dunn is okay.
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.
Statistically, the Seattle Kraken power play wasn’t horrible last season. Over the entirety of the 2023-24 campaign, it converted on 20.7 percent of its opportunities, ranking 17th in the NHL. But as the season progressed, even an untrained eye could recognize what the team was trying to do. The play became stagnant and—at times—downright predictable.
Players would get into their 1-3-1 positions, barely move their feet, and look for a pass, usually to Jared McCann, who would be sneaking down from the blue line to the top of the left circle. If that didn’t work, they’d scamper back to their positions and try again.
Now, the Kraken have a new coaching staff at the helm, and Dan Bylsma has tasked Bob Woods and Jessica Campbell with making the power play units more dynamic.
“Jess and Woody have done a great job of just giving us the tools and just giving us the options to kind of keep moving and open up plays that maybe we wouldn’t have seen before,” McCann said. “And they’re giving us some leeway with doing our own thing, too, which we like… We’re not just looking for the same plays anymore.”
We began to see this more fluid approach in the preseason when the Kraken mixed and matched NHL, AHL, and even CHL personnel on their power play chances, which resulted in an uninspiring 2-for-26 success rate.
“We’re only going to talk about the percentage, but the power play and penalty kill are factors in every game,” Bylsma added. “And that’s not just from scoring goals or keeping goals out of the net. It’s about gaining momentum for your team and creating opportunities.”
Let’s dig in to understand the updates the Kraken have made to their power play this season.
Upgraded personnel showing some flashes
Bylsma highlighted a few specific preseason power plays that looked the way he wanted them to look. These included opportunities in the last meaningless game against Edmonton, in which the team nearly scored on multiple occasions, and the final power play in Calgary in Seattle’s penultimate exhibition game. Ironically, the Kraken went 0-for-5 in that game against the Flames with the man advantage, but then came out for a sixth opportunity early in the third period and immediately converted.
On that goal in Calgary, all five players touched the puck, using a mix of exterior and seam passes. Shane Wright ultimately cleaned up a rebound for what looked like an easy goal.
In Seattle’s season-opening 3-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday, the Kraken only got one power play opportunity, and neither of the two units converted during the two-minute advantage. But even in that small sample size, you could see what the team was trying to do, and both units came within inches of tying the game.
For that contest, the units consisted of Brandon Montour, Chandler Stephenson, Shane Wright, Oliver Bjorkstrand, and Jaden Schwartz on one, and Vince Dunn, Andre Burakovsky, Matty Beniers, McCann, and Jordan Eberle on the other. We had previously assumed the Dunn-backed unit was the No. 1 power play, but Montour’s group went over the boards first on Tuesday. On paper, these two groupings present a greater scoring threat than what Seattle iced last season.
“Chan is so, so smooth with the puck, he’s such a great skater. He’s going to help us a lot on the entries, and he can make a play. He can also shoot the puck pretty well, too,” McCann said. “Monty back there adds a little level of poise, and he’s got a missile, too, obviously. You saw that in the last [preseason game] when he blew one through the goalie. So I feel like we’ve added some threats to our team, some bigger options, and it’s going to open up everybody else too, myself included.”
Regardless of which group is PP1 and which is PP2, both have so far looked notably different from last season.
More movement, more “freedom”
During that lone 5-on-4 Tuesday, there were two great opportunities to score, both of which came after stretches of strong player and puck movement. The first chance came from the Montour unit.
In the below clip, you’ll see the initial 1-3-1 setup. Montour is the “one” at the blue line, Stephenson (right halfwall), Wright (middle/“bumper” position), and Bjorkstrand (left halfwall) are the “three” in a line across the hashmarks and face-off dots, and Schwartz is the other “one” as the net-front presence. This is similar to what we saw last year and to what all NHL teams run to some degree.
In both groups, the blue line and right halfwall players act as “quarterbacks,” with the puck typically returning to them for distribution or shooting.
With 12:50 left on the clock, the stylistic change from last season becomes apparent. While last year’s team might have stuck rigidly to the 1-3-1, Stephenson shifts to the blue line, Montour moves to the left halfwall, and Bjorkstrand and Wright both push low toward the goal line. Bjorkstrand attempts a cross-crease pass to a crashing Wright, Montour reads the play and slides into the slot, and the result is a high-danger chance that rings off the crossbar.
From the PK perspective, it’s chaotic. Players are moving all around the zone, and with the numerical disadvantage, it becomes nearly impossible to stick to assignments.
“Movement is key,” Montour said. “Obviously, we’re snapping it around. You’ve got to play quick… You want to make plays and find that perfect play, but in the end, power plays are simple. You’ve got to get shots to the net and move the puck, which is what we were doing there.”
When the other unit took the ice on Tuesday, it also created confusion for the Blues killers, ending with Jordan Binnington barely fighting off a high shot from Dunn.
This group stuck more closely to the 1-3-1 formation but still showed creativity. McCann continued to act as the “climber,” starting high in the zone and looking for an opportunity to drive toward the circle. We saw this often over the last couple of seasons, to the point it became obvious Seattle was trying to get McCann the puck when he started rolling toward the net.
“I just feel like I open up other options if I’m that guy climbing because I can score coming down from pretty high,” McCann said of the theory behind the climber play. “I feel like I can get the puck to the net, and obviously, it depends on the screen, and if I can get it through the defenseman’s layer, but it’s just something I’ve always worked on.”
What’s different now is that McCann isn’t the only shooting threat. In the clip, Beniers is in the bumper position and Eberle is at the net-front. As the puck moves up the wall (11:58 left on the clock), Beniers shifts, and the Kraken overload the left side with four players (Dunn, McCann, Beniers, and Eberle).
Beniers is now in a spot we rarely saw him in last season, playing along the same wall as McCann. As expected, McCann gets rolling downhill, drawing attention from the Blues. Dunn capitalizes by finding Beniers, who walks in and shoots, putting St. Louis on the ropes. Initially, the Blues are too condensed, and then they overcompensate, becoming too spread out when the puck goes back to Dunn at the blue line. Dunn gets a great look from the top of the slot, but Binnington manages to deflect it.
**Editor’s note: How did Justin Faulk’s crosscheck to Matty’s back as the previous penalty was expiring not get called?**
Here’s the difference this season from Dunn’s point of view: “I think it’s just more freedom… We still want to be really predictable until we get into the flow of things, and then we can look to think outside the box a little bit more. But it’s nice that we don’t feel any pressure to be so stationary.
“Where guys are, they’re comfortable, and they know that if they get flipped around, they’re not running back to their spots. Everyone has the ability to play in different positions.”
Will the new Kraken power play approach work?
What we’ve seen from the Kraken power play in games and practices has been encouraging, but the results haven’t come yet. They have the personnel and game plan to confuse and challenge opposing penalty kills but need to score a couple of power-play goals to build confidence in this new approach.
Bylsma knows that improvement here is essential if Seattle wants to score more this season.
“Teams can play well by just having a good power play… some teams can,” Bylsma said. “And so the power play can establish your team game with how you operate, how they execute, and how they play.”
Has the team made enough advancement for Bylsma to like what he has seen?
“Difficult to say… That will remain a work in progress.”
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.
One of the lingering questions about what the Seattle Kraken would do after this season has already been answered. General manager Ron Francis got ahead of the game and signed goalie Joey Daccord to a five-year, $25 million contract extension (a “Daccord Accord” if you will) on Wednesday, locking the netminder in with the organization.
“Joey stepped up last season and proved his ability to handle an increased workload,” Francis said. “We’re confident he can take his game to another level, and we’re excited to have him under contract long term.”
Indeed, the Kraken are betting that Daccord will continue his upward trajectory, which elevated him to borderline No. 1 goalie status last season. The 28-year-old from Boston posted a solid .916 save percentage and a 2.46 goals-against average in his first full NHL season, while recording a 19-18-11 record for a team that finished well outside the playoff picture.
The new Daccord contract kicks in next season, following the conclusion of his current two-year deal that pays him $1.2 million annually. So, Daccord will theoretically remain with Seattle through the 2029-30 season, and he will hit unrestricted free agency at age 33.
Lots of money in the goal crease
On its own, this is a solid deal for both player and team. It’s a massive and well-deserved pay raise for Daccord, who is widely regarded as one of the best to work with in the game and has endeared himself to fans in both Seattle and Coachella Valley, where he previously starred for the Firebirds. He emerged onto the national stage last season when he pitched a shutout in the Winter Classic at T-Mobile Park on New Year’s Day, an unforgettable experience for all involved.
If you haven’t listened to our recent podcast interview with Daccord, you can check that out here, and you’ll get a feel for how he is as a person. If you didn’t love Joey before, you will after you listen to that interview.
On the ice, Daccord has developed into the player Seattle hoped for when they selected him from the Ottawa Senators in the Expansion Draft.
If Daccord were the only goaltender under contract for next season and beyond, we would be doing cartwheels in celebration of the signing. The one concern, though, is that Philipp Grubauer still has this season plus two more left on his deal at $5.9 million average annual value. So, for next season and the season after, the Kraken will be on the hook for roughly $10.9 million in cap hit dedicated to their netminders.
Now, the good news on this front is that A.) the cap is projected to go up next season, and B.) Seattle has some contracts set to come off the books, such as those of Yanni Gourde and Brandon Tanev. Will Borgen will also be a UFA after this season, but we have to think there’s mutual interest for him to stick around.
As of today, without increasing the cap, Seattle projects to have around $8 million in cap space before (potentially) re-signing Borgen and backfilling for Gourde and Tanev, who we assume will move on after this season. If the cap goes up, say, five percent, then the Kraken would project to have closer to $12 million in space.
Betting on Daccord
We know the organization thinks very highly of Joey, and this deal proves that out. Clearly, the team believes he has not reached his full potential yet, and that he will begin to take over as a true No. 1 in the next season or two.
IF he does reach the level of consistency that the front office is hoping he will, then this could prove to be a great deal. Heck, if Daccord can reach Juuse Saros-level performance, which he already statistically exceeded last season (Saros had a 2.86 GAA and .906 save percentage in 64 appearances), then this could prove to be a steal. Saros, by the way, starts a new contract next season that will pay him $7.74 million for eight years.
The fact of the matter is that the sample size of NHL experience remains small for Daccord, though, and that makes this deal a bit risky.
What do you think, folks? Do you like the five-year Daccord contract extension?
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.
