After the Seattle Kraken played Games 1 and 2 of their second-round series against the Stars in Dallas, the NHL playoff schedule granted them a rare two-day break before Game 3 in Seattle. This feels like a perfect time to reflect on what transpired in those first two contests in another installment of the Kraken Roundtable.
Our contributors, John Barr, Darren Brown, Josh Horton, and Curtis Isacke, put their heads together to discuss what they’ve learned and how the Kraken can win this series against the Stars.
Who is your unsung hero of the playoffs for the Kraken?
Darren Brown: Well the “sung” hero is obviously Philipp Grubauer, who has been dazzling through nine playoff games and has given his team a chance to win every game. But since the question is “unsung” hero, I’m going to go with Jaden Schwartz.
Schwartz is so fun to watch on the forecheck and in the offensive zone, and he has seemed to find another gear to his game in the postseason. He so far has three goals and three assists, but it’s not just the points he has contributed that has earned him the “unsung hero” award in my eyes; it’s the way he pursues pucks in the offensive zone, blocks shots, and does everything he can to create opportunities for his linemates.
Remember, Schwartz had 20 points in the playoffs the year the Blues won the Stanley Cup, and that is no coincidence. He is a playoff performer, and he is showing it for the Kraken.
Josh Horton: For the entirety of the season, but especially in the playoffs, Adam Larsson stands out. He eats a ton of minutes and does a lot of little things that can turn narrow losses into narrow wins.
John Barr: Morgan Geekie. After playing center all season, Geekie was slotted as a wing with Schwartz and Wennberg a couple weeks before the end of the season. His stats do not jump off the screen, but he has scored a couple big goals in key victories for the Kraken this playoff run and is generating scoring opportunities in his elevated role. Since Jared McCann went out, coach Dave Hakstol has also started to deploy Geekie on the power play, and I would not be surprised if he finds the net again in the next two games.
Curtis Isacke: Good answers, gang. I’ll go a bit off the board and say Justin Schultz. He has two goals and two assists through nine games. During his five-on-five minutes, he is top-five on the team in expected goals for percentage and leads the team with a +7 goal differential. The Kraken are +2 in goal differential with Schultz on the ice on the power play, and he leads the team in expected goal percentage with the man advantage among players with at least six minutes of power play time. Overall, he is first among Kraken blueliners in individual expected goals created per sixty minutes.
Of course, Yanni Gourde deserves as much praise as can be heaped on him for the job he did shadowing Nathan MacKinnon versus the Avalanche. But since his praises have rightfully been sung, I went with Schultz. Schultz is on the opposite extreme from Gourde in terms of on-ice exposure and degree of difficulty. He has seen much easier matchups, and he is fifth of six in total ice time for Kraken blueliners. But “easy” matchups are favorable only if the team actually converts those chances, and Schultz has delivered. In doing so, he has been a (somewhat surprising) positive for the team during this run.
What did we learn in Games 1 and 2?
JH: We learned the Kraken’s forecheck is for real and that Dave Hakstol deserves his flowers.
Some were uninspired by Hakstol’s hiring before last season, and he received heat from fans early on as the team found its footing. But what he’s done implementing an ultra-disruptive defensive system that not only causes absolute chaos for the opponent, but complements the personnel perfectly, has been the difference in the Kraken emerging as contenders for the Stanley Cup Final and avoiding a token first-round exit in their second season.
The forecheck is helping to produce offense at five-on-five, and Seattle is jumping out in front of teams because of it. What’s more, the Kraken aren’t sitting on their heels and trying to nurse those leads. It’s another testament to Hakstol, not only installing an effective system, but instilling a general attitude of staying on the gas instead of running out the clock.
JB: We learned that the Kraken’s depth in the regular season can translate to playoff success.
All season long the strength of the Kraken has been their depth, but without a comparable team in recent history, it was never clear if it was going to translate to playoff success. The Kraken had 15 unique goal scorers in Round 1 and five different players scored in Game 1 against the Stars. It has to be challenging for opposing coaches to figure out how to match lines when you never know what line will get going next.
CI: The Kraken do not have the skill to keep pace in a back-and-forth, wide-open game against Dallas. To survive, the Kraken need to play their forechecking scheme fast and clean to keep Dallas hemmed into its own zone. When well executed, this “best defense is a good offense” approach limits the volume of rush chances going the other way and reduces the five-on-five possession time in the Kraken zone.
Equally important, Seattle needs to keep its discipline and avoid confounding, needless penalties. If Dallas gets three-plus power play chances a game, it will be very difficult for Seattle to keep pace because the Stars are lethal on the man advantage.
It will take all eighteen skaters playing connected, structured hockey to win three more against this talented Dallas squad.
DB: I think the Kraken got tired. Their system is aggressive and requires them to play fast and on their toes to be successful. After riding adrenaline and the emotional high of their Game 7 win in Denver to get them through Game 1, they didn’t have the same jump in Game 2. They weren’t on the Dallas defenders instantaneously in Game 2 like they were in Game 1, and once they took a couple penalties, they were cooked.
Two days off couldn’t have come at a better time.
What is the biggest surprise of Round 2 so far?
CI: Tye Kartye’s strong performance in this series continues to surprise. He has been on the ice for two Kraken goals for and zero goals against. (Overall in the playoffs it is four goals for and zero against.) This success is supported by a strong shot quality disparity while he is out there; he leads the team with 75.69 percent expected goals for percentage during his 26:07 time on ice in the series.
The eye test (as measured by these eyes) has been equally complimentary. He is playing at full speed, using his body to protect the puck or separate others from it, and his wrist shot looks NHL-caliber. He has made a few questionable decisions with the puck in the defensive zone, and the team has sheltered his minutes late in games and in clear defensive situations, but it is hard not to be impressed with the 22-year-old rookie.
JH: Kartye stood out to me, too, Curtis.
In the interest of originality, Jason Robertson’s quiet series has really caught me off guard. The Stars don’t profile as the splashiest team, but the young talents like Robertson, Wyatt Johnston, and Roope Hintz have lured me into watching a few Stars games this year. Those other guys have been noticeable, but Robertson really hasn’t. I think Dallas needs to get him going as the series pivots to Seattle.
DB: This may sound a bit cocky, but I don’t think this is as tough a matchup for the Kraken as Colorado was. That’s the opposite of what I thought coming in, because Dallas has more balance than the Avs, so I expected Dallas to scare me more than the Avalanche’s two-line team. The high-end skill of the Stars isn’t nearly as terrifying as that of the Avalanche, though, and the Kraken showed in Game 1 that their style of play–when they have their legs under them–can keep them in games with Dallas and even give them a good chance to win the series.
JB: I am not sure if it is really a surprise, but Matty Beniers has been very quiet over the last few games. He has been playing fine but not having those breakout moments that we were accustomed to seeing during the regular season. Part of that might be the elevated physicality of the playoffs, and part of it might be Dallas keying in on Matty to limit his chances.
What will be the key to the Kraken advancing past Round 2?
CI: As mentioned above, limiting Dallas’s power-play opportunities is of paramount importance. So far, Grubauer has been the team’s best answer during manpower disadvantages. He has saved almost four goals above expected on the penalty kill during this playoff run, per Natural Stat Trick. But the team cannot necessarily rely on that to continue. The skaters in front of Grubauer need to do a better job avoiding penalties and suppressing shot quality when penalties do occur.
In this matchup, Seattle needs to find a way to disrupt Dallas’s high-to-low passes, which get the puck down near the goal line in a threatening position to either directly create a scoring chance or pull the second layer of Kraken defenders out of position for a return pass to the slot.
I am tempted to say the Kraken should try to get more width in their defensive structure to dissuade these attempts, but this would open the slot player for more tips and shots. Instead, Seattle’s top layer defender may need to get more aggressive pressuring the strong-side puck carrier and, in tandem, the strong-side defender in the second layer of the diamond must be ready to get back down toward the goal earlier to anticipate and disrupt these plays.
JB: Parlaying on Curtis’s comments above, the Kraken will need to minimize the power play opportunities for Dallas. The penalty kill has been outstanding during the playoffs, but being shorthanded seems to really disrupt the flow and momentum for the Kraken and makes the impact of penalties greater than the two minutes they are at a disadvantage. During the playoffs, when the Kraken have had to kill three or more penalties in a game, their win-loss record is just 1-3. Meanwhile the Stars are 4-1 when getting three or more power play opportunities.
DB: Agreed, penalties are a big deal, but beyond that, the Kraken need to stay on their toes. They had a good first period going in Thursday’s Game 2 but eased off the pedal once they got into penalty trouble. When they play on their heels and allow their opposition to gain momentum, it seems to be tough for the Kraken to slow things down, especially as the fatigue of the postseason continues to take its toll.
The Kraken are at their best when the opposition has no time and space to make breakout passes or to rush through the neutral zone. Once they ease off even a little, things go sideways.
JH: Philipp Grubauer has been fantastic and has silenced a lot of haters this postseason. With the Kraken’s lack of top-end firepower and their aggressive style of play, it will be imperative Grubauer continues to make key saves to keep the Kraken in games.
The second-round series between the Kraken and the Stars is now tied at 1-1 after a tired-looking performance by Seattle in Game 2. The Kraken hung in through 20 minutes, thanks in large part to Philipp Grubauer (again), but costly penalties got the snowball rolling downhill, and it couldn’t be stopped.
“It’s different when you make a team work for their power plays,” said coach Dave Hakstol. “That’s a pretty different scenario than the way it went tonight for us. That’s just black and white. That’s an easy factor for us to pinpoint.”
Here are our Three Takeaways from a 4-2 Game 2 Kraken loss to the Stars.
Takeaway #1: Costly penalties
The first period was a solid road period for the Kraken, up until an unfortunate delay-of-game penalty by Carson Soucy with four minutes left in the frame. That one was just bad luck, and although the Stars didn’t score on the power play, it gave them momentum as the period came to an end. Grubauer was forced to be outstanding in the closing minutes of the opening period, though he did get his teammates to the room tied 0-0.
In the second period, Soucy found himself in the box again, and this visit came after an undisciplined decision. Mason Marchment—who ironically got away with punching and cross checking Morgan Geekie in Game 1 when Geekie was down on the ice—ran his face into Soucy’s shoulder. Marchment flopped like a fish, drawing an interference call on Soucy, but also an embellishment call on himself.
Soucy should have left it at that, but he went back after Marchment and whacked him on the ankle, taking an extra two minutes and giving Dallas its second power play.
“Each of the first two power plays, they generated a ton of momentum off of those,” said Hakstol. “The puck goes in the stands, that’s a tough one, but we’ve got to take care of our discipline [on] the last two power plays. This is a team that came into the series at 37.5 percent and feeling pretty good.”
The Stars are lethal with the man advantage, and although they again didn’t score on the Soucy penalty, they did break through just seven seconds after the penalty had ended. Wyatt Johnston tipped a shot into Philipp Grubauer’s chest, and Grubauer—like on the third Joe Pavelski goal in Game 1—couldn’t corral it. Johnston got his own rebound and made it 1-0.
Later in the period, with Seattle down 2-1, Will Borgen got tangled up with Evgenii Dadonov behind Seattle’s net. Borgen had his lower hand off his stick, and Dadonov did a good job of getting in on Borgen’s hands to draw a holding call. This time, the dangerous power play unit of the Stars struck officially, as Pavelski scored his fifth goal in two games off a Johnston rebound.
Though Seattle only took the three penalties in the game, it was enough to turn the tide. It had shades of Game 6 against Colorado, when the tired Kraken got caught chasing the Avs in their own zone and were repeatedly forced to drag players down.
Takeaway #2: Face-offs remain an issue
The Kraken have often overcome poor performances in the face-off circle this season, but Thursday’s showing in that area was especially bad. The Kraken won just 31 percent of face-offs, and an abysmal 22 percent of defensive-zone draws.
That’s damaging to everyone on the ice, but especially your goalie, who is getting worn out by his teammates being stuck in the defensive zone. He gets a whistle for you, then you go out and lose the face-off, and the pressure continues.
Fans may not realize this, but even if shots aren’t getting through, it is taxing for a goalie when the puck gets hemmed in the defensive zone for extended periods. The goalie is crouching, pushing from post-to-post, and dropping down into the butterfly position and getting up repeatedly, and all that takes its toll on the body.
Mix in some Grade-A opportunities—Dallas got plenty of those Thursday—and you’ve cooked your netminder and yourselves by losing face-offs repeatedly.
The fourth goal by Dallas, which put the game fully out of reach, came immediately after a face-off in the defensive zone. Ryan Donato lost the draw to Tyler Seguin (Donato was just 1-for-7 on the night), then Seguin went right to the net and tipped a Thomas Harley shot through Grubauer.
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights (@HockeyDaily365) May 5, 2023
There isn’t an easy fix for this problem. Centers don’t just get better at this overnight; it’s a skill that players have to improve upon over time. But that’s the reason a lot of us were hoping Seattle might make a trade for somebody at the deadline who could win a key face-off. It’s also the tradeoff you make by having Morgan Geekie on the wing in Andre Burakovsky’s spot.
Takeaway #3: A good time for some rest
The Kraken have played high-intensity playoff hockey every other day for two and a half weeks. They have shown signs of being tired at times during this run, and we thought Thursday was one of those nights.
Thanks to some scheduling challenges at Climate Pledge Arena, this series now takes a two-day hiatus, giving the group a chance to get home, see their families, and recharge. With two huge home games on the horizon and the series tied 1-1, the brief break couldn’t come at a better time.
“We’re comfortable on the road, I just think we were a little bit safe, and that’s where our team struggles,” said Vince Dunn. “We need to be more on our toes, more aggressive. We’re not the biggest, most physical team always, so we need to use our speed and our sticks and our ability to be tight together and aggressive to create offensive chances.”
Getting a couple days to rest the legs should help the Kraken get back to that kind of tenacious game we’ve seen from them in these playoffs.
The Kraken remain in a good spot after a road split to open the series, but they do also need to figure out how to win in their building, where they lost two out of three in Round 1.
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.
Now that we are through the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, I thought it would be fun to look at the data behind the rosters and try to evaluate how they were built.
Player acquisition type
NHL Entry Draft, free agency, trades, and waiver wire acquisitions are all the various ways a team can build a roster. To build a contender, you need to use every tool at your disposal. Let’s look at how the 16 playoff teams built their rosters.
There is an adage in hockey that to be successful, you need to build your team through the draft, but three teams (Florida, Seattle, and Vegas) of the eight that are still alive in the Stanley Cup Playoffs have less than 15 percent of their rosters constructed through the draft.
It’s interesting to see the Dallas Stars have the highest percentage of players that were acquired via the NHL Entry Draft, being that they are facing the Kraken in the second round who have the lowest percentage of players from the draft. From the Seattle perspective, that is expected due to the team only having two entry drafts under its belt.
To add some context around the roster composition, we should look at which players are scoring each team’s goals by acquisition type.
Generally speaking, more goals are scored by players that were acquired via the draft compared to players acquired in other ways. The big outlier here is the Florida Panthers. 70 percent of the Panthers’ goals this postseason have come from players acquired via trade. Matthew Tkachuk, Sam Reinhart, Sam Bennett, and Brandon Montour have 19 combined goals in the playoffs heading into Game 2 of their series against Toronto.
Here is a look at the average contributions this playoff by acquisition type:
Draft rounds
Regardless of the acquisition type, it is also fun to look at how many players each team has from each draft round.
As one would expect, players that were selected in the first-round account for the highest percentage of drafted players on the rosters. Vegas is the lone exception, as they have notoriously traded away a lot of their prospects (Cody Glass, Nick Suzuki, Erik Brannstrom, and Peyton Krebs) over the years to acquire players in their prime and give themselves a chance to win now.
Roster ages
The average age of a team is also an appealing data point to evaluate.
Boston was the oldest team to make the playoffs, with New Jersey being the youngest. It is also interesting to see that most teams have an elder statesman (over 35 years old), but the Kraken, Rangers, and Devils do not.
Height and weight of NHL playoff rosters
Here is a quick peek at the height and weight of all Stanley Cup Playoff teams.
It is important to point out that this aggregated view is not a weighted (no pun intended) average of minutes played and could be a little misleading when it comes to which players are logging the most minutes and how it could relate to the team height and weight.
Here is a look at the player detail behind the weight of the players:
How about the Big Rig, Jamie Oleksiak, weighing in at 257 pounds? Amazing to see how tight the Kraken are weight-wise, compared to other teams. I don’t think that is an advantage or disadvantage, just interesting to see the range compared to the other teams.
Roster breakdown by nationality
Finally, we will take a look at the nationality of the players on Stanley Cup Playoff rosters.
Vegas is the most Canadian team to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs this season. Is that because of the “snowbird” connection? Perhaps.
This was a very simple view at evaluating the rosters, but we hope it gives you a different perspective when watching this year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs. If you have questions about the data or some additional angles you would like me to consider, let me know in the comments section.
The magical playoff ride continued Tuesday. The Seattle Kraken picked up right where they left off after their first-round win over Colorado and beat the Dallas Stars in their building to take a 1-0 series lead.
Game 1 wasn’t devoid of drama, as Seattle had to overcome one of the most epic individual playoff performances we’ve seen, yet somehow, they skated away with a massive 5-4 overtime win.
“That’s how you want to start the series,” said overtime hero, Yanni Gourde. “It’s going to be a tough series. We know how good and strong they are… It’s a huge game, first one.”
Here are our Three Takeaways from another heart-pounding Kraken win, this time over the Stars.
Takeaway #1: A bonkers first period
It was a tad concerning to see the Kraken concede the first goal of the game for the first time all playoffs, when Joe Pavelski rifled a perfect shot past Philipp Grubauer at 2:25 of the first period. Nerves across Seattle were temporarily settled nine minutes later, when Esa Lindell coughed the puck up to Jordan Eberle, who tapped it to Morgan Geekie, who tapped it to Jaden Schwartz, who shuffled it between the pads of Jake Oettinger.
Ok, 1-1 game, everything will calm down from here on, right? WRONG!
Pavelski added his second of the game off a high tip (he is truly the best in the league at tipping pucks) to make it 2-1, then Justin Schultz, Oliver Bjorkstrand, and Eberle all scored within a 53-second span to give Seattle a 4-2 lead before the end of the first period.
We won’t painstakingly walk through every goal the Kraken scored in that chaotic frame, but we will say our favorite of the lot was the Schultz goal. That’s because it was the product of good, hard work by the fourth line, with Brandon Tanev winning a board battle against two Dallas players, then Ryan Donato making a perfect pass to Schultz, who had a nice finish.
#SeaKraken second goal comes off a beautiful pass by Ryan Donato after he supports the puck battle low in the zone.
“We had a pretty good first period,” said Schwartz. “Obviously, they were pretty opportunistic there, but we did a good job of staying with it, coming out, being aggressive… A bit of a wild first period, but I thought we were on our toes, and we were aggressive.”
It was an impressive onslaught by the Kraken, who hung four goals on Oettinger in 15 minutes. That was—as Mike Kelly from NHL Network pointed out—as many goals as Minnesota scored in the last three games of their first-round series against Dallas.
The vibes were good after the first.
Takeaway #2: The Joe Pavelski Show is ruined by Seattle
Pavelski’s two goals in the first were only the opening act of his smash hit spectacular. Coming back from a scary injury after a high hit by Matt Dumba in Game 1 of Dallas versus Minnesota, any production from the 38-year-old Pavelski on this night would have drawn critical acclaim. But Pavelski had a performance for the ages, only to have it ruined by a Seattle win in overtime.
“Joe Pavelski, what a performance,” said coach Dave Hakstol. “I think he’s played close to 1300 NHL regular-season games, and I don’t know how many playoff games. But he showed what kind of a competitor he is tonight. Obviously he gave us a lot of trouble.”
After a much tighter-checking second period, Seattle had a chance to put the game away in the third, when Eberle stole a puck deep in the offensive zone and handed it off to Matty Beniers for what looked like a sure goal. But with a mostly open net, Beniers rang it hard off the post, which kept the lead at 4-2.
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights (@HockeyDaily365) May 3, 2023
A few minutes later, after Dallas had killed Mason Marchment’s undisciplined minor penalty on Geekie that absolutely should have been four minutes, the second act of the Pavelski Show began.
Jamie Benn took a shot that hit Philipp Grubauer right in the chest. The sure-handed playoff version of Grubauer looked like he was ready to clamp that puck down for a whistle, but it popped out for Pavelski to bang home his easiest goal of the night, and that brought out the hats.
Joe Pavelski drives to the net and cleans up Benn's rebound to finish off the HAT TRICK, Stars within 1!
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights (@HockeyDaily365) May 3, 2023
The Pavelski Show finally reached its climax at 13:23 of the third when he batted a puck out of the air to beat Grubauer for the fourth time on the night.
“Pavelski had a good night,” said Schwartz. “[He had] a couple good redirections, and that’s where he scores a lot of his goals, so we’ve got to be aware of that and take his stick away a little bit better.”
Takeaway #3: The Kraken are a resilient bunch
We didn’t know how the Kraken would act in this contest, just one day removed from a highly emotional Game 7 victory in Denver. We also didn’t know how they would respond after getting scored on first, something that didn’t happen in any of the previous seven playoff games. We also didn’t know how the Kraken would handle it if a player on the other team scored four goals against them, while simultaneously erasing a two-goal lead in the third period.
What did the Kraken do each time they got punched? They just got right back up and punched back, of course.
“Obviously, you don’t want to give up two goals, [when you] go into the third leading by two,” said Gourde. “That’s something we can clean up. But I love the response, I loved our composure, I loved the poise. We’re a pretty mature group, and we trusted that the process was going to get it done.”
A prime example of the team’s resiliency was Grubauer, who has been unflappable in this postseason. He juggled a puck that led to Pavelski’s third goal, but he bounced back for overtime and made two massive saves in a row on Roope Hintz and Ty Dellandrea to prolong the game just enough.
It was just moments after that pair of saves that the Kraken got set up in the Stars zone and created havoc. Bjorkstrand took a shot that hit Oettinger and pinballed around to his left. Three Dallas players had a crack at clearing it, but Yanni Gourde just kept whacking away and somehow kept the broken play alive. Finally, the puck sat up on its side for Gourde to take a swing at it, and it launched up and over Oettinger’s shoulder to give the Kraken a 5-4 win.
That game was surely not how Hakstol drew it up, but for Seattle to go into a new building in a new series and get this thing off on the right foot shows—yet again—the incredible character of this group.
What a 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 Seattle Kraken shocked the world in Round 1 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs by knocking off the defending champion Colorado Avalanche in Game 7. Darren was in the building for the game, and John was home having heart palpitations, so both give their thoughts on that thrilling experience.
They then shift their focus to the second round, where the Kraken will take on the Dallas Stars.
Next, the guys go Down on the Farm to chat about Jagger Firkus joining the Coachella Valley Firebirds and to give an update on the Firebirds’ playoff run. They also do a quick WHL Update to talk about the Seattle Thunderbirds, then take a trip around the NHL.
It’s 9:12 pm Pacific on April 30, 2023. Yanni Gourde hunches over the right face-off circle near Kraken goaltender Philipp Grubauer. Mikko Rantanen leans in. 44 seconds remain in Game 7 of this first-round series between the Seattle Kraken and Colorado Avalanche. Seattle holds a 2-1 advantage on the scoreboard. Six Colorado skaters loom with the Avalanche net empty.
The puck drops. Rantanen touches his stick to the ice and wins the puck back to a diving Nathan MacKinnon, who directs the puck to Cale Makar lurking on the blue line. Colorado’s three biggest stars have touched the puck in a flash. Every single Colorado goal in the series had been either scored or assisted by MacKinnon, Rantanen, Makar, or fellow Avalanche standout Devon Toews. Makar moves the puck to Evan Rodrigues, who quickly throws it on net into a mass of netfront players.
The puck deflects and rims around the boards back to MacKinnon on the right, who attempts to cycle it back below the net. Adam Larsson attacks the puck, and with support from Gourde, stymies the play momentarily in the corner. 32 seconds. 27 seconds. Everyone is counting.
With increasing desperation, Colorado wins the puck to the blue line again, where Makar keeps it in the zone. Makar passes the puck high-low to MacKinnon, but again Seattle pressures the Avs superstar in the right corner. Gourde’s pressure deflects an attempted return pass to Makar and sends the puck toward linemate Oliver Bjorkstrand. Scoreless in the first six games, Bjorkstrand had scored both of Seattle’s goals in this one and threatened for more. He catches the puck with his stick and turns up ice, breaking out of the zone. 17 seconds.
Near the end of a marathon shift, Bjorkstrand is tracked down by Rodrigues, who tips the puck over to Makar. The young defenseman pivots back toward Grubauer and quickly re-enters the zone. Eight seconds. Artturi Lehkonen takes Makar’s pass but is pressured and sends the puck down the boards and behind the net. Five seconds.
The Avalanche attempt to recover, but there again is Gourde with a hard body check on the boards to shake the puck loose. He has played more than 20 minutes per game in the series (142:34 overall TOI), the most ice time of any Kraken forward, and spent about half of that time (68:39 overall TOI) with one of the hardest assignments in the sport: checking Nathan MacKinnon.
MacKinnon corrals the loose puck in the right corner. Two seconds. He attempts to center it, but the puck deflects away again with Gourde and Larsson reaching in.
It’s 9:13 pm Pacific now. The horn sounds. The usually stoic Grubauer leaps into the air and is quickly embraced in joy by the equally unflappable Kraken blueliner Jamie Oleksiak. Players pour off the bench. Kraken fans in Denver and across the Pacific Northwest raise their arms and cry out in jubilation. It’s the first ever playoff series win for the second-year franchise, against the defending Stanley Cup champions, as the largest underdogs anywhere in the postseason. Your author, staring at his phone in a silent, darkened driveway in Central Oregon, shouts into the black, open sky.
Exaltation for the Kraken organization and its fans.
9:16 pm. An email from NHL Public Relations hits the inbox of media members. The first game of the second playoff round, matching the Seattle Kraken and Dallas Stars, will begin in less than 46 hours. Puck drop in Dallas is Tuesday, May 2, at 6:30 pm Pacific.
Congratulations on winning a roller coaster series, Seattle hockey fans. Your reward? Let’s buckle you right back in. Welcome to playoff hockey.
Catching up with the Dallas Stars
Seattle and Dallas played three times in a two-week span in mid-March, with Seattle dropping the two games (one in overtime) in Seattle, and prevailing on a memorable Adam Larsson breakaway in Dallas in the teams’ most recent clash on March 21. After that overtime loss, Dallas closed out its season very well, posting a 9-2-0 record down the stretch.
The Stars defense shined during this run. Setting aside two empty-netters, the team allowed just 17 goals in those 11 games with a smothering 1.55 goals against average. That was a product of suffocating defensive play (Dallas skaters suppressed five-on-five shot quality against far better than they had over the first 70 games) and Dallas goaltenders, most notably Jake Oettinger, allowed 40 percent fewer goals than expected even in those rare circumstances where Dallas defenders conceded a shot at all.
Visualization by HockeyViz
This strong play carried over to Dallas’s first-round series against the Minnesota Wild. Aside from one empty-netter, Dallas allowed just 13 goals in six games and suppressed shot quality against at a rate 21 percent better than league average. Dallas was particularly staunch in the high-danger scoring areas between the face-off circles and at the front of the goal. For his part, Oettinger started all six games, tallied a .929 save percentage, and saved 4.72 goals more than expected, per Evolving Hockey. Dallas paired this sound defensive play with just enough offense to dispatch the Wild, 4-to-2, with the final win coming on Friday, April 28.
Visualization by HockeyViz
Snapshot: Kraken vs. Stars
Compared with the Colorado Avalanche, the Dallas Stars have a deeper roster of top-scoring talent, with six forwards notching more than twenty goals: Jason Robertson (46), Roope Hintz (37), Jamie Benn (33), Joe Pavelski (28), Wyatt Johnston (24), and Tyler Seguin (21). This gives the Stars the ability to deploy at least two threatening offensive lines, whereas it often seemed that Colorado only had one. Add in superstar two-way defenseman Miro Heiskanen and the Dallas Stars have a lineup with the ability to score their way out of problems.
Moving to the bottom half of the roster, however, Seattle again possesses the offensive advantage. This almost balances the overall 5-on-5 offensive profile of the teams, which stood just four goals apart in overall “expected” goal production across 82 games. The Kraken separated from Dallas in the regular season by converting their scoring chances into goals at a far higher rate at five-on-five. But with high-end scorers Jared McCann and Andre Burakovsky both out with injuries at the moment, it is unlikely that the Kraken will be able to rely on “finishing” their chances at an above-expected rate moving forward. (Regarding McCann: He is not currently on the trip with the Kraken, which suggests that the best-case scenario is likely a return for Game 3 or 4 in Seattle. But that is just speculation at this juncture.)
In terms of five-on-five shot quality against, the two teams are both very good and comparable. Per Evolving Hockey data, the Kraken allowed shots expected to create approximately 161 goals at five-on-five across 82 games (fifth best in the league), whereas Dallas allowed shots expected to create 162 goals (sixth best). That said, over the course of the regular season, Dallas actually allowed fifteen fewer goals than Seattle at five-on-five, in large part due to the sterling play of Oettinger.
Take the number: Stars players to watch
Young star forward Jason Robertson (No. 21) belongs in the discussion of the very upper echelon of players in the league. I would likely put him in the top 10, perhaps even top five, but he is rarely discussed that way. With 46 goals and 109 points, he also delivers strong, responsible defensive play. He’ll give the Kraken everything they can handle in this series.
But for Robertson, Roope Hintz (No. 24) would likely get more national attention too. Hintz is an elite goal scorer with very strong impacts driving offense at even strength and on the power play, as well as elite scoring touch finishing his own chances.
On the blue line Miro Heiskanen (No. 4) is about as skilled as they come in setting up scoring chances for his teammates with his passing. His 62 assists rank second on the team only behind Robertson. Heiskanen is also talented breaking out of his own zone and in transition, and he brings strong value on both special teams.
Beyond that trio of young “stars,” Dallas also has a stable of strong veteran players, led by forwards Jamie Benn (No. 14) and Joe Pavelski (No. 16). Pavelski appears to have recovered from a heavy hit sustained during the first round and will likely make his return to the ice in Game 1 of the series against the Kraken.
Finally, when all else fails, Dallas can rely on its goalie Jake Oettinger (No. 29). Over the course of the regular season, he ranked seventh in the league in goals saved above expected, and he has continued (or elevated) that play in the postseason.
Keys to the series: Stay Disciplined, Solve Oettinger
Dallas is a good team at even strength, but the Stars take their game to the next level on special teams. The team ranks in the top five in power-play conversion percentage (25 percent) and in penalty kill rate (83.5 percent).
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Seattle, in contrast, was in the middle of the pack in both categories during the regular season. The Kraken actually outscored Colorado on special teams during their first-round series (4-3), but that was more due to the standout play of Philipp Grubauer in those situations than anything. Colorado generated good looks on the power play, but the German netminder usually had the answers.
Against an even more dangerous unit in Dallas, Seattle will need to stay disciplined and avoid manpower disadvantages.This is particularly true in the absence of McCann, who is almost as important as a defender and counter-strike threat on the penalty kill as he is on the power play. The Kraken have a much better chance to outscore the Stars at even strength than on special teams.
That said, Dallas goaltender Jake Oettinger makes scoring difficult in any context. The data suggests that Oettinger may be a bit weaker on shots from his right, and is just average at stopping slap shots, which are often preceded by cross-ice passes. This suggests that the Kraken may find more success the more they can get Oettinger to move across his crease, particularly left-to-right. It also suggests there may be a role for wing scorers like Daniel Sprong, Oliver Bjorkstrand, or Eeli Tolvanen to make some noise in this series.
Visualization by HockeyViz
Prediction time
Once again, the common wisdom among public analysts seems to be that the Kraken face the slimmest odds of any of the eight teams remaining to advance to the next round.
What do you think is the key to the series? What’s your prediction? Are you fired up for round two? Do you need a nap? Let us know in the comments below or on Twitter at @sound_hockey or @DeepSeaHockey.
Holy cannoli! They did it! The Seattle Kraken beat the defending champion Colorado Avalanche in a deciding Game 7 on the road, creating a core sports memory that will stick with the team’s fledgling fanbase for decades.
“I think it’s huge for us, for the team, and for our confidence,” said Oliver Bjorkstrand. “As a group, bouncing back from last year, and then for the city of Seattle— you feel the excitement there and how much they want to back us up.”
Philipp Grubauer stood tall to keep the game scoreless in a dominant first period for Colorado, then Seattle turned on the jets in the second. The team’s video coaches came up with a gutsy offside challenge in the third to keep the Kraken ahead, and the team locked things down the rest of the way to skate off with a historic win in their first-ever playoff series.
“It’s a great feeling,” said Yanni Gourde. “I’m so proud of this group. We battled so hard, especially in our second year in this league, just making the playoffs is an accomplishment… Getting the win here in Game 7 shows how much character, how much care we have for one another.”
Here are our Three Takeaways from a momentous 2-1 Kraken win in Game 7 over the Avalanche.
Takeaway #1: What a series by Philipp Grubauer
Philipp Grubauer left us no choice but to start with his outstanding series as our first takeaway. He stepped up and played so well against his old team, with Sunday’s performance serving as the crown jewel in his impressive seven-game set.
“Colorado was great tonight,” said coach Dave Hakstol. “They pushed us in every way you can imagine, and our goaltender was the best player on the ice.”
You could tell from the jump that pucks were going to be hitting Grubauer again Sunday, as a shot hit the knob of his stick in the first period, and he turned away a Grade-A opportunity from the slot by Nathan MacKinnon with nine minutes left in the opening frame. Grubauer joked after the game that the shot that hit the shaft of his stick was off the net, so that one didn’t really matter.
“Sometimes you can’t see it, and it hits you; those are obviously great moments for a goalie,” Grubauer said. “Even Mikko [Rantanen] hit the post there in the second period. Obviously, we love the post; we like that.”
The Kraken got worked over in the first 20 minutes, yet Grubauer stopped all 16 shots fired at him and carried Seattle into the dressing room with a 0-0 tie.
The German Gentleman made another ten-bell save on MacKinnon at the seven-minute mark of the second period, sliding to his right and sealing off the angle just in time before one of the world’s two best players could slip the puck inside in the post.
But it wasn’t just those couple of key saves for the Kraken netminder. There were so many moments where we said to ourselves, Oh, boy, here comes a goal. Yet Grubauer would calmly make the stop and melt it down for a face-off, making dangerous shots from all-world players look harmless. He would get his team a whistle, Seattle would lose the next face-off (the Kraken won just 33 percent of defensive-zone face-offs), and Grubauer would do it over again. Rinse, repeat, all game long.
Grubauer took a lot of heat from Kraken fans last season, as things went sideways. He had a better regular season in 2022-23, but a group still gets on him whenever Seattle loses. This series had to have bought him a lot of goodwill from even the most curmudgeonly of fans, because without Grubauer, Seattle’s season would be over.
“Personally, I don’t know what to say,” Grubauer said. “It means a lot, ending their season and beating the defending Stanley Cup champions. So, lots more to come for our group, but that’s only series one.”
In all, Grubauer had 33 saves in Game 7 and improved to a .926 save percentage in the series.
By the way, we witnessed a heartwarming moment in the dressing room after the game. When Grubauer finished his media availability, he was asked by Kraken social media to take a picture with a stuffed fish, an ongoing bit they’ve been doing. He proudly posed for the photo, then asked if he could keep that fish for his own personal collection. This win was special for him, and he wanted a memento.
Takeaway #2: A heroic night for Oliver Bjorkstrand
Our good friend, Alison Lukan, likes to point out that Oliver Bjorkstrand has a history of rising to the occasion of the big game. He had the clinching goal for the Lake Erie Monsters in the Calder Cup Final in 2016 and for Columbus against Tampa Bay in 2019. He also came through in a big way in Game 7 of this series.
Oliver Bjorkstrand is the moment
✅ Calder Cup winning goal (2016) ✅ Series Clinching goal (CBJ sweep TBL, 2019) ✅ Series Clinching goal (#SeaKraken over COL, 2023)
“I’m obviously excited to play those games,” Bjorkstrand said. “You want to give it your best and— I don’t know, I feel like I’ve just kind of been fortunate to have some key moments, and it’s been fun.”
After being held to just two assists and no goals through Game 6, Bjorkstrand played like a man possessed Sunday. He got rewarded with a good bounce off Ben Meyers’ hand, a goal that was initially awarded to Brandon Tanev, to open the scoring at 3:24 of the second period. Four minutes later, Yanni Gourde shoveled a puck around the end boards in the Seattle end to Eeli Tolvanen, who poked it past a pinching Devon Toews at the blue line. That sent Bjorkstrand on a partial breakaway, and he sniped it off the post and in to make it 2-0.
OLIVER SAYS “PLEASE SIR CAN I GAVE SOME MORE?!” 🚨
After lots of pressure in Seattle’s end, Tolvanen pokes it ahead and sends Bjorkstrand on a partial breakaway. Snipe! 🎯
That play, which went from Seattle being on defense to being on the attack in a flash, would ultimately prove to be the game-winner, another notch in Bjorkstrand’s big-game belt. He could have had four more goals in addition to the two he scored in Game 7, as he also hit three posts and got robbed by Alexandar Georgiev off a three-on-one in the third period.
That line with Gourde, Tolvanen, and Bjorkstrand was so, so good in this game. All series, they were tasked with defending against Nathan MacKinnon and—often—Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar.
“The biggest thing is they never went away,” Hakstol said. “Their confidence never wavered, their compete level never wavered, their willingness to go back and play in that role never changed. Tonight they did a hell of a job.”
In Sunday’s game, the Gourde line had its best effort of the whole series, and its relentless forecheck slowed Colorado’s superstars almost to a halt. The result was that line scoring two goals at five-on-five and allowing zero at the other end.
“[MacKinnon] is an unbelievable player,” Gourde said. “The way he skates up the ice, you’ve got to respect that every time he takes a stride, he’s taking five feet off of you. It’s crazy, but we defended as a unit of five. Everyone knew where he was; we had a little bit of a game plan against him that we executed.”
Takeaway #3: A video challenge for the ages
MacKinnon and Rantanen did break through once on the only power play of the game for either team, and that goal came with just 28 seconds left in the second period. It put the Avs back within one goal of Seattle heading to the third and gave life to the home fans.
You could sense a second goal coming for Colorado to even the score, and the Avs appeared to have gotten it at 3:37 of the third when MacKinnon blasted a one-timer from the top of the slot that beat Grubauer.
BUT…
Have no fear, Kraken fans; video analysts Tim Ohashi and Brady Morgan were there!
“They nailed it,” Hakstol said. “That is not an easy task.”
Just when we thought the lead had slipped away, the officials announced Seattle was challenging for offside. Ohashi and Morgan noticed Artturi Lehkonen entered Seattle’s zone about a foot ahead of the puck 17 seconds earlier. That negated the goal, sending the Ball Arena crowd into a frenzy.
— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights (@HockeyDaily365) May 1, 2023
It was the second successful offside challenge in as many games for the Kraken, and it was such a bold call. If they had gotten that wrong, the game would have been tied, and the Kraken would have been back on the penalty kill.
Hakstol said the video team had communicated to the bench even before the shot that they had flagged it for possible offside. When the time came to challenge, they expressed full confidence to Hakstol that the goal would be overturned.
“Oh, I knew before he scored it was offside,” Grubauer quipped with a side-eyed glance to show that he—in fact—had no idea it was offside. “No, that’s obviously a huge turning point in the game, right? If they tied it up, it’s 2-2, it’s maybe a different game.”
Seattle did a great job locking things down the rest of the way, relieving some of the pressure off Grubauer and only allowing six shots in the final frame.
—
Let’s go start a whole new series in Dallas, shall we? From Denver, the Kraken planned to hop on their plane Monday and—instead of flying home—heading south to the Lone Star State, where they now set their sights on the Dallas Stars.
Here’s @DarrenFunBrown’s post-game Walk and Talk after the biggest win in the #SeaKraken’s short history.
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.
Oh, what could have been for the Kraken in Game 6 against the Avalanche. We couldn’t help imagining Seattle closing out the Stanley Cup champions on home ice and thinking of the chaos it would have created in and around Climate Pledge Arena. Alas, the Avalanche—with their backs against the wall—dominated the second period and cruised through to a 4-1 win.
“They played desperate tonight,” said Vince Dunn. “They were good with the puck, and I think we let them come at us a little bit too much. We were not good enough as a whole, slowing them down on our forecheck, and when you give them space and time, they’re going to make their plays.”
The Kraken loss forces a Game 7 in hostile territory on Sunday, a game that could live on in either lore or infamy, depending on the outcome.
Here are our Three Takeaways from a disappointing Game 6 Kraken loss to the Avalanche.
Takeaway #1: Avs did their damage in the second period
The Kraken got out to a decent enough start in the first period, weathering an early push from the Avalanche and getting aided by a successful offside challenge to negate a Bowen Byram goal. That would have been the first time in the series that Colorado got on the board first, but instead, Dunn scored at 15:48 to give Seattle a 1-0 lead.
If Seattle could have gotten to the dressing room up 1-0, we thought frustration would have really set in for the Avalanche. Instead, Mikko Rantanen scored a critical goal in a critical moment, with just 19 seconds left on the clock. You never want to give up a goal in the final minute of a period, and although coach Dave Hakstol said goals don’t carry momentum over from one period to the next, there’s no doubt the late tally changed Colorado’s mentality.
Lo and behold, the Avs came out flying in the second period and looked like the champs again.
“Second period, they tilted the game their direction,” said Hakstol. “They got on top of us with their forecheck, which starts momentum, and we weren’t able to break that enough.”
The Avs outshot Seattle 14-4 in the middle frame and got through on Philipp Grubauer twice, both off deflected shots.
“I thought we were fine after that first period,” said Dunn. “There were some things we could fix, but that’s a team with a lot of high-end skill, and they make a lot of plays. So coming out flat and on our heels in the second, they’re going to make you pay.”
It was no surprise to see Rantanen, Nathan MacKinnon, and Cale Makar leading the way, frequently stacked up on the ice at the same time and dominating almost every moment they were out there. MacKinnon was held off the scoresheet officially, but he started the plays that led to all three of Colorado’s goals in the first and second.
MacKinnon’s effort on the Erik Johnson goal that made it 2-1 was especially impressive. Jamie Oleksiak knocked him down in the corner, and from his stomach, MacKinnon somehow kept the puck away from both Oleksiak and Yanni Gourde. He then hustled to the front of the net to screen Grubauer, and just like that, the puck was in the back of the net.
Takeaway #2: Penalties zapped the Kraken
Although Seattle’s penalty kill ended up with a perfect five-for-five night, going shorthanded that many times took its toll on the players. Seattle spent six minutes killing penalties in the second period alone, and every time it had to do that, Avalanche coach Jared Bednar was not shy about sending out Rantanen, MacKinnon, and Makar together.
“We were in the box a lot,” said Jordan Eberle, who took a somewhat controversial boarding call on Andrew Cogliano, sending him dangerously into the boards. “That just creates momentum and then tires us out.”
That top Colorado trio can be flat out overwhelming, and there were power plays in which they held the puck in the Kraken zone for almost the full two minutes Friday. That exhausts the players who are out there killing, but it also has a tendency to get the momentum rolling downhill.
Penalties happen when you’re hemmed in your zone for extended periods, and that definitely occurred on several occasions Friday. The Avs were flying around, and the result was Seattle dragging them down.
“You start defending, and you end up in that [second] period killing six minutes in penalties,” said Hakstol. “Now you’re coming off of that and fighting for energy, and fighting to turn around the momentum at the same time, and we weren’t able to do that in that second period.”
The icing on the penalty-filled cake came late in the third, when the Kraken were desperately trying to get back in the game, only to see Gourde slash Makar’s stick out of his hands with four minutes left.
The Kraken need to stay on their toes for more of Game 7 to avoid getting themselves into similar penalty trouble. Another night with lots of trips to the box will spell a series loss.
Takeaway #3: A wasted effort for Philipp Grubauer
Grubauer was excellent again in Game 6, stopping 35 of 38 shots. He kept Seattle in the game to the bitter end, and the only goals against came off a rebound that hit him up high, then got passed around him, and two shots that changed directions on the way to the net. He has had a stellar series against his old club and deserved better from his mates in this one.
“[He was] fantastic,” said Dunn. “He’s been great all series, and it’s an unfortunate loss for us, because he definitely made the saves he needed to to keep us in it. I just think if we could fix that second period, we’re in a way different position going into the third.”
Grubauer’s best save of the night came on one of Colorado’s many power plays at the end of the second period. Makar set J.T. Compher up for what looked like a sure goal, an easy tap-in at at the netmouth. But Grubauer got a big push off his left skate and did a full split to get across just in time with his right toe.
It was one of those saves that we tabbed as being a potential turning point, had the Kraken figured out a way to get back in it. But… they did not.
So, the Kraken and Avalanche head to Game 7 in Denver on Sunday, where Seattle will look to get it done the dramatic way. The Kraken will need one more outstanding performance from Grubauer to win the series, and if they get that again, hopefully they won’t waste it.
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.
Before Game 4 at Climate Pledge Arena, with the Kraken trailing the Avalanche 2-1 in their first-round playoff series, players joked with one another that it was, in the words of Jordan Eberle, “the biggest game in Kraken history.” Well, as Seattle continues its first postseason journey, the stakes will get higher and higher with every passing game.
Now leading 3-2 and coming home for Game 6 with a chance to close out the Stanley Cup champions, it is safe to say Friday’s game is significantly bigger than any of Games 1 through 5.
“It’s huge,” said Yanni Gourde. “Game 6 at home, Friday night in Seattle. I mean, I think the crowd is going to be super excited.”
Gourde—a grizzled veteran of playoff hockey and a winner of two Stanley Cups in Tampa Bay—says the fourth win of a series is always the hardest one to get. “I think we still have more [to give], and I think we can still take steps and we can still build. But like I said, this game tonight is a big one. It’s going to be the hardest one of the series.”
Gourde also reminded us that several players in the Kraken dressing room have been in this situation before, and they know what it takes to close out a series.
Harnessing the excitement
If there is an added level of excitement for Kraken players, you couldn’t sense it in their dressing room Friday morning at Kraken Community Iceplex. Across the board, they seemed quietly confident and ready to go to work against a Colorado team that will be desperate to bring its best game.
The vibes from the team were “Normal,” according to the always even-keeled Adam Larsson. “Just another day,” he said. “We know what’s at stake, and we’ve played good so far. I don’t think we should overthink the situation and just go out and play the game.”
Larsson added the team knows the fans are on their side, so he hopes that will fuel the effort in Game 6. “They’ve done a tremendous job so far. I mean, now we know what to expect. I thought the first home game, we got caught up in the moment a little bit. We came home after a roadie, 1-1, pretty good spot, and we kind of came out flat that game. The second home game, I thought, was much better.”
The Swedish defenseman also said that even as of Friday, with the Avalanche pushed to the brink, the Kraken still do not sense any pressure, an advantage for any playoff team.
Jamie Oleksiak—who went to a Stanley Cup Final with Dallas—said the Kraken have handled the ups and downs well so far. “This is our first time in the playoffs together, so I think we’ve learned a lot as a group about identifying those momentum swings.”
Laying it all out there
One thing that stuck with us from Game 5 was just how good of a job Seattle did at blocking shots at crucial moments in the game. Jaden Schwartz, Oleksiak, and Matty Beniers all got body parts in the way of blasts from Avalanche players, then hobbled to the bench at different stages in the game.
Aside from that, Alex Wennberg showed off his impressive soccer skills (he does have a background in soccer from his youth) when he managed to corral a puck up the wall with only his feet and kick it deep in the Colorado zone in the final minute of the second period. “That was a huge play,” Gourde recalled.
It’s those kinds of extra individual efforts that help a team win in the postseason.
“I mean, that’s playoffs, right?” said Jamie Oleksiak, who played the last 2:27 of the game Wednesday with Seattle facing an extended six-on-five attack. “That’s kind of the desperation, and you got to get bounces once in a while, and you’ve got to put yourself on the line. I think we’ve done a great job of that.”
Oleksiak said it’s not just a few players stepping into lanes; even guys you wouldn’t typically associate with making those kinds of painful blocks have been throwing themselves in harm’s way. “Whenever you see a guy go down and put their body on the line, it’s special for everybody.”
Larsson occasionally skating with Oleksiak
We’ve noticed the Kraken coaching staff has deployed Larsson and Oleksiak together at times during this series, especially against Nathan MacKinnon. While we didn’t get much insight on the reasoning—coach Dave Hakstol played that close to the vest when we asked—we have a theory that the Kraken simply view those two as their best defensive defensemen. So, to shut down the elite skill of players like MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, and Cale Makar, Hakstol and defensive coach Jay Leach have occasionally paired the two together for key moments in games to make sure they hold the Avs off the board.
“Yeah, it’s a matchup thing; that’s all, nothing more, nothing less,” said Hakstol. “I mean, it’s as well as I can describe it… The other piece that comes into play there is who’s fresh and ready to go over the boards.”
It’s been an interesting periodic shift, though, after Larsson and Vince Dunn spent almost the entire regular season together. It’s a fine example of how little strategic changes can be made in a playoff series, as you get the benefit of facing the same team for multiple games in a row.
“I’m playing with [Oleksiak] on the PK and end of a power play, or whatever it might be,” said Larsson. “So, I’ve had a couple shifts with him during the season, too, and it’s working fine. Whatever name is called, we’re all just sitting there, patiently waiting for our next shift, so that’s just how it is.”
No news on Jared McCann; Tye Kartye ready to play in his spot
Unsurprisingly, Jared McCann was still missing from morning skate, and we do not expect him in the lineup Friday. Hakstol did not give an update on his status, which tells us there is no change to his availability from Game 5.
Tye Kartye was the biggest story of Game 5 for playing in McCann’s spot on the top line and contributing with a pivotal goal, his first in the NHL. Now, the 21-year-old Kartye is preparing for his first home game as a Kraken. “I’m fired up,” Kartye said. “I heard the crowd is really good here, so I’m excited to see what it’s all about.”
Kartye scored on his lone shot on goal Wednesday to make it 2-1, but he was also physical and looked comfortable on his line with Eberle and Beniers. He called the last few days a “whirlwind,” and said he hasn’t had too much time to think about everything that has been going on for him. “I’m kind of just taking it as it comes.”
Based on what we saw and heard at morning skate, we do not expect any changes to the Kraken lineup from Game 5.
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 easy, but the Kraken did the damn thing Wednesday, earning a hard-fought, well-played, 60-minute, total-team victory, 3-2 over the Avalanche. Every player in the lineup, including just-called-up Tye Kartye, contributed to the win in some way.
The closing minutes pushed Kraken fans’ heart rates to unthinkable levels, as Colorado pulled within one goal with Alexandar Georgiev on the bench and skated six-on-five for what felt like an eternity. But the Kraken stayed with their structure, continued blocking shots, and regained the series lead 3-2.
Here are our Three Takeaways from another thrilling Kraken win over the Avalanche in Game 5.
Takeaway #1: The legend of Tye Kartye is born
After Jared McCann was ruled out of Game 5, speculation quickly began about how the Kraken would try to replace their irreplaceable 40-goal scorer in the lineup. We knew a call-up was coming from Coachella Valley, and the team had briefly brought up Tye Kartye and Max McCormick at different times during this series.
In the end it was Kartye who got the call, which didn’t totally surprise us. Then, he was slotted into McCann’s spot at morning skate, alongside Matty Beniers and Jordan Eberle. That also didn’t surprise us, because in Game 3, when Morgan Geekie was unavailable due to the birth of his child, Jesper Froden looked like he was preparing to play in Geekie’s spot on the Alex Wennberg line. That night, Froden only played a handful of minutes, though, and with different line combinations, so we figured something similar was in store for Kartye in Game 5.
WRONG!
Well, mostly wrong. While Kartye’s minutes did get throttled back toward the end of the game, coach Dave Hakstol used him in a top-six winger role for a lot of the contest. Kartye, with his parents in attendance at Ball Arena, rewarded Hakstol for the gutsy lineup decision by scoring his first NHL goal on his first NHL shot in his first NHL game. Did we mention this was also in Game 5 of a Stanley Cup Playoff game?
Kartye’s parents, by the way, dropped everything and made the two-and-a-half-hour drive from Kingston, ON, to Toronto, then jumped on the first flight to Denver to see their son make his NHL debut. They showed up a couple minutes late but were there in time to see their son’s magical moment.
“Great night for Tye,” said Hakstol with a smile. “We were able to get his parents in here. It’s quite a way to start your NHL career, jumping into Game 5 in the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs.” The Kraken coach raved about Kartye’s poise and apparent comfort with the situation and said those were factors in the team’s decision-making process about how to use him. “He’s ready to be here, and that’s why we felt comfortable putting him in.”
Kartye’s story over the last two seasons, leading up to his Wednesday heroics, would seem almost far-fetched if it weren’t true. Playing his junior hockey with the OHL’s Soo Greyhounds, he did not get drafted by an NHL team. He came to Kraken training camp as an invitee before the team’s inaugural season, impressed the brass there, had a solid 20-year-old season back in Sault Ste. Marie, and got signed by Seattle as a free agent. He then went to Coachella Valley for his first pro season and caught fire in the second half, ending up with 28 goals and 29 assists on the year and taking the AHL Rookie of the Year award.
“A year ago, a year and a half ago, this was my wildest dream,” said Kartye. “So, this day has been pretty special.”
The fact that the Kraken threw him right into his first NHL game in that spot, on that line, and that he delivered is truly remarkable.
“It’s pretty crazy,” added Kartye. “It was a whirlwind, but I’ve been working hard for a long time, and it feels pretty good.”
His goal was a banger, too. After Nathan MacKinnon and Will Borgen touched skate blades in the Kraken end, and while MacKinnon was busy blowing a gasket complaining to the referee about being tripped, the play came back the other way. Jordan Eberle carried the puck through the neutral zone, deep into the offensive zone, and circled the wagons before sliding a pass into Kartye’s wheelhouse. Kartye wasted no time in showing off his best offensive asset, a lethal shot that was off his blade and in the back of the net in an instant.
“I was just kind of driving to the net, and I saw he had the puck and tried to get open,” said Kartye. “Obviously, he made a pretty special pass there.”
The goal made it 2-1 and improved Kartye’s NHL shooting percentage to 100 percent.
People will remember the goal Kartye scored, but he was generally impressive on this night. He looked like he belonged in the NHL and even on a top-six line.
“[The goal] was awesome, but he was all over the place,” said Gourde. “He was in everyone’s grill, he was on the forecheck, on the backcheck, he was great in the D-zone, he finished every hit he had.”
Takeaway #2: Kraken are who we thought they were
With Kartye and Gourde scoring Wednesday, they became the 12th and 13th Kraken players to register goals in the five games of this series. That’s nothing new; depth scoring has been the story of this team all season. But aside from that, they’ve shown why we believed they would be a tough match for the defending Stanley Cup champions.
The Kraken play with good enough defensive structure to at least slow down Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, and (when he’s not suspended) Cale Makar. They also go the extra mile to block shots, win battles low in the offensive zone, and—as of the beginning of the calendar year—kill penalties. When they are on their game, they truly can skate with any team in this league, something they proved throughout the regular season.
Game 5 was no different. Seattle got huge, timely shot blocks from guys like Matty Beniers, Jamie Oleksiak, and Jaden Schwartz, and the only goals they allowed were off a rim attempt by Philipp Grubauer that didn’t quite make it past Rantanen and off a bad-luck double deflection from two Kraken players at six-on-five.
“When you get to this time of year, the stage is a little bigger, it’s a little brighter, there’s a little bit more on the line, and everything means a little bit more,” said Hakstol. “But you still have to fall back on who you are.”
Wennberg was especially good Wednesday, his second starring performance of the series. In this one, he created the icebreaking goal at 6:35 of the second period by winning the race to a dumped-in puck, fighting off a Bowen Byram check, and making a perfect pass to Schwartz. Schwartz shot, and Papa Geekie cleaned up the rebound.
Then, with a minute left in the second period and the Kraken killing a crucial penalty, Wennberg—who had broken his stick—somehow managed to kick the puck past Byram, control it along the boards with his skates, and boot it again all the way below the Colorado goal line.
There were plenty of gritty, hard-working plays by just about every guy in the Kraken lineup, but Wennberg resorting to his soccer-playing past, doing everything he could to help kill that penalty, really stood out to us.
Takeaway #3: Kraken take a 3-2 lead
We won’t say anything here to jinx it, but it is bonkers that Seattle is even in this position, up 3-2 heading to Game 6 at home on Friday against the champs. Nobody in the greater hockey world gave the Kraken a chance coming in, and they have proven through every step of this series—even in the losses—that they can beat the Avalanche if they play their game.
So far, they’ve gotten contributions from everyone on their roster, and the result has given the group a rare opportunity to surprise everyone.
“That’s the situation you want to be in in a playoff series,” said Gourde, a grizzled veteran of the postseason. “You want to be up, but we all know in this league the fourth game is the hardest one to win, and it’s going to take everything out of everyone in this locker room to get that one.”
After experiencing the atmosphere in Game 4 on Monday, we truly cannot wait for Friday night at Climate Pledge Arena.
