Thursday night, the Kraken will host the world-famous Boston Bruins at Climate Pledge Arena to try and put an end to a five-game losing streak.
Boston is the fifth original six team to visit Seattle, if you’re into that stuff. Even if you don’t care about history, the ‘B’ on their jerseys entices a ton of emotions, and some of those may be negative. The Bruins have had their share of rough and tumble teams over the years and the ‘Big, Bad Bruins’ stigma still follows them around.
That has been tamed somewhat, but Thursday will be the return of Brad Marchand, who is very skilled and has had his run-ins with players, teams, and officials throughout the league. Thursday will be his first game back after serving a six-game suspension for losing the proverbial ‘it’ against the Pittsburgh Penguins and their goalie Tristan Jarry.
“A lot of punches are thrown throughout the league and through games… that’s part of hockey and I didn’t expect it to get to where it went,” Marchand said after the Bruins morning skate on Thursday.
He also added that he knows he doesn’t have a long leash with the refs and that he’s going to keep the rage in check moving on.
“What I’m taking away from this is my threshold is very low right now,” Marchand said. “I really just have to stay away from anything at all, which I can do, I have been able to do it for a number of years now. And again, it’s just wrapping my mind around that and accepting it, whether I agree with it or not, and moving forward within the rules that I now understand are set for me. So, I think that’s essentially what it is, just making sure that I just stay away from everything because that’s where my threshold is at this point.”
It’s easy to root against Marchand if you’re a fan of a team that he’s playing against, but he undoubtedly is one of the best characters/pests the game has ever seen. He missed Wednesday’s practice to be back in Boston for the birth of his daughter, Rue.
How can you not like that?
The Perfection Line no more?
Marchand, for years, made up part of the so-called ‘Perfection Line, with center Patrice Bergeron and the always entertaining and noted donut pitchman, David Pastrnak.
It was one of the top lines in hockey but Thursday will be broken up, at least at the start of the game.
Head coach Bruce Cassidy has Marchand and Bergeron on the line together, but Pastrnak will play with Taylor Hall and Erik Haula, which in its own right is a formidable line.
Bruins odds and ends
Boston is a middle-of-the-pack team offensively, averaging 2.88 goals per game while allowing 2.74. That will pose as a challenge for the already offensively struggling Kraken who will play tonight without Jared McCann and potentially Yanni Gourde (who will be a game-time decision).
Linus Ullmark will start in net for the Bruins.
Northwest connections
Boston bruising defenseman Brandon Carlo played his junior hockey with the Tri-City Americans from 2013 through 2016. One of his teammates for the 2015-16 season in Kennewick was Kraken center Morgan Geekie.
Ullmark played for the Buffalo Sabres prior to signing with the Bruins as a free agent in the offseason. While with the Sablres, his goalie coach was Kraken goalie coach Andrew Allen. Will that help Kraken shooters? Probably not, but still a fun fact
DeBrusk played his junior hockey mostly with the Swift Current Broncos, but during the 2016 WHL trade deadline came very close to being traded to the Seattle Thunderbirds. Seattle was eventually outbid for him by the Red Deer Rebels who were loading up that year to host the Memorial Cup. So, while not a clear-cut Northwest connection, DeBrusk checks in as an almost Northwesterner.
It’s a long episode, but a fantastic one. This week, the Sound Of Hockey welcomes the coaches of both local WHL teams, as those teams prepare to play one another in the Battle of the Sound at Climate Pledge Arena on Saturday.
With Dennis Williams of the Everett Silvertips, the guys discuss the continued success of that organization, the high-end prospects that have played for them, and the many hats that Williams wears as both the GM and head coach. Then O’Dette expresses his excitement to finally be a friend of the pod and shares the differences between coaching in the ECHL versus the WHL. He also talks about the skill on his current team and the impact that some new additions have made this season.
Both interviews are great.
Aside from those interviews, you’ll also hear some Kraken talk, as John, Andy, and Darren discuss Seattle’s recent fruitless Canadian road trip and a strange home game against the New York Islanders. John also shares some tidbits from a recent presentation made by Tod and Tim Leiweke about the state of the franchise.
After the interviews, the guys shift to segments, which feature You Don’t See That Every Day, Weekly One-Timers, and Three Stars.
It’s a long episode, but a fantastic one. This week, the Sound Of Hockey welcomes the coaches of both local WHL teams, as those teams prepare to play one another in the Battle of the Sound at Climate Pledge Arena on Saturday. With Dennis Williams of the Everett Silvertips, the guys discuss the continued success of that organization, the high-end prospects that have played for them, and the many hats that Williams wears as both the GM and head coach. Then O’Dette expresses his excitement to finally be a friend of the pod and shares the differences between coaching in the ECHL versus the WHL. He also talks about the skill on his current team and the impact that some new additions have made this season.
Both interviews are great.
Aside from those interviews, you’ll also hear some Kraken talk, as John, Andy, and Darren discuss Seattle’s recent fruitless Canadian road trip and a strange home game against the New York Islanders. John also shares some tidbits from a recent presentation made by Tod and Tim Leiweke about the state of the franchise.
After the interviews, the guys shift to segments, which feature You Don’t See That Every Day, Weekly One-Timers, and Three Stars.
There was a point during Tuesday’s 5-2 Kraken loss to the Islanders when we thought we were headed for one of the worst Seattle performances of the season. The boys brought that bad of an effort and level of execution to start the game, but then they turned it on and showed once again why fans should continue to throw their support behind them, despite their stranglehold on last place. These guys do not quit.
In the end, though, Seattle had dug too big of a hole for itself, falling behind 4-0 before waking up midway through the second period and making a game of it.
Here are our Three Takeaways from the two very different 30-minute contests that were played Tuesday between the Islanders and the Kraken.
Takeaway #1: A tale of two games
The Kraken looked completely—and we mean completely—lifeless through the first half of this hockey game. Five minutes into the second period, Seattle had still registered just four shots on goal, and even that felt like a generous tally.
When Yanni Gourde beat Ilya Sorokin just off an offensive zone face-off, everything in the building changed. The fans were energized, the team started skating and spending time in the offensive zone, and although it was 4-1, the play went from dreadful to exciting in the blink of an eye.
Oddly, if the Kraken had converted a second time in that second frame and gone to the dressing room down two instead of three, we think they would have tied that game before it was said and done.
“It definitely got us some momentum, and we started to string together some shifts and play to our strengths,” said Riley Sheahan of Gourde’s goal. “I think when we forecheck like we were and move the puck around in the o-zone and get it to the net and kind of build off that, I think that’s when we’re at our best. We just gotta focus on getting to that point and then once we’re there, just letting ourselves make plays and generate some energy.”
“That’s momentum,” added Hakstol. “You feel the strain of where you’re at in your home building down by four and finally get one and that just gave us a jolt of energy. From there, you know, it really was like a flip of the switch for the next 30 minutes.”
Now if only they could flip that switch before the next game starts…
Takeaway #2: Interesting personnel decisions
For the second time this season, Hakstol scratched Joonas Donskoi for this game. In his place was Austin Czarnik, who faced the team that waived him just a few weeks ago. But Donskoi’s removal was less about Czarnik and more about the play of Morgan Geekie.
With Hakstol rotating players in and out, Geekie had become an easy target to scratch in recent weeks, as he had been downright ineffective. But after a solid game Monday, Hakstol kept him in on Tuesday.
Geekie again did not score, but he narrowly missed on several occasions, including on a play when Sorokin committed highway robbery. He had just gotten leveled in the offensive zone but got up, dusted himself off, and got in alone with the New York netminder, only to get denied by a flashy glove save.
Thatcher Demko made an equally large save on Geekie on the blocker side on Monday, so maybe the next Grade-A chance should go five hole?
Anyway, it’s great that Geekie is suddenly stringing together some positive performances. We had high hopes for him coming into this season, but things haven’t panned out the way anyone expected. Let’s see if he can continue to grow his game.
Takeaway #3: Build off the second half
This loss to the Islanders was the fifth in a row for the Kraken, and it came on the heels of a three-game tour through Canada that produced zero points. Seattle did not play well in its last game of the trip in Vancouver, and the compete level from that contest carried over into Tuesday.
Not only was the effort lacking again, but the execution was not close to what it needed to be in the first 30 minutes of the game. That explained why the Kraken had just four shots on goal through about the six-minute mark of the second period.
“We weren’t really getting out of our zone in the first period,” Gourde said. “By the end of the second and in the third, we played way more in the o-zone, which allowed way more shots… Our F3 was responsible and allowed our D to go down the wall.”
With every losing streak, a team needs to bottom out and then take baby steps toward righting the ship. This is certainly not the first losing streak Seattle has been on, and they’ve always eventually gotten themselves out, but not before an especially bad stretch of play. The first period of Tuesday’s game felt like rockbottom (we hope) for this skid.
From Gourde’s goal on, we were back to seeing the tenacious team we’re used to seeing at Climate Pledge Arena, and that is certainly something the team can build upon as it takes on Boston on Thursday.
“There’s nothing that I’d throw into print in terms of moral victories,” Hakstol said. “But pride and pushing and performing and sticking with it? Yeah, absolutely, there is something very important in that.”
There’s no place like home, or at least that’s what we’re telling ourselves. Seattle is back at Climate Pledge Arena on Tuesday for a needed respite from the road, after a painful 0-3-0 road trip. The Kraken take on a New York Islanders team on Tuesday that it defeated 3-0 on Feb. 2, when Philipp Grubauer earned the first shutout in franchise history.
Pre-game
Philipp Grubauer looking to build on good outing
Speaking of Grubauer, he also played great on Saturday against the Flames, stopping 35 of 37 shots in a hard-luck loss. The performance was good to see after he had strung together three less-than-impressive performances in a row, including a home loss to Toronto in which he gave up three goals on 11 shots and found himself on the bench after 20 minutes.
He deserved a victory over a very good team in Calgary, but was done in by a spinning Elias Lindholm wrister in the third period and insufficient offensive support throughout. Here’s hoping he can build off that outing on Tuesday.
Grubauer will be playing behind a team on tired legs, so he is likely to be under duress more frequently than he was on Long Island a few weeks ago.
Morgan Geekie showing progress
It has been a disappointing season for Morgan Geekie, who has not produced at a level that we expected from him coming in. He has just two assists in his last 14 games and has been relegated to the fourth line and scratched from the lineup on several occasions.
Geekie had one of his best games of the season Monday against the Canucks, though, and did everything but score. He drew three penalties, set up a couple opportunities, and ascended to the top line to close out the game. He also had a near goal on the back door on which Thatcher Demko made a miraculous sprawling save.
Austin Czarnik is getting back in against his old team, which recently had meant Geekie would be scratched. Instead, Joonas Donskoi will be scratched for the second time this season.
“When you get to a critical part of the game, you look for guys that are looking to make a difference versus just trying to get through a shift,” coach Dave Hakstol said, in reference to Geekie’s game against Vancouver. “We need him to be at a similar level [Tuesday].”
New York Islanders
It’s been a disappointing season for the Isles, who spent their first 13 games on the road while they waited for the completion of their new arena. It started off decently, but then New York went on an eight-game losing streak and has never really recovered. The Isles are now in sixth place in the Metropolitan Division, and the pre-season hope that they could be Stanley Cup contenders has faded.
Former Thunderbird superstar Mat Barzal is making his Seattle NHL debut, and Zdeno Chara is playing in his 1,651st career NHL game. That will tie Chris Chelios for the NHL record for games played by a defenseman.
We mentioned that Czarnik and Geekie are back in. Hakstol also confirmed that Haydn Fleury will return to the lineup for Carson Soucy.
The latest
The current Thunderbirds lineup will be in attendance to see Barzal play. Neat!
First period highlights
The Islanders scored first at 8:53. Anthony Beauvillier got the puck on the right half wall and chipped it past Calle Jarnkrok to Brock Nelson. Nelson stickhandled a bit, then lofted a deceptive wrist shot over the shoulder of Grubauer.
The Islanders extended their lead to 2-0 at 17:19. Barzal shot from the point, and Zach Parise, in his office at the top of the crease, got a piece of it to deflect it past Grubauer. Initially, the referees disallowed the goal for incidental contact between Parise and Grubauer, but Islanders coach Barry Trotz successfully challenged the call.
Two more looks.
Parise makes contact with Grubauer but is that the fault of Giordano?
The first period ended with that same score, and it was not a very good frame for the Kraken, who looked very much like they were on the second of back-to-back games. The Islanders took 80 percent of the high-danger shot attempts, had 75 percent of expected goals, and held a 13-4 lead in shots on goal.
Second period highlights
The Kraken continued to look slow in the opening stages of the second, and five minutes into the period, still had just four shots on goal for the whole game. The Islanders took advantage. Barzal won a puck battle behind the net and got the puck to Parise, who passed to Kyle Palmieri in front of the net. Palmieri got rid of it quickly, and made it 3-0 at 5:34.
The Islanders scored again at 10:33, when Scott Mayfield slapped a shot off the endboards. It rebounded right back out in front, and Casey Cizikas was there to put it back in a yawning cage.
The Kraken finally got on the board a few minutes later. Off an offensive zone face-off win, Yanni Gourde cut across the circle and shot the puck off the crossbar and down.
The Gourde goal seemed to ignite the team and wake up the home crowd, as the Kraken had the better of the play for the reminder of the period with several good chances.
Still, they went to the room with a big hill to climb, down 4-1.
Third period highlights
The Kraken carried their newfound life into the third period and got a lucky goal early. A rim attempt by New York hit (we think) the little camera that’s built into the boards behind the net. Rather than swinging around to the other side, it took a right turn right onto the stick of Riley Sheahan, who tucked it behind Sorokin.
There was a time when the New York Islanders were considered to be Stanley Cup contenders this season. It made sense since they were coming off back-to-back trips to the Eastern Conference Final and just needed to take that one next step.
We are still waiting for that next step.
Like the Kraken, the Islanders have struggled this season and are not Stanley Cup contenders. They have struggled to score goals, averaging 2.44 scores per game which is 29th in the NHL (Seattle is ranked 27th at 2.58), and this has held them back.
They did start with a long road trip while their new UBS Arena was being finished, and that road trip did not go well. The Islanders stumbled out of the gates and never have recovered.
The return of Mat Barzal
Before the Kraken, Jared McCann, Brandon Tanev, or Yanni Gourde, Barzal was the first name in Seattle hockey. Starring with the Seattle Thunderbirds, the slick-skating center delighted local fans and drove WHL opponents crazy.
His last season with the Thunderbirds in 2017 ended with him leading Seattle to its first ever WHL Championship win. Barzal ended the year as the playoff MVP and helped win a memorable Game 6 in his final game at the accesso ShoWare Center in Kent.
“Just that feeling you get when you have history in a certain spot,” Barzal said at Climate Pledge Arena on Monday. “When we won that championship there was this euphoric feeling that I got, and we got as a team. We felt like we worked so hard for four years to accomplish that in my 19 (year old) year. A bunch of my good friends and teammates that year, we came up at 16, 17, 18 and then we won at 19 so it was super rewarding.”
Expect there to be a decent contingent of fans sporting Barzal number 13 Thunderbirds jerseys in attendance.
Who is stopping the puck?
Islanders coach Barry Trotz will be starting Ilya Sorokin in net. Sorokin is having a good season, despite New York’s struggles this year. He comes into Tuesday’s game with a .921 save percentage and a 2.44 goals against average.
Sorokin did not play in the Feb. 2 game between these two teams, which was won by the Kraken 3-0.
Who are the Islanders to watch?
New York isn’t loaded with top-end scorers, but that doesn’t mean they are devoid of talent. It starts with Barzal who will be their top center and log a ton of ice time Tuesday.
Center Brock Nelson provides some secondary scoring and leads the Islanders with 17 goals this season. Anders Lee can find the back of the net and has 13 goals. Josh Bailey hasn’t scored much this year but is creating and has 22 points on the campaign.
Islanders ins and outs
New York is 13-4-4 when it scores first so this will be a great game for the Kraken to break the trend of conceding an early goal against.
With the power play, the Islanders are ranked 22nd in the NHL with a 18.8 percent success rate and 23rd on the road at 16.3 percent. Penalty killing is a different story and New York has performed well. Overall the Islanders are ranked 9th in penalty killing and 10th on the road.
Considering the Kraken’s troubles with the power play, this figures to be a low-scoring game. Bet the under if you’re the gambling type.
Islanders Northwest connections
Barzal is the obvious connection and will be playing his first hockey game in the Seattle area since 2017, but he’s not the only connection.
Forward Kieffer Bellows played a season in the WHL with the Portland Winterhawks in 2017-18. He had a good season with Portland scoring 41 goals and 74 points.
The ageless wonder that is Zdeno Chara played his junior hockey in the WHL which meant he visited Seattle with the Prince George Cougars. Tuesday will not be his first appearance under the Climate Pledge roof. He had one memorable moment playing the Thunderbirds at the Key Arena.
Tuesday’s game will be Chara’s career game No. 1,651, which will tie Chris Chelios for the NHL record for games played by a defenseman.
With the NHL trade deadline just four weeks away, we thought it would be a good time to look at previous trade deadlines to help prepare on what to expect over the coming month. This will be focused on the league as a whole and not necessarily on how the Kraken might approach the deadline, but don’t worry, we will write about what to expect from the Kraken in the coming weeks as well.
Ramping up to the trade deadline
So far, the ramp has been slow compared to past years, even with the two trades made in the last week. There typically aren’t that many done at this stage in the season anyway, but it’s worth noting that we’re lagging a little.
In the past five seasons, roughly 80 percent of the trades during this four-week window have occurred in the final week before the deadline. The lesson here is to try to exhibit patience if Seattle has still not traded anyone headed into the final week.
Here is how the totals look by season.
It is interesting to look at the drop last season from the prior season. This could be driven my salary cap constraints adding to the difficulty of getting deals done and also the challenges of getting players into and out of Canada. We will have to monitor the volume of trades this year to see if that drop in 2020-21 is the start of a trend or just a blip on the radar.
Let’s make a deal
Every team has a different set of needs and assets around the trade deadline that varies from season to season, so using historical data to predict a team’s future behavior is somewhat futile. Even so, we thought it was still worth looking at the quantity of trades each team has done around the trade deadline over the last five years.
One thing that was interesting is that there were four teams that did not make a trade prior to the deadline last year: Arizona, Dallas, Minnesota, and St. Louis. In 2019-20, all teams made at least one trade. Again, the flat cap situation facing all teams could be a contributor here.
Trade deadline asset mix
At a high level, there are only two assets a team can trade: draft picks and players. Here is how that has broken down over the last five seasons.
There is a bit of nuance to the player assets, as some could be NHLers or prospects (AHL/CHL), and some deals could just be for signing rights. Signing rights deals are done for players that might have been drafted in years prior but for various reasons might not have signed their standard NHL entry deal. These would include drafted players that are still playing in college, for example.
Here is how the player assets breakdown.
Breakdown of traded draft picks
For Seattle Kraken fans, something to keep an eye on is the draft picks that will be trading hands, specifically what draft pick assets could be traded to Seattle. Here is a look at all the draft picks that changed hands over the last five seasons.
The important piece of information here is that it is rare to trade a first-round draft pick during the trade deadline. If you were hoping Mark Giordano would snag a first-round pick, it is certainly possible but could be a challenge as teams seem less willing to part with their top picks.
As a team that clearly will not be making the playoffs this year, the Seattle Kraken have several player assets that could be moved in the next four weeks. Our hope is sharing these historical trade deadline numbers gives you context and a different perspective on evaluating trades as we march toward the trade deadline.
If you have an questions, takes, or predictions, leave them in the comments section.
Chris Driedger did all he could Monday night at Rogers Arena, but it would not be enough as the Vancouver Canucks scored four unanswered goals over the final two periods in a 5-2 win against the Seattle Kraken.
Driedger stopped 41 Canucks shots, giving the struggling Kraken offense a chance, but Seattle could not take advantage and fell to 0-3-0 against its so-called rivals.
“We had some good quality looks tonight,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “It’s not all just about the shot clock, you know, that doesn’t always tell the whole story. So, it’s not about that. It’s about finding quality opportunities. We had a few more tonight just not at the right time of the hockey game. That second period is critical. That’s the turning point in the hockey game, and that’s the difference in the hockey game.”
Tyler Motte had a goal and an assist and Juho Lammikko, Elias Pettersson, and J.T. Miller each had two assists. Thatcher Demko made 25 saves for Vancouver (24-22-6), who kept its playoff hopes alive after losing its last game.
Jared McCann, playing his 400th NHL game, scored against his former team and Mark Giordano scored a shorthanded goal for Seattle (16-32-4), who will look to end a four-game losing streak Tuesday at home against the New York Islanders.
The Canucks outshot the Kraken 46-27 and took 57.6 percent of the unblocked five-on-five shot attempts and had 71.8 percent of all shot quality. Driedger made a season-high number of saves, keeping Seattle in the game, but the Kraken could not capitalize, scoring once at even strength and once shorthanded and went 0-for-4 on the power play.
“In the second period they won the the races, they won the puck battles and because of that, they had the majority of the zone time.” Hakstol said. “When that happens in the second period, you end up spending your energy playing defense, and there’s not much left to go in the other direction. It always starts with our play with the puck and in the second period it wasn’t clean enough to get up ice and beat their pressure.”
The Kraken led after one but Canucks stormed back
For the second straight game, the Kraken gave up a goal on the first shot of the game. Motte scored for Vancouver at 11 seconds of the first period to make it 1-0 after the Kraken left him alone in front of the net for an easy score.
“Obviously, anytime you get scored on in the first 30 seconds like that it’s not [ideal],” Giordano said. “I thought the puck literally took a bad bounce behind the net there and they got it. They got a break I thought on that one and you come in in a good spot after the first and then I didn’t think we played very well from there on out. Anytime you give up that many shots and so many quality chances, you pretty much don’t have much of a chance.”
Seattle answered quickly on a goal at 3:12 when Jared McCann finished a two-on-one with Marcus Johansson for his 21st of the season.
Near the end of a failed Kraken power play Vince Dunn grabbed on to Vancouver’s Elias Pettersson who was about to skate down the ice alone. It turned out Dunn’s play paid off.
Giordano scored shorthanded at 14:26 to make it 2-1. Just as the ensuing Vancouver power play was starting, Joonas Donskoi got it to Giordano who skated in alone and slid a forehand past Demko. It was the fifth of the season for Giordano and his first since Dec. 30, a span of 19 games.
Travis Hamonic tied the game at 2-2 at 3:45 of the second period when his shot through traffic squeaked through Driedger’s five-hole.
The Canucks went ahead 3-2 at 16:41 on a rebound put back by Vasily Podkolzin who beat the Seattle defense to the puck and picked up his eighth of the season.
Vancouver enjoyed a 18-4 shots on goal advantage during the second period.
“I don’t think the second period was our best period, for sure,” Driedger said. “There were a lot of chances. I don’t know exactly what happened but they just outworked us out there. I thought we actually had a pretty good first, we recovered well after that first one against which is good to see. I thought we showed a little bit of resilience in the first to score two goals and take the lead. We just needed to keep that up and unfortunately we didn’t.”
Bo Horvat made it 4-2 at 35 seconds of the third period on a Vancouver power play. Parked at the edge of the left faceoff circle, Horvat scored his 15th on a one-time shot.
Tanner Pearson scored on the empty net at 18:28 to make it a 5-2 final.
Tentacle Tales
+ Giordano scored his 11th career shorthanded goal, which trails only Mark Howe (28), Paul Coffey (20), Ray Bourque (16),Bobby Orr (16), Chris Chelios (13), and Red Kelly (12) for the most on record by a defenseman.
+ Driedger’s previous season high in saves was 40 against the Edmonton Oilers on Dec. 30.
+ McCann was originally a first-round draft selection by the Canucks during the 2014 NHL Draft when he was the 24th pick overall.
+ Motte’s goal at 11 seconds of first period was the fastest goal to start a game by any team this season.
The great thing about the NHL is that when a team has a stinging loss, there’s usually another game right around the corner to help fans move on. Unfortunately, this Kraken road trip has given one long stinging sensation through two games, though. After Seattle blew a 2-0 lead against the Jets, the boys hung with an outstanding Calgary team on Mark Giordano night, giving hope for an unlikely victory, only to concede the winning goal midway through the third period. Thankfully this is still the NHL, and sure enough, the Kraken get another chance to salvage some points out of this three-game trip against the Vancouver Canucks on Monday.
This game also starts an interesting back-to-back with travel, as Seattle follows this contest against its closest neighbor with a home matchup against Mathew Barzal and the New York Islanders on Tuesday. Coach Dave Hakstol indicated that Chris Driedger will get the nod against the Canucks, meaning Philipp Grubauer will likely play behind a more tired squad Tuesday.
Driedger won in his last start on Feb. 11, a 4-3 victory over the Ducks, but gave up three goals in 40 minutes of relief time against the Maple Leafs in a no-decision on Valentine’s Day.
Vancouver Canucks
It has been a season of transition for the Canucks in a lot of ways. They went deep into the tank in the early going, which led to the firing of coach Travis Green and general manager Jim Benning (among others) in December. Bruce Boudreau was hired as the new bench boss, while Jim Rutherford was brought in as the president of hockey operations, and Patrik Allvin was named GM. The front office was rounded out with the additions of Emilie Castonguay and Cammi Granato as AGM’s.
The Canucks quickly turned things around and went 8-0-1 in their first nine games with Boudreau at the helm, including a 5-2 win over Seattle at Climate Pledge Arena on Jan. 1. Since that streak ended, Vancouver has produced middling results with a 7-7-3 record in the subsequent 17 games and is coming off a 7-4 home loss at the hands of the Ducks on Saturday.
Despite all the turmoil, these Canucks are still sort of in the hunt. They have passed the San Jose Sharks for sixth place in the Pacific Division and are now five points back of Anaheim and seven points out of a playoff spot.
Still, they are expected to be sellers at the trade deadline, with top scorer J.T. Miller (18-33=51) and sniper Brock Boeser (15-13=28) in the middle of most of the rumors.
Young stud Thatcher Demko is expected to get the start for Vancouver in net.
Projected lineup
Hakstol confirmed that Morgan Geekie and Carson Soucy will draw back in for Austin Czarnik and Haydn Fleury.
The latest
Nadia Papovici, the Kraken fan who warned Canucks equipment manager Red Hamilton about what turned out to be a cancerous mole on his neck, will be at the game. We wonder if Vancouver will do a little celebration for her as well. Remember, these two teams combined to gift Papovici a $10,000 scholarship the last time these teams met. UPDATE: We were disappointed to learn that Nadia was wearing Canucks gear at the game.
First period highlights
Things got off to a VERY fast start in this one. Driedger mishandled the puck on a dump-in off the opening face-off. Behind the net, he erroneously poked it past Giordano and onto the stick of Matthew Highmore. Highmore cycled it back low to Juho Lammikko, who found Tyler Motte in the slot (that rhymes). 11 seconds into the game, the Kraken were already chasing.
To Seattle’s credit, they fought right back and leveled the score at 1-1 at 3:12. On a two-on-one rush, Marcus Johansson made a nice move around a sprawling defender and slid a perfect pass across the top of the crease to Jared McCann. McCann had a wide-open net and potted his 21st goal of the year in his 400th career game against the team that drafted him.
With the first Kraken power play of the game winding down, Elias Pettersson had beaten Vince Dunn at the Canucks’ blue line and was about to sprint through the neutral zone on a breakaway. Dunn held him up and took a smart interference penalty. Surprisingly, it was the Kraken who scored shorthanded just seconds after the Vancouver manpower advantage began.
Joonas Donskoi took a loose puck off the halfwall in the defensive zone and flipped it out of the zone. Recognizing that he was behind Vancouver’s defense and Seattle had the puck, Giordano took off. Donskoi’s flip landed right on the offensive blue line for Giordano, and the captain did the rest, making it 2-1 at 14:26.
It was a good recovery by Driedger and the Kraken after the incredibly early goal. Driedger stopped the next 14 shots he saw, and Seattle took a 2-1 lead to the room after 20 minutes.
Second period highlights
The Canucks leveled the score early in the second. Travis Hamonic shot from the outside hash with traffic in front of Driedger. Driedger looked like he had the post locked down, but somehow the puck got through him, with Highmore creating havoc in the goal crease.
Speaking of strange plays, Quinn Hughes fired a shot from a bad angle a few minutes later. Driedger was down against the post, and the shot hit his skate and bounced right out to Vasily Podkolzin in the low slot. Driedger somehow lost sight of it and thought it had gone to the corner. By the time he figured out where the puck actually was, it was in the back of the net.
Quinn Hughes puts a bad angle shot into Chris Driedger's pads, Vasily Podkolzin jumps on the rebound and is pumped about it. 3-2 #Canucks. pic.twitter.com/LaW7kdNhO2
That made it 3-2, and that was how the period would end. The Kraken were mostly dominated in the frame, and got outshot 18-4. They were in need of a big boost for the third period.
Third period highlights
The Kraken started the third period shorthanded, and the Canucks took advantage. Miller made a nice pass to Horvat, who blasted away and beat Driedger over the shoulder. It was another early-period tally, this one coming at 35 seconds of the final frame.
Horvat's shot was so quick, the cameramen could barely keep up. 😏
With Driedger off for an extra skater, McCann rang a shot off the post in the closing minutes. The rebound got into the hands of the Canucks, and Tanner Pearson scored an empty netter to make it 5-2.
The Kraken conceded a whopping 46 shots in this game.
They will now return home and go right back to work on Tuesday against the Isles.
