The Sound Of Hockey Podcast is back with a new chuckle-inducing episode that the guys think you will really enjoy. As always, it’s heavy on the segbits, as John, Andy, and Darren meander through the world of hockey, both at the NHL level and beyond. Plenty of Seattle Kraken talk to start the show, like what happened on a painful road trip and how much of the recent struggles have been due to goaltending.
But then the guys shift their focus to discuss:
The Jack Eichel trade
The Bob Murray resignation
The quality of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Segments this week include Sound Of Hockey’s Three Stars, Down on the Farm, Goalie Gear Corner, Weekly One-Timers, and Tweets of the Week.
Seattle Kraken versus Anaheim Ducks 7 p.m. Pacific time Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle, Washington TV: ROOT Sports Radio: AM 950 KJR
As the saying goes, you have to make hay when the sun is shining. Of course, this is November in Seattle, and the sun almost never shines this time of year, but as it pertains to the Kraken, they are in last place and are now entering an uber-important six-game homestand. Sunshine or not, it’s time to make some hay.
The sun does shine in Anaheim this time of year, and it has been particularly bright there in the early stages of this season. A young team, the Ducks are on fire and represent a herculean task for the Seattle Kraken on Thursday.
Lineup questions
Coach Dave Hakstol was mostly coy in his morning press availability on Thursday (as he always is) about his lineup plans and indicated there will be a few “game-time decisions” for him and his staff. He did confirm that Jared McCann will play in his first game since entering COVID protocol two weeks ago.
McCann, who has seven points in eight games (3-4=7), is a key piece of the offensive attack for Seattle, and his absence was noticeable. He shared on Wednesday that he was hit hard by COVID, losing his senses of taste and smell, and lacked energy. Wednesday was also his first time back on the ice, so we shall see if he can perform to the best of his abilities Thursday.
In pre-season, McCann centered a dynamic line with Jordan Eberle and Jaden Schwartz that dominated at times. The trio was broken up early in the regular season, though, as Hakstol tried to squeeze goals out of his snake bitten group.
Toward the end of McCann’s absence, Alex Wennberg got slotted between Eberle and Schwartz, at which point Eberle got hot and scored five goals in three games. Interestingly, McCann was back in that spot at practice Wednesday and spoke as if he expects to play with Schwartz and Eberle.
What remains unclear is whether Yanni Gourde will be available Thursday. It is believed he was injured when he blocked a shot with his knee in the first period against Vegas on Tuesday. He did return after that and scored a goal but missed most of the third. He did not participate in practice Wednesday but was on the ice at Thursday’s optional morning skate. UPDATE: Looks like Gourde is in, as is Ryan Donato.
Goalie talk
The goaltending has gotten a lot of attention from the fledgling Kraken fanbase of late. Chris Driedger made his first start Tuesday in a 4-2 loss to the Golden Knights after Philipp Grubauer had a tough night in Arizona on Saturday. Neither netminder has particularly impressive stats, but we believe there’s improvement on the horizon for both.
Hakstol stressed Thursday that he doesn’t really care about their save percentages, but he does care about getting timely saves, which can have such a huge impact on the momentum of a game. At key points—like right after a Kraken goal, for example, or in the opening or closing minutes of a period—does Grubauer come up with the big save? Seattle hasn’t gotten that recently, so that will be something to look for as Grubauer returns to the crease against Anaheim.
Anaheim Ducks
These aren’t the same Ducks that had become so pleasant to play against in recent seasons. The youth movement that was put in motion several years ago—centered around players like Trevor Zegras, Troy Terry, Maxime Comtois, Sam Steel, and others—is starting to pay off, as Anaheim has gotten off to a great start to its season and sits in third place in the Pacific at 7-4-3.
Of course, the man who started that movement, general manager Bob Murray, has just resigned with allegations swirling about his treatment of those inside the organization and an investigation into his conduct underway. Murray’s fingerprints will remain on this roster for years to come, and while what he did behind the scenes is very much in question, the on-ice product appears to be dramatically improving.
Driving that improvement has been the emergence of Terry, who has been unstoppable in his 13 games played this season. The 24-year-old right winger is third in the league in goals with nine and has added seven assists. He scored the game-winning goal for the second straight game Tuesday in Vancouver, which led the Ducks to their fifth consecutive win.
There’s also been a feeling over the past few years that the rebuild in Anaheim has been wasting an exceptional talent in netminder John Gibson, who is now 28 years old. If this team does prove to be the real deal as the season wears on, Gibson will be a huge piece of the success. Gibson gets the nod Thursday. A shoo-in for Team USA in the upcoming Olympics, he is again proving tough to beat with a 2.34 goals against average and .927 save percentage.
Projected lineup
We’re basing this on lines from practice on Wednesday and guessing that Gourde will not play. Of course, this could change dramatically if he does go. UPDATE: With Gourde apparently… Gourde to go, the lines looked very different than they have before in warmups. This is reflected in the projection below.
What looked promising for the Seattle Kraken Tuesday at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas turned bad in just 1:33 of game time and they lost 4-2 against the Vegas Golden Knights.
It was the second straight loss on the road for Seattle (4-8-1) in which it held a lead, and Tuesday had a familiar odor to the disappointing loss Saturday in Arizona.
“We’re just a fragile team,” Jordan Eberle, who scored his seventh goal of the season, said. “We’re finding ways to lose instead off finding ways to win.”
After a dominating second period, Yanni Gourde scored a goal to put Seattle up 2-1 with 31 seconds left in the period. Instead of building momentum, it would be Vegas (7-6-0) who tied the game on a goal from Evgenii Dadonov on the next shift with 15 seconds left before intermission.
The Golden Knights rode that wave to score twice on goals from Reilly Smith, one at 30 seconds and again at 1:16 of the third period, to take a two-goal lead and sail to a win. Goalie Robin Lehner made 25 saves, 10 of which were in the third period, to squash any Kraken notions of a comeback.
“This was a hard loss,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “We worked really hard to be in a position going into the third period and that slipped away. We’ve got to reset, practice tomorrow, and get ready for a game Thursday.”
Chris Driedger made his first start in net for Seattle and allowed four goals on 23 shots. Gourde’s goal was his second in two games and third on the season. Eberle scored his seventh goal in seven games to open the scoring in the first period.
It was in the second that the Kraken were gaining control.
Seattle took 75 percent of the unblocked shots at 5-on-5 and 75.8 percent of the quality shots. They also drew two penalties as the ice was tilted and the Kraken were controlling things. They took a deserved 2-1 lead when Brandon Tanev hit a streaking Gourde in stride for a go-ahead goal.
That’s where things turned.
With time running down in the period a Shea Theodore shot was stopped by Driedger, but he couldn’t control or find the rebound and it was poked in by Dadonov to make it 2-2.
“We have to go into the intermission up by one,” Hakstol said. “That’s a goal we can’t give up. We got caught with an out numbered situation at the net on a throw in. That’s a little too easy.”
Vegas grabbed the lead when a Theodore point shot was tipped by Smith in the slot causing Driedger to miss it with his glove. Smith would then knock in a touch pass in front on a Vegas power play to make it 4-2 and sap the life out of the Kraken players.
Driedger had a similar struggle with the glove late in the first period with the Kraken up 1-0. Vegas defenseman Alex Pietrangelo threw a shot on net that seemed to surprise Driedger. Despite getting a piece of it, he was not able to keep it out of the net.
“There’s a couple he’d probably want back,” Hakstol said of Driedger’s game. “He’s got to reset and be ready to go back to work at practice tomorrow.”
The last two games have been a struggle and wiped away the good feeling last week’s win at home over the Buffalo Sabres gained. Trends are starting to emerge as the Kraken can’t find a way to cash in on repeated stretches where they control the play, and they are still looking for timely saves from their goaltenders.
Finishing a team once they’ve built a lead still appears to be a lesson that the team needs to learn.
Power play finally breaks through
One bright spot Tuesday was Seattle finally cashing in on a power play. It came in the first period after Gourde goaded Vegas’ Chandler Stephenson into taking an unsportsmanlike penalty for grabbing Gourde’s visor.
Eberle would then find a rebound in front and score on the backhand. It snapped a streak of 23 straight failed power play attempts.
In a touch of irony, Seattle failed on two second-period power plays which would have gone a long way to giving them a two-goal lead and change the tone of the contest. Even when the power play works the Kraken still managed to have it let them down.
“We’ve got to get feeling good about ourselves,” Mark Giordano said. “In tight games, we’ve got to find a way to still make those plays.”
Other Kraken game notes
— Marcus Johansson returned to the lineup Tuesday for Seattle. He last played in the season opener, also against Vegas, but recorded an assist on Eberle’s goal.
— Ryan Donato was injured in Arizona and was not in the lineup Tuesday. Hakstol did not have an update.
— Gourde did not play the last six minutes of the game, apparently suffering an injury. Hakstol did not disclose what the nature of the injury was nor did he offer any status update. Earlier in the game, Gourde took a shot off the knee but returned to the ice for his next shift.
— The Kraken open a six-game homestand at Climate Pledge Arena Thursday with a game against the Anaheim Ducks.
Seattle Kraken at Vegas Golden Knights 7 p.m. Pacific time T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas, Nevada Watch: ESPN+, Hulu (Streaming only) Radio: AM 950 KJR
Back to where it all began, the Seattle Kraken are in Vegas on Tuesday to take on the Golden Knights for the second time in their existence and the first time since opening their inaugural season on the Strip. Circumstances are a bit different this time around, as we know a lot more about both teams, but this is still a tough building and a tough opponent, and it is again an important game for Seattle.
The Kraken are coming off a painful loss to the worst team in the league, the previously winless Arizona Coyotes, on Saturday. It was a game in which Seattle scored two goals and chased the opposing netminder in the very first minute of the game. In the second and third periods the Kraken allowed three unanswered goals to give Arizona a lead, then fought back to find the tying goal with 1:18 left. But just seconds later, a bad Adam Larsson turnover in the corner led to the game-winning goal by Lawson Crouse.
It was a night that Seattle fans hope to forget, but it will live on in infamy as the night those same fans completely lost it on Twitter for the first time (seriously, our mentions were… something).
Dave Hakstol acknowledged that it was a difficult game for the team, but hopes they can learn from it. “You gotta grow as a team out of some of the tough experiences,” he said Monday. “And that was a tough experience the other night. It was disappointing for all of us, but it gives you the opportunity also to learn something about yourselves and to be able to grow together.”
Tuesday, the Kraken look to right the ship against a banged up Vegas team.
Out goes Donato, in comes Johansson
Adding injury to insult on Saturday, Ryan Donato went head-first into the endboards on a very awkward play in the first period. He was slow to get up, but did eventually rise and looked ok in the immediate aftermath. He soon went down the tunnel, though, and did not return. Donato did not practice on Monday, but was back wearing a red non-contact jersey at morning skate on Tuesday.
Hakstol confirmed in his press availability after morning skate that Marcus Johansson will return against Vegas, so he will slot into Donato’s spot. Though the Kraken kept saying Johansson was still day to day, it’s not a huge surprise that he’s ready to go. He had been practicing in full, and nobody had been recalled from the AHL to replace Donato in the lineup.
Ironically, Johansson’s only game came at T-Mobile Arena on opening night, after which he somewhat mysteriously popped up on injured reserve and hasn’t played since. He had a big role in preseason and registered 16:13 of ice time with one shot on goal in that first game.
Chris Driedger starting Tuesday
On the previously discussed topic of our Twitter mentions, we hear your goaltending concerns loud and clear. You’re right that Philipp Grubauer has not been at his best so far and statistically has fallen toward the bottom of the league, but there is always context to consider with goalies.
First, Grubauer has been getting very heavily used. Some of that is the decision of the coach—after all, he did give the first five starts of the season to Grubauer—but some of that is simply terrible timing for Driedger to get injured. We all expected more of a 1A/1B platoon scenario, but that just hasn’t worked out. That can still come to fruition, though, and Driedger can start commanding more time with a quality start in Vegas.
Second, goaltending is a mentally taxing position that ebbs and flows during the course of an 82-game season, so give Grubauer time. He will get hot at some point, and you’ll go back to worshipping him as quickly as you might have stopped.
All that said, those that are clamoring for a Driedger start get their wish on Tuesday, as Hakstol confirmed he will go against Vegas. We did not anticipate that it would take until the twelfth game of the season before seeing him officially get the nod from the beginning of a game, but it’s better late than never.
Last season in Florida, Driedger was 14-6-3 with a 2.07 goals against average and .927 save percentage.
Vegas Golden Knights
Vegas currently has the following players listed on injured reserve: Mark Stone, Max Pacioretty, Nolan Patrick, Zach Whitecloud, and… Jack Eichel. William Karlsson is also out with a broken foot, though he for some reason is not officially listed on IR, and Alex Tuch and Peyton Krebs were traded in the Eichel deal.
That’s a lot of quality, regular players missing for the Golden Knights, who have been dressing guys like Michael Amadio and Jonas Rondbjerg to fill in. Paul Cotter is also expected to make his NHL debut Tuesday.
The Golden Knights beat Seattle on opening night, then lost four straight before rebounding—despite the injuries stacking up—for five wins in their last seven games. They did lose 5-2 in Detroit on Sunday, but have climbed back to .500 after a horrible start.
It’s an opportunistic team that showed how quickly it can strike the last time these teams played each other. That night, Seattle was playing an aggressive style that left things pretty wide open through the neutral zone. But the Kraken have adjusted their approach dramatically since then, so perhaps the goals won’t come quite as easily for the Golden Knights this time around.
Oh, and speaking of Eichel, holy cats, the Golden Knights traded for Eichel!
The disc replacement surgery that caused his rift with Buffalo has been scheduled for Nov. 12, then if all goes according to plan, the recovery should be about three months. So we won’t actually see him until at least February. When the superstar center does return, the Golden Knights are going to have to make some very tough calls to get themselves under the salary cap… but then they’ll have Eichel.
It’s been a season of firsts for the Seattle Kraken, but being the first team to lose to the Arizona Coyotes was not a first they wanted any part of.
But that’s what happened at Gila River Arena Saturday as the Kraken (4-7-1) raced to a 3-1 lead in the first period and then were outscored 4-1 the rest of the way for Arizona (1-10-1) to win 5-4.
It was a loss for the expansion team that could only be described as ‘bad.’
After giving up the lead with just over six minutes left in the game, and with Philipp Grubauer at the bench for an extra skater, Seattle tied the game at 18:42 on a Mark Giordano slap shot, and it looked like they would at least salvage a point by forcing overtime.
But 13 seconds later, Adam Larsson turned the puck over behind his own net, and it was passed out to Lawson Crouse who scored the go-ahead goal on his second of the night.
“Obviously that’s a real disappointing loss,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said.
The Kraken stormed out of the gates Saturday and Jordan Eberle scored at the 15 second mark with a backhand from in close followed by a Yanni Gourde goal at the 59 second mark, scored off the rush. That chased Coyotes starter Karel Vejmelka who gave up goals on each of the two shots he faced. Scott Wedgewood, who was just claimed off waivers by the Coyotes on Nov. 4, replaced him and made 27 saves to give Arizona a chance to come back.
“I don’t know. We got two quick goals and I don’t think we played real well after that,” Gourde said. “We weren’t managing the puck really well, weren’t playing fast, weren’t playing with our identity.”
Perhaps a harbinger of the way the night was going to end up came after the two early Kraken goals.
Just 34 seconds after Gourde scored, Seattle’s Morgan Geekie turned the puck over in the neutral zone and Shayne Gostisbehere found Antoine Roussel who had a two-on-one breaking into the Kraken zone. Roussel scored his first of the year and the Coyotes stemmed the tide a bit.
Even then, things looked good for Seattle as Nathan Bastian answered that goal at 11:04 of the opening period with his first goal as a Kraken.
The period ended with Seattle up 3-1 and leading in unblocked shot attempts and a somewhat dominating 59.77 expected goal percentage (xGF) – meaning not only were they getting more shot attempts but higher quality shots at that. This is how the game was supposed to go considering the Coyotes had been woeful the first 10 games of the season.
But Arizona quietly began to walk the Kraken down in the second period.
After a dump in by the Coyotes, Haydn Fleury got to the puck and the Kraken defender threw a backhanded pass up the boards in an attempt to break out. Gostisbehere read it, pinched, and broke the pass up. The puck would get to Travis Boyd who had an easy one-timer to cut the lead to 3-2 at 3:12.
The Coyotes started to turn the tide while down only one goal. They matched the Kraken in shot attempts and swung the quality shots to their side with an xGF of 59.77 in the second period.
“We had some of the pieces to our game, but we didn’t have the completeness at all,” Hakstol said. “That shows in… volume of chances. We didn’t make them work hard enough to get (chances).”
Third period unravels for Kraken
With a 3-2 lead for Seattle things started frantically in the third. The Kraken were in on Wedgewood on the first shift, nearly scoring on a couple of great looks. But they didn’t go in and Arizona transitioned the other way, getting the puck behind the Seattle net.
Johan Larsson beat the Kraken defenders to the puck and flung it in front to Crouse who blasted a shot to tie the game 3-3 at the 46 second mark.
“We got a good start early in the third, had a good shift,” Gourde said. “They get a scoring chance and score, quick turnaround. We’ve got to manage the game better…we got more looks in the third, but we’ve got to be better than that. Our identity is to play 60 minutes hard and we didn’t do that.”
Gourde is right, Seattle did get more looks in the third. A lot more.
Seattle had 18 unblocked shot attempts to the Coyotes 7 and had 77 percent of the quality shot attempts. Wedgewood made 12 saves in the period to keep Arizona in it. That allowed Phil Kessel to put the home team ahead at 13:34 with a power-play goal.
The goal was set up by Gostisbehere who ended with three assists.
“We’ll look at the clips, look at the tape and come up with an answer,” Gourde said. “Overall, our battle level, they won more battles than we did.”
— Seattle was 0-for-2 on the power play and has failed on 22 straight attempts.
— Ryan Donato was hurt after falling into the boards in the first period and did not return. After the game, Hakstol said that he did not have an update on the forward.
— Saturday was multi-goal comeback night in the NHL. Arizona came back from down two and was the third team to do so, joining the Vegas Golden Knights, the Minnesota Wild, and the Detroit Red Wings.
— With Eberle and Gourde scoring for the Kraken in the first 59 seconds, Seattle became the first road team to do so since the St. Louis Blues at Anaheim on Jan. 30 of 2004.
Seattle Kraken at Arizona Coyotes 7 p.m. Pacific time Gila River Arena, Glendale, Arizona TV: ROOT Sports Radio: 950 AM KJR
There are winnable games, and then there are games against the Arizona Coyotes, who still have a zero in the ‘W’ column after 10 games. At 0-9-1, it’s easy to look past a matchup like this, but the Kraken will need to bear down and make certain they come away with two points in the standings Saturday.
Philipp Grubauer is getting the nod in goal once again. We dig into this decision a bit more below.
Power play remedy?
Morgan Geekie was shifted to the left halfwall on the power play in Thursday’s 5-2 Kraken win over the Buffalo Sabres. Seattle still didn’t score on the man advantage that night and are now 30th in the league in this category, clicking at a miserable 8.33 percent. But Geekie’s first-period goal came just seconds after a Sabres penalty had ended, when Seattle was still clearly in power play mode.
The reason it’s notable that Geekie was on the left side is that he was already opened up and ready to fire when an Alex Wennberg pass through the seam found him in the left circle. Previously, when he was on the right side, he had to circle around the puck before he could shoot. We like this setup a lot more, as it puts one of the Kraken’s biggest cannons in a position to get the puck away with less time for the goalie to come across.
Keep a close eye on Seattle’s power play Saturday to see if it can finally break through and start improving on those dismal numbers.
By the way, Geekie brought the house down after practice on Friday. You must watch this if you haven’t already.
During preseason, we saw Jordan Eberle, Jaden Schwartz, and Jared McCann (the J’s) form impressive chemistry. As the team struggled to score in the early parts of the season, coach Dave Hakstol started mixing things up to try to find a new formula, then McCann went into Covid protocol.
On Thursday, Schwartz and Eberle were put back together halfway through the game, with Wennberg in the middle. Collectively, the group took off offensively, as Eberle potted the first hat trick in team history and Schwartz added an empty netter and assisted on two of Eberle’s goals.
It goes without saying that the trio will be back together on Saturday.
What’s the deal with Seattle’s goalie usage?
Hakstol confirmed that Grubauer will start again on Saturday for Seattle, which will bring him to 10 starts in 12 games for the team. There is some context to consider here, because Chris Driedger was out with a knee injury from Oct. 18 until earlier this week, and they’re being careful with him. Nonetheless, Hakstol has really been deploying Grubauer as a true No. 1 netminder, rather than rotating him with Driedger or—in Driedger’s absence—Daccord.
We did not expect this to be the case entering the season, especially with a guy like Driedger on the roster. After all, he stole the net away from Sergei Bobrovsky for good chunks of last season with Florida, and Bobrovsky makes $10 million a year.
We asked Hakstol this week if we might see more of a shift toward a platoon as the season progresses. “That’s not a prediction that I want to make as we go forward,” he said. “Too many things change in the short term from injuries to performance to the different segments of the schedule.
“The rhythm that we’ve had Phil in has been comfortable. We’ve had good practice time over the last two weeks here. We’ve had a pretty good rhythm in terms of rest and days off, and the games for—whether it’s Chris or in the case of the last couple weeks Joey to step in and play—will be very important. In terms of the numbers of [starts], I don’t have a prediction for you on that right now.”
So, that doesn’t sound like a shift toward more consistent rotation is coming any time soon.
It’s not how we expected things to shake out, but leaning on one guy is still very normal in the NHL. A look at netminder usage around the league confirms this.
Only the New Jersey Devils are excluded from the above graphic because none of their goalies have started more than 50 percent of their games.
Arizona Coyotes
After the Coyotes missed last season’s playoffs for the seventh time in eight tries, Rick Tocchet was replaced in the offseason by Andre Tourigny. Tourigny, a former NHL assistant coach, head coach of the Ottawa 67’s, and head coach of Team Canada at the World Junior Championship, certainly did not foresee the first 10 games of his tenure going this badly.
It’s also not a huge surprise, though. Arizona demonstrated that it was ready for an even deeper tank mode than before when it traded Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Conor Garland to Vancouver for the No. 9 overall pick in this past draft, plus Loui Eriksson, Jay Beagle, and Antoine Roussel.
Seriously, the Coyotes have been terrible. They rank last in the NHL in goals for with 14 and are in a league of their own there, seven goals behind the next-worst club in Dallas. Clayton Keller leads the team in goals with a whopping three, while Phil Kessel, Arizona’s other top scorer, has just one on the season.
Defensively, they aren’t much better, ranking second-to-last in goals allowed with 44. That’s three better than the 32nd-ranked team, Chicago, who fired coach Jeremy Colliton on Saturday.
A bad offense plus a bad defense do not make a winning team.
The one concern for the Kraken against the Coyotes is that they have had a hard time finishing on their many, MANY chances this season, and Karel Vejmelka—the starting goalie for Arizona—has been better than his 0-7-1 record would indicate.
Believe it or not, Vejmelka has so far turned in a very respectable .920 save percentage and 2.60 goals against average. He has only given up more than three goals one time this season, and that came against the first-place Edmonton Oilers on a two-goal night for Connor McDavid. The most crooked numbers, which have skewed Arizona’s team stats, have come on nights when Carter Hutton or Ivan Prosvetov have started.
Making things tougher for the lowly Coyotes is that they are on the second of back-to-backs after losing 3-1 Friday in Anaheim.
Projected lineup
Marcus Johansson, Colin Blackwell, and Mason Appleton remain on injured reserve, though Johansson and Blackwell both skated with the team at practice for the first time on Friday.
Through the first eleven games of their inaugural season, the Seattle Kraken find themselves at 4-6-1 and at the bottom of the Pacific Division standings. We at Sound Of Hockey are bullish on how they have been playing lately, so we decided to dig into the numbers to identify any trends and validate if our sense of optimism is justified.
Goals scored and goals against
Through the Nov. 5 games, Seattle is tied for 19th in average goals scored per game and 25th in average goals scored against. Those numbers reconcile with their record, but the goals against number is a bit surprising considering most media outlets forecasted the Kraken would be a strong defensive team.
Let us look at these same numbers by game so we can evaluate if the Kraken are trending in the right direction.
Even with Edmonton scoring five goals against the Kraken in game 10, the average goals against has been declining. This is a trend we like to see.
The goals scored is slowly trending in the right direction as well. Up until the game on Thursday against Buffalo, the team was feeling snakebitten after getting Shesterkinned against the Rangers last Sunday and having several near misses against the Oilers on Monday.
Shots taken and shots against
At 29.5 shots per game, the Kraken are 25th in the league, which correlates very well with their goals per game. On the other side, they are averaging the lowest number of shots against in the league which should be considered a very positive sign.
Here are how those numbers project by game.
These trends should give Kraken fans a sense of optimism. Shots for (taken) per game have been on a steady incline while shots against have been on a steady decline. The Kraken have outshot their opponent over the last six games, and if they can maintain that trend, they should start winning more games than they lose.
High-danger and medium-danger shot quality
Of course, it is not always about quantity, as sometimes you need to consider the quality of the shots being taken. To analyze the quality of shots we’re going to look at five-on-five high-danger and medium-danger shot counts by game.
The concept is relatively simple. A high-danger shot has a higher likelihood to go in than medium- or low-danger shots. We’re probably stating the obvious here, but ideally you would have more high-danger shots than medium- or low-danger shots to increase your chances of scoring goals. This data was pulled from NaturalStatTrick.com, a valuable resource if you ever want to know more about the advanced analytics of hockey.
This trend should be considered positive and could be the impact of the “learning to play together” narrative of an expansion team that is compiled of a bunch of players that had limited playing time together before this season.
Wrapping it all up
This is a case where the eye test is aligning to the analytics. We do not like to get pollyannaish about the team’s outlook, but there are some objective signs in the analytics that this team is getting better and is trending in the right direction. It will be interesting to continue to monitor these trends and see if the goals and therefore wins start to follow.
If you have any questions, insights, or feedback, let us know in the comments section.
Our good friend Brian Liesse took some incredible photos of the Seattle Kraken’s 5-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Friday. We wanted to showcase a few of them.
Pre-game at Climate Pledge Arena (Photo/Brian Liesse)
Jordan Eberle’s name on LED board (Photo/Brian Liesse)
Fans at Climate Pledge Arena (Photo/Brian Liesse)
Fans at Climate Pledge Arena (Photo/Brian Liesse)
Fans celebrate a goal at Climate Pledge Arena
Philipp Grubauer
Mark Giordano
Jordan Eberle celebrates a goal
Max McCormick
Brandon Tanev
Calle Jarnkrok battles with Vinnie Hinostroza
Brandon Tanev with fresh stitches
Yanni Gourde tries a wraparound
Joonas Donskoi goes down
Yanni Gourde
Jamie Oleksiak
Kraken goal celebration
Kraken goal celebration
Kraken goal celebration
Jaden Schwartz
Kraken crowd
All photos taken by Brian Liesse. They may not be re-used without consent of Sound Of Hockey.
When the NHL Seattle franchise was in its infancy, the only thing fans seemed to want to talk about was what the name of the team would be. The organization did a brilliant job of keeping the moniker and logo close to the vest and somehow avoided any leaks in advance of the official announcement in July, 2020. The name of the Coachella Valley AHL franchise wasn’t guarded quite as closely, as all signs pointed toward the team being called the Firebirds.
On Friday, Tim Leiweke, CEO of Oak View Group, joined local leaders from around Coachella Valley to officially unveil the Coachella Valley Firebirds name and logo.
Welcome to the family, @Firebirds! Can't wait to visit you in Coachella Valley!
The logo was designed by Brian Gundell, who also created the secondary Kraken logo and was responsible for the recent re-brand of the WHL’s Portland Winterhawks.
The logo is red with orange accents and features a menacing, fire-breathing bird rising out of flames. The bird has an icy blue eye, an obvious nod to the Seattle Kraken, for which the Firebirds will serve as the top minor-league affiliate. The logo also gives a nod to the mid-century modern design that is so prevalent around the Coachella Valley.
The logo and name are meant to compliment the Kraken by being the “yin to the Kraken’s yang.” While the mythical Kraken lives in the depths of the ocean, the Firebird soars above.
Coachella Valley Firebirds primary logo
Coachella Valley Firebirds secondary logo
By calling the team the “Coachella Valley Firebirds,” instead of the Palm Springs Firebirds or something similar, the organization looks to be more inclusive for the whole region.
“Over the last two years, and after listening to fans, our leadership, and partners, we’ve been heavily involved in identifying the best team name and brand to represent the nine cities of the Coachella Valley,” said Leiweke. “As a proud resident of the valley, I think the Firebirds has a meaningful representation for the beauty and what people experience when they come to our great community.”
Leiweke also indicated that the franchise has received 3,000 season ticket deposits, and he is hopeful that they sell out all their games, a rarity among AHL franchises. Members of a local youth team, the Desert Blaze, briefly joined Leiweke on stage. Leiweke reminded those in attendance that a practice facility was also being built as part of the massive arena construction project, and that it would serve as the new home of organizations like the Blaze.
The AHL team’s website was officially launched at cvfirebirds.com, and merchandise is already on sale.
The Coachella Valley Firebirds are expected to begin play during the 2022-23 season, though Leiweke indicated to the Sound Of Hockey Podcast in October that the arena is unlikely to be ready for the start of the season.
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before. The Kraken were the better team Thursday but had a hard time finishing on their many chances. Sounds familiar right? The difference between this contest and others, though, was that Seattle did not come out and immediately concede a goal in the opening minutes. The team was not chasing the game early, as it did in Edmonton on Monday and against the Rangers on Sunday.
On Thursday, it almost always felt like the Kraken were going to come out with a win, but as players squeezed their sticks into sawdust and fumbled away breakaway after breakaway, doubt certainly crept in for some.
One guy who is officially no longer gripping his stick too tightly after Thursday’s game is Jordan Eberle, who was held goal-less through the team’s first six games of the season. He scored once against Montreal, once against New York, and Thursday he erupted, posting the first hat trick in the history of the Seattle Kraken franchise.
“Definitely, when you’re scoring, you feel good, and the net looks a little bigger,” Eberle said after the game. “There’s a lot of different ways to score… The biggest thing is getting one or two looks a game and when you’re finishing them and you have the confidence to do it, that’s big.”
His performance in leading the Kraken to a 5-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres should give Eberle plenty of confidence moving forward.
Off on the right footthis time
The Kraken clearly made a point of not falling behind early in this one. After seeing the opposition score early in so many first periods this season, Seattle came out flying on Thursday and controlled the possession for the bulk of the opening frame. But as has become the norm, the Kraken were having a hard time breaking through on netminder Dustin Tokarski early.
13 minutes into the game, Jamie Oleksiak got tied up along the wall in the defensive end with John Hayden. It’s hard to say if Hayden knew who he was challenging, but he started swinging and left Oleksiak with no choice but to drop the gloves. In a blink Hayden had consumed half a dozen knuckle sandwiches from the Big Rig. Adding insult to injury, Hayden got an extra two minutes for roughing and put the Kraken on the power play.
That extra Hayden penalty proved costly for Buffalo. Seconds after the penalty ended, Alex Wennberg threaded a pass through the seam and found Morgan Geekie in the left circle. Geekie wasted no time and blasted it past Tokarski.
The second period left Seattle fans groaning at times. Fortunately, Eberle made them believe again before the end of the frame because otherwise there may have been a mutiny on the S.S. Climate Pledge.
With the Kraken continuing to dominate possession, they somehow let Tage Thompson walk the puck from his own end all the way through the neutral zone and into their end. On what amounted to a one-on-four rush, the 6-foot-7 Thompson lumbered in untouched and eventually let a shot go that—with the help of a Haydn Fleury screen—beat Grubauer.
Max McCormick then took an ill-advised offensive zone penalty at 16:10 when he boarded Will Butcher, causing the Buffalo defenseman to hit his face on the glass. The Sabres took advantage. With Zemgus Girgensons screening Grubauer, Kyle Okposo scored from the right hash, giving Buffalo a 2-1 lead and temporarily sucking the air out of Climate Pledge Arena.
That was when Eberle put the team on his back. Just 26 seconds passed between Okposo giving Buffalo its only lead and Jaden Schwartz digging out a puck in the corner and putting it right on the tape of Eberle in front. Eberle buried it just under the bar, and Seattle was back in business.
Schwartz and Rasmus Dahlin—who had a tough night that featured two embarrassing self-inflicted nosedives—got into a shoving contest at the horn, meaning the third period would open four-on-four.
A sigh of relief for Kraken fans
With the extra space afforded by the four-on-four and Butcher inexplicably swimming in the slot, Eberle had plenty of room to work. Wennberg was at the blue line and slipped the puck to him at the top of the left circle. Eberle danced around Okposo, got in close with Tokarski, and lifted it over his right pad for his second of the night.
Another look at Eberle’s second of the night…he had all the space in the world to set up for the finish off the backhand. #SeaKrakenpic.twitter.com/8sp0RtSZ6e
Eberle struck once more six minutes later when he took a Schwartz pass in the neutral zone, rushed in, and snuck one through the pads of Tokarski, a goal the Sabres goalie probably wanted to have back.
Down came the hats, as Eberle celebrated the first hat trick in franchise history with his mates.
Takeaway #1: The Kraken could use some more finish
If you were to look at the score alone, you’d probably think that was a solid offensive night by the Kraken. In a way, you would be right with that assessment. The team put up five goals, and Eberle blew open the floodgates with a hat trick. But in a game that should have been out of reach midway through the second, Seattle found itself trailing 2-1, albeit for a very brief period.
We counted five breakaways for the Kraken, on which they converted zero times. They dominated every possession metric from start to finish, and yet the game was close enough in the end that Buffalo pulled its goalie to try to level the score. Frankly, Seattle should have put up at least eight against the Sabres on Thursday, but the team’s lack of finish continues to be a bit concerning.
The good news is that there was an eventual breakthrough, which hopefully relieves some of the pressure to start scoring goals. The guys that the Kraken need to be their offensive leaders—the Eberles and Schwartzes of the world—are starting to produce. Seattle also now heads to the desert to face an atrocious Arizona Coyotes team that has given up 42 goals in 10 games.
Here’s hoping the desert dogs can help Kraken players build up some more offensive confidence.
Takeaway #2: Morgan Geekie belongs on the left side on power plays
We’ve never been fans of having your biggest cannons on their strong side for the power play. As a right shot, putting Geekie on the left halfwall allows him to open up and be ready to blast away when pucks are fed to him. Previously, he had been on the right, where he had to catch the pass and circle around it before he could let it go.
Though it wasn’t technically a power-play goal, Geekie’s goal came just seconds after a Buffalo penalty had ended in the first period. It was created by the power play, no question, and having Geekie on the left feels like a key that could unlock something for this struggling special teams group.
“There’s a couple different looks,” Hakstol said. “With wanting to simplify a few things, you know, you put guys on their one-timer sides, and you’re looking to get the puck to the inside. Buffalo came a little harder with their kill tonight than maybe they usually do, but he was able to get off a couple of good shots from that spot. That second one found its way into the back of the net… It was nice to see it go directly in, but if it doesn’t that should give us a good opportunity at a rebound.”
Speaking of the power play, we’ve also always thought it’s a good sign to see passes through the seam rather than around the perimeter. Those passes are harder to complete, but when they get through, they’re also harder to track and give the goalie a lot less time to get across. Again, it wasn’t technically a power-play goal, but Geekie’s goal came off a seam pass by Wennberg.
Seeing a goal set up this way and scored by one of Seattle’s big shooters is a great sign for the struggling power play, which is now officially 3 for 36 on the season.
Takeaway #3: Eberle throws a mean fish
After rightfully being named the first star of the game, Eberle was handed the traditional salmon stuffed animal to throw into the crowd. Rather than softly tossing it over the glass, he twisted that thing around and whipped it a good ten rows deep into the lower bowl. We asked him about the throw after the game.
He explained, “I live downtown, so I go to Pike with my little girl quite a bit to get groceries, and I see them throwing the fish, so I wanted to make them proud.”
