If you weren’t paying attention to what uniforms the opposition was wearing, you may have thought that Wednesday’s 4-2 Kraken loss to the Blackhawks was actually a replay of the team’s 4-2 loss to Minnesota on Saturday. It was practically a carbon copy, but this time Seattle held off on allowing the empty-net goal against until it had at least brought itself back to within one. That made things a lot more interesting in the end, but the Kraken still came up short.
The latest loss, Seattle’s fifth in a row and seventh in their last eight, again started slow. Chances were few at either end before Chicago scored late in the frame off a rush. Then the Kraken tilted the ice in the second, but somehow, as has become fairly common, gave up the only goal. In the third, they pushed back after falling behind 3-0 but couldn’t overcome the deep deficit against an outstanding Marc-Andre Fleury.
Does any of that sound familiar?
Another slow first period leaves Kraken chasing game
Off the rush, Patrick Kane carried the puck down the right wall. He stalled to allow the play to develop, then put a perfect pass through the seam to Alex DeBrincat on the opposite wall. DeBrincat appeared poised to one-time a shot on Philipp Grubauer, but instead he found a streaking Seth Jones right on the doorstep. Jones had Grubauer dead to rights and buried the puck in the open net.
It was a beautiful passing play—the kind that only a player of Kane’s ilk can start—that put the Blackhawks ahead 1-0 at 15:03.
Also similar to the first period for the Kraken on Saturday, there was not much of an attack against Fleury in the opening 20 on Wednesday. He faced just three shots and was only tested once.
Kraken still love second periods, but againcan’t connect
The second period also had similarities to past home performances by the Kraken, as they dominated possession with the long change. But as we have seen on several occasions before, they failed to capitalize on their copious opportunities.
Instead, DeBrincat scored the only goal at 2:01. He took a pass at the Chicago blue line from Kirby Dach, who was behind the goal line. DeBrincat raced through the neutral zone and outskated the much larger Jamie Oleksiak to create a partial breakaway for himself. DeBrincat got a shot away and beat Grubauer on the glove side.
Calle Jarnkrok and Jeremy Lauzon had the best chances of the period for Seattle. Jarnkrok had a puck bounce his way at the doorstep, and with the net open, couldn’t put it in before Connor Murphy somehow pinned it against the post and then kicked it out of harm’s way. Lauzon took a shot from the point through traffic that beat Fleury, but it struck iron.
Another late push comes up short
Early in the third, Brandon Tanev took a hard fall when Jake McCabe took his feet out from under him in the Kraken zone. Fans didn’t like the non-call, and adding insult to (near) injury, Vince Dunn got called for roughing just a couple minutes later.
On the penalty kill, Yanni Gourde made an outstanding play to win a puck in the neutral zone. He then created a short-handed chance, got whacked by Jones and challenged to a fight by DeBrincat. The two dropped the gloves and each landed a few good shots. All the while, Gourde had a huge smile, even when he was getting punched in the face.
After the game, he deadpanned, “Yeah, I like that stuff. It’s part of the game… Good for him, he gets a Gordie Howe hat trick.”
The third period also meant more possession for the Kraken, who ended the night with a 33-19 advantage in shots on goal and 61% of the attempted shots at five-on-five. Still, the Kraken couldn’t get it to go for most of the period against a version of Fleury that looked an awful lot like the version that won the Vezina Trophy in 2020-21.
Fleury said he really enjoys playing in buildings where he gets booed and fans give him the middle finger. That’s not the first time that opposing players have referenced finding motivation from Kraken fans flipping them the bird, so perhaps the Seattle faithful should consider classing it up a bit. But we digress, and we hope you realize we are just kidding here.
It was Kane who struck next, taking advantage of a pretty bad defensive breakdown by Seattle. Philipp Kurashev skated the puck into the face-off circle to Grubauer’s right. He was covered by Adam Larsson, but Dunn, who was playing his strong side for the first time this season, oddly also chased Kurashev, as did a backchecking Jaden Schwartz. With three players all going after the puck carrier, Kane was left all alone on the weak side.
That’s the wrong guy to leave by himself. Kane had plenty of time to pick his spot on Grubauer and put it off the cross bar and in.
The Kane goal came at 5:36, and the rest of the way, it was all Seattle. But as was the case against the Wild, the Kraken pushback was too little, too late.
Jared McCann, who expressed his general frustration with the way things have been going after the contest, was the player who finally got one behind Fleury. With Seattle on a power play following a Dach slashing penalty, Schwartz slid a puck across the goalmouth. Fleury was down against the post to his left, and McCann found the puck bouncing around and snapped it into a mostly open cage.
Saturday, Grubauer was summoned to the bench for an extra skater with 5:22 left, and Minnesota scored seconds later. On Wednesday, Hakstol held off on calling him until there was 3:39 on the clock, and this time the timing strategy almost paid off. Gourde scored on a rocket one-timer off a pass from Dunn to bring Seattle within one, but then with the Kraken pushing for the equalizer, McCabe flipped a puck from his own zone about 170 feet that found its way in. That sealed a 4-2 victory for Chicago, the Blackhawks’ fourth consecutive win since head coach Jeremy Colliton was fired on Nov. 6.
Things only get tougher from here
When you’re on a losing streak like the Kraken are on, the last thing you want to see is a murderer’s row of upcoming opponents. But that’s what Seattle gets next, as they take on Colorado, Washington, Carolina, Tampa Bay, and Florida.
We’ve been hearing rumblings about attendance being down across the NHL, so we wanted to take an early-season look at some of the figures from around the league to see what the data actually shows. The intent is not to take shots at any team’s fanbase or paint the league in a bad spot. The numbers are the numbers and should just be used as an indicator of how the league is doing, identify any teams that are showing improvement, and other teams that could be doing better.
League attendance
Last year was obviously challenging, and comparing year over year is not realistic or fair. It has been widely reported that all sports leagues and teams are facing attendance challenges in what we all hope is the tail end of the pandemic. The light is (hopefully) at the end of the tunnel, and perhaps soon the vast majority of fans will feel comfortable coming back to crowded environments like sports arenas.
Team by team change in attendance compared to 2019-20
Comparing how teams are doing compared to last season would be an easy exercise considering several arenas were not allowed to have fans in attendance as we navigated the pandemic. A fairer comparable is to see how teams are doing this season vs the beginning of the 2019-20 season. Let us take a look.
As you can tell by the amount of red on the chart, most teams’ average attendance is down this season compared to 2019-20. There is not much explaining to do here other than the pandemic continues to impact the in-person attendance of events.
Team detail attendance
Here is a look at how teams are trending by game number of the season compared to the same game number from 2019-20.
Here are a couple notes on individual teams’ attendance performances:
We would anticipate the Ducks, Flames, and Kings to see increases as the season goes on. The Ducks and Kings are putting much better teams on the ice compared to 2019-20, and fans will start to come back to the arenas.
The Blackhawks continue to see declines as the team struggles on (and off) the ice.
The Carolina Hurricanes are one of the few teams that are seeing an increase in attendance. They have an exciting team that has being building for years, so expect this trend to continue if the Canes continue to play well.
It is hard to get a read on the decline by the New York Rangers since, even in challenging years, they end up selling most of their games out at Madison Square Garden. The team has been better on the ice, but that has not translated to an increase in attendance.
The attendance in Buffalo looks rough. They are usually a loyal fanbase that shows up through the darkest of times, but even Sabres fans have a breaking point, and it looks like they have hit it.
It is early
There is no sugar coating it, the NHL attendance numbers do not look great, but it is too early to identify if there are any long-term trends to any one team here. As vaccination rates increase and COVID case counts decline, the numbers should start to trend back up to where they were pre-pandemic, but it might take a season to fully recover.
If you have any questions or thoughts, feel free to share them in the comments section of the article.
It was the fish toss heard around the world, or at least heard around the Seattle Kraken, NHL circles, and in Jared McCann’s home.
In the hours before the NHL Expansion Draft in July, a video was leaked of ESPN analyst Kevin Weekes rehearsing the reveal of Seattle’s pick from the Toronto Maple Leafs. The video was shot at Pike Place Market with a fish monger catching a fish that had a note attached to it. Weekes pulled the note from the fish to announce that the Kraken had chosen Alex Kerfoot from the Maple Leafs.
“I was like ‘what’s happening right now’ and then I saw another video of my name being called,” McCann said about the video. “I was like, ‘okay, both of us. I don’t know.’”
The video added to what had already been an anxious week for the 25-year-old forward. Previously with the Pittsburgh Penguins, he appeared to be a key player that would be left unprotected and selected in the Expansion Draft. In the hours before the Penguins had to submit their protected list to the NHL, McCann was traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“That was definitely a stressful time in my life,” McCann said. “I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t know where I was gonna play. But it worked out for the best and I’ve got a great opportunity here that I wouldn’t have gotten in Toronto. So, I’m very excited.”
The Penguins traded McCann because they didn’t want to lose him to the Kraken in the Expansion Draft for nothing. They avoided that by moving him in return for a prospect in Filip Hallander and a seventh-round draft pick in 2023.
Toronto wanted McCann for Expansion Draft insurance, and if Seattle selected him, they’d still have Kerfoot who is a similarly skilled player.
McCann was of interest. He was coming off his third full season with the Penguins where he scored 14 goals and 32 points in 43 games. His ultimate selection by Kraken general manager Ron Francis was not a surprise.
It all worked out for the Kraken and McCann. The team got the player they wanted all along and McCann landed in a place where he was given the opportunity he’d been waiting for.
Kraken have provided a bigger role for McCann
Playing as a center for the Penguins has its limits. McCann was not going to unseat Pittsburgh’s top two centers. Those roles belong to future Hall of Famers Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. He faced a similar log jam in Toronto with Auston Matthews and Jonathan Tavares at the top of the order.
With Seattle he’s getting those minutes, he’s on the power play, and he’s getting the opportunity he wanted.
“I’ve had [chances] sporadically over my career and I’ve done well every time I’ve been able to get the chance,” McCann said. “I’m taking it one day at a time. I know it sounds cliche, but I’m just enjoying it. I really am.”
The Kraken are enjoying it as well.
Seattle’s Jared McCann is on pace to set career highs in all offensive categories. (Brian Liesse photo)
He was leading Seattle in scoring before landing in the COVID-19 protocol that forced him to miss five games. That was a setback and he dealt with the low energy and lack of taste and smell that came with the virus.
It didn’t take long for him to make an impact once cleared to play. In his first game back on Nov. 11 against the Anaheim Ducks, and while still dealing with some COVID after effects, he scored twice in a loss.
“[McCann] brings speed and a shot, you saw it tonight on a couple goals,” Jordan Eberle said after the game.
In the 10 games McCann has played with the Kraken he’s skated up and down the lineup from the top line to the third line. He’s played center, on the wing, and he’s often on the half-wall for the power play. He has scored five goals and recorded nine points.
That versatility has come in handy as Seattle has had early injuries to navigate around. No matter where he’s played, McCann has produced.
“I’ve done that my entire career,” McCann said. “I’ve always kind of been a guy who fills in a lot and it’s something that I pride myself on. I love doing that.”
McCann a key player for Kraken moving forward
While he may not be as noticeable from game to game as Brandon Tanev or Yanni Gourde, McCann is a key player as the Kraken try to break out of their early season malaise.
He’s consistently been one of the team’s top offensive performers and at his current pace he would easily top his career high in goals (14), assists (21), and points (35). If the Kraken are going to break their slump and get into the Western Conference’s playoff race, they’ll need McCann to continue taking advantage of his newfound opportunity.
His career started in Vancouver after the Canucks selected him with the 24th pick of the 2014 NHL Draft. After one year in Vancouver, he was traded to Florida where he spent three seasons before landing in Pittsburgh.
McCann is in his final year of a $2.9 million contract and will be a restricted free agent after the season. That makes it easier for the Kraken to re-sign him and the way things have started, that’s good news for both the team and player.
“The facilities have been unbelievable; our gym is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. That’s pretty crazy so we’re very fortunate to have one like this. It’s just been amazing,” McCann said of playing in Seattle. “They’ve taken care of us so well and we were able to go see the Seahawks play and we got to see a Mariners game. We have great owners and a great management here.”
Normally, I try to stay away from speaking in the first person here at soundofhockey.com, but I wanted to start this one with a personal anecdote. As Sound Of Hockey Podcast listeners know all too well, I grew up a Wild fan, and have been following them closely since their inception. Despite my shift in focus toward the Kraken, I still know the Wild roster very well.
At morning skate before Saturday’s game, I saw a diminutive Minnesota player that I did not recognize. When he got close enough, I was able to make out the number 16 on his helmet. A quick Google search reminded me that the Wild had claimed Rem Pitlick off waivers from Nashville during training camp. Hmm. Forgot they had that guy, I thought. Then I sipped from my coffee and went about my day.
Ok, anecdote over, usage of first person over.
The 24-year-old Pitlick had never scored an NHL goal in 15 career games entering Saturday’s matchup against the Seattle Kraken. When his 16th career game ended, he had scored three and almost single-handedly sent the Kraken to their fourth consecutive loss and sixth in seven games.
Things getting ugly for Kraken
Things are getting rough for the Kraken early in their inaugural season. Losing three in a row is a bad stretch, but four in a row, and we’re now using the phrase “losing streak.” There’s no doubt the players are feeling it, and they are fully aware that they’re dropping deeper and deeper into last place in the Pacific Division with every passing game and every missed opportunity.
“There’s definitely frustration, there’s no doubt about it,” captain Mark Giordano said after the 4-2 loss. “I mean, we’re not getting the results, we’re not winning games. You should be frustrated when you’re not winning games.”
Giordano, a 16-year veteran in the NHL, has been through times like this in his career. “From my experiences, you find a way to grind one out, get that one win, and then everyone starts feeling better about themselves, and we move forward.”
That did not happen on Saturday, though, and as is becoming too common for this budding franchise, the team found a new way to lose.
Here’s the irony. We would argue the team defense of the Kraken was actually quite good on Saturday. The Wild—even with sustained zone time in the first period—did not get much through to Grubauer when they were set up in the zone. What did get through in those situations was pretty low danger throughout the night, and Seattle ended the game with 62.5 percent of the high danger shot attempts and 55.78 percent of the expected goals for, according to naturalstattrick.com.
Heck, look at the five-on-five heat map.
If you take the three five-on-five goals away from Minnesota, scored off two breakaways and an awkward odd-man rush, things are looking pretty light in front of Philipp Grubauer. What doomed Seattle was a couple terrible turnovers in some of the worst possible areas.
A couple bad plays prove costly for Seattle
The first goal came at 12:33 of the first period off a slowly developing and downright awkward rush. Vince Dunn sent a soft shot toward Cam Talbot in the offensive end, but Alex Goligoski cleared it down the ice. The puck trickled deep into Seattle territory and toward the corner to Grubauer’s right.
Carson Soucy had to make the decision to try to win the race with Ryan Hartman or go to the front of the net and try to cut off a pass. He chose the race and lost. Hartman quickly got a pass to the netmouth and found Pitlick crashing, as a backchecking Marcus Johansson had stopped moving his feet. The puck just squeezed through Grubauer and limped over the line for Pitlick’s first career marker.
The second and third goals came in similar fashion to one another and featured the same cast of characters for Minnesota. Both were the direct results of bad second period turnovers in the middle third of the ice.
With Seattle rushing up the ice, Jared McCann, who somehow became the last player back, ran right into Hartman as he tried to make a neutral zone pass in transition. In one motion, Hartman again found Pitlick, sending him in all alone with all the time in the world to get Grubauer moving the wrong way. Pitlick executed to perfection, and he tapped it home at 7:44 of the second frame.
🚨REM PITLICK🚨 his second career goal and second of the night has the wild up 2-0 pic.twitter.com/DMqw6p4vGE
Then 11 minutes later, Giordano made an equally bad turnover at the Wild blue line when he… stop us if you’ve heard this one before… ran right into Hartman, who stripped him of the puck and quickly found Pitlick for a breakaway. Pitlick made the same move as his previous breakaway and buried it in a yawning cage as a smattering of hats from visiting fans hit the ice.
The timing of that third goal was also damning for Seattle. It came at 19:20 of the second, and instead of going to the dressing room trailing by two in a mostly tight-checking game, the Kraken now faced a practically insurmountable deficit against a strong defensive team.
Too little, too late for Kraken against Wild
To Seattle’s credit, it did push back in the third and injected some excitement into the home crowd at Climate Pledge Arena. Johansson got his first goal of the season on the power play at 9:19 to make it 3-1. After a few rounds of “one pass too many” to start the period had those home fans growing restless, Alex Wennberg found Johansson at the top of the crease. Johansson redirected it around the outstretched right pad of Talbot.
Interestingly, the Kraken power play had been in an absolutely dismal stretch and had recently dropped to last place in the NHL. Johansson returned from injured reserve Tuesday against Vegas, and in his first game back created a Jordan Eberle goal while playing the netfront role. Then Saturday, he scored on the power play in that same position. Coach Dave Hakstol said after the game he could sense in practice that the chemistry was starting to come on the power play, so perhaps that’s one area of Seattle’s game that is on the rise.
Seattle continued to push throughout the third, dominating possession and getting plenty of good looks on Talbot. With all the momentum, it felt like the game was on the brink of becoming a one-goal contest.
That’s also why it was perplexing to see Grubauer skating to Seattle’s bench with 5:22 left on the clock. It took all of 16 seconds for Nico Sturm to put the game back out of reach with an empty netter. We are aware that advanced analytics say you should pull the goalie early, especially when trailing by two goals. But when there are more than five minutes left and you have the ice tilted at five-on-five? That’s a head scratcher of a decision, about which we will certainly argue on an upcoming episode of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast.
With the net empty again, Wennberg did score his second goal of the season to bring Seattle back within two, but with under a minute left, it was too little and way too late.
The Kraken now have a couple days off to lick their wounds before welcoming a bad Chicago Blackhawks team to town on Wednesday. After that, they face a murderer’s row of opponents, so if they don’t get it figured out quickly and start playing with confidence, this losing streak could get much worse .
Seattle Kraken versus Minnesota Wild 7 p.m. Pacific Time Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle, Washington TV: ROOT Sports Radio: AM 950 KJR
We’ve said on several occasions that the time for excuses has passed for the struggling Seattle Kraken, who have lost three straight and five of their last six games. Most of the excuses themselves—new team, new building, new systems—evaporated as we eclipsed the one-month mark of the season. But there was always that one little “injury and illness” excuse bouncing around in the backs of our brains, and now even that excuse is almost entirely gone for the last-place Kraken (4-9-1), who desperately need to find a win Saturday at home against the Minnesota Wild (9-4-0).
At long last, Colin Blackwell will play his first game for the Kraken on Saturday, meaning coach Dave Hakstol will (almost) have his whole group available to him for the first time.
Colin Blackwell making debut, Riley Sheahan on waivers
Seattle held a lightly attended optional practice on Friday, so morning skate Saturday was far more structured than we’ve seen on other game days. The team had almost full participation and actually did line rushes and power play work, both of which are rare at morning skates.
The only players that weren’t on the ice were Jaden Schwartz (some members of the media thought they had seen him early on, but then Nathan Bastian took his place in line rushes) and Riley Sheahan. Hakstol confirmed Schwartz is available, so his absence is nothing to worry about, and Sheahan… well, Sheahan was placed on waivers to make room for Blackwell.
We at Sound Of Hockey were not surprised to see Blackwell inserted into the lineup, because it was obvious that he was getting closer and closer to returning from a nagging lower-body injury that had kept him out since the start of training camp. We were surprised, though, that the corresponding roster move was to waive Sheahan, who had played all 14 games for the Kraken to date. We thought Sheahan would come out of the lineup, but we also figured Will Borgen—who has not yet played a game—would be the one waived.
Of course, Borgen is younger and as a right-shot defenseman with upside is more likely to be claimed than a veteran grinder like Sheahan. So, it makes sense from that perspective, but it’s a reminder of what a brutal business the NHL can be. Sheahan had been a good soldier who played his role well, while Borgen is likely to continue watching games from the press box and not getting any opportunity to play games in either the NHL or the AHL.
Blackwell, an affable guy and big personality, was over the moon to be making his debut.
“I’m ready to go, finally,” Blackwell said Saturday. “It’s been a long process, just trying to get better every single day, and I’ve been feeling really good recently. I got cleared so really looking forward to tonight and finally getting out there with these guys. They’ve been battling for a little while, so wish I could have been out there. Just being out there at Climate Pledge [Arena] too for me, it’s going to be pretty special.”
Almost the full roster for Seattle
With Blackwell in for the first time Saturday, and Jared McCann back as of Thursday when he scored two goals against the Ducks, the Kraken will dress their deepest lineup to date. They’ve had COVID issues and several injuries to this point, and now with only Mason Appleton out with a lower-body injury, we will see what a (mostly) complete roster can do.
Blackwell was skating Saturday with Morgan Geekie and Brandon Tanev on what figures to be the fourth line. That’s a pretty unique fourth line, though, with more skill than you would typically see from a bottom trio. This should give Hakstol an opportunity to roll all four of his lines with a potential for offensive output from every layer of the forward group.
It’s also interesting to think how quickly the fourth line has evolved with guys coming back from protocol and injured reserve. For so many games we saw Sheahan centering Max McCormick and Nathan Bastian. Saturday, McCormick is in the AHL, Sheahan is on waivers, and Bastian is likely a healthy scratch for the second game in a row.
This is what happens when you get (almost) your whole group healthy at the same time.
Minnesota Wild
The Kraken take on the Minnesota Wild for the second meeting of the season. These two teams played at Climate Pledge Arena on Oct. 28, a night when Seattle really turned in a complete effort in front of Philipp Grubauer—who had one of his most solid performances of the season, stopping 30 of 31 shots—and came away with a 4-1 win.
That night, Seattle got the timely save by Grubauer that it has been lacking on a lot of nights. In the closing minutes of the second period, Yanni Gourde turned a puck over to Wild superstar Kirill Kaprizov in the neutral zone. Kaprizov came in all alone, and Grubauer made a huge save with his blocker. It’s a moment that stands out as exactly what Seattle needs more of to be successful.
On their first visit to Seattle, Mats Zuccarello was in COVID protocol, meaning Kaprizov did not have his favorite teammate dishing the puck to him. Zuccarello is back for Saturday’s game. Kaprizov and Kevin Fiala also had not been scoring prior to that contest, but they have since notched three and two goals respectively, and both have constantly looked dangerous.
The Wild have won four of their last five, but came up short in their last game Thursday against Vegas. They’ve been comeback kids all season long, so hold on tightly if the Kraken find themselves with a one- or two-goal lead in the third period.
The play of Philipp Grubauer in the early stages of the season for the Seattle Kraken has been a hot topic among fans. We’ve mostly defended him, because we know there’s a lot of context to consider for goalies and because we know he’s better than what he’s been showing. We also wondered if the analytics on what he’s been giving up were as bad as the eye ball test was indicating.
For this week’s data dump, let’s dig into the analytics around Grubauer’s performance to date and see if there are any insights to gain. I am a little afraid of what I might find.
Quality of shots
Last week, I touched on shots and shot quality when evaluating the team’s performance. This week I am flipping the script and evaluating how good Grubauer has been at saving shots at the various quality categories defined by Natural Stat Trick and how that save percentage relates to his peers.
The shot quality categories I am going to look at are high, medium, and low danger shots. How a shot fits in those categories is related to distance and angle from the net. The closer and more square to the net a shot is taken, the higher the danger category.
I isolated all goalies who have played six or more games this season and plotted their save percentage by shot category. (All shot quality data is from NaturalStatTrick.com.)
Yikes. His numbers look poor when compared to the rest of the league, and I imagine even Grubauer himself would admit he has been struggling this season compared to last season. For anyone paying attention, particularly the last few games, this should not come as a surprise.
Let us look at how his numbers compare to last season.
Ok, it’s clear that Grubauer is struggling. The real question is why is he struggling?
Learning a system?
The Kraken are going through a rough patch with three losses in a row including a loss to, at the time, the winless Arizona Coyotes. I took that loss to the Coyotes tougher than I would have expected for Game 12 of 82 in the inaugural season. As they say, it is better to feel the pain than to feel nothing at all.
After the Arizona game there was a lot of discussion online about Grubauer’s performance in the crease this season, but on Saturday night, there was one tweet that stood out:
Kraken fans: The first time I ever interviewed Philipp Grubauer was in his first few months with Colorado and he’s been… just all right, and admitted as much to me. Said he’s big into getting comfortable with a system and it takes him a while to settle in with a new team.
For those that don’t know, Cat Silverman is a well respected writer and goalie analyst, so when she tweets something like this, I read it. It was an interesting perspective. I’ve always been under the impression that the strategy is to stop the puck, no matter what personnel or “system” is in front of you, and I never thought that a goalie must learn those systems as well.
While doing my soul searching in the aftermath of the Arizona game, I started to dig into the data to see if Cat’s tweet held any water.
I looked at save percentage by game, comparing Grubauer’s 2018-19 season, his first in Colorado when he would have been learning the systems there, to the 2021-22 season.
If you look at Grubauer’s first half of his first season in Colorado, you can see the inconsistency in the graph with a lot of games with a save percentage in the .700’s and .800’s. At least directionally, this seems to validate Cat’s tweet that Grubauer needs time to settle into a new system.
Give him time
Grubauer has been a very good goalie over the last few years and a goalie does not turn into a pumpkin between seasons. There were a lot of people that claimed Grubauer was a bust in the first part of his first season in Colorado, but he ended that regular season with a .917 save percentage and then had a .925 save percentage in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Goaltending can and will be frustrating at times, but I am going to give Grubauer more time to settle in before making a full assessment of his performance.
If you have any questions, insights, or feedback, let us know in the comments section.
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.
Hockey is a chaotic sport, and perhaps that’s what makes it so entertaining to watch. Every time you go to the rink, you just never know what kind of a game you’re going to see. Thursday’s 7-4 Kraken defeat at the hands of the upstart Anaheim Ducks, though disappointing in terms of the result, truly had everything you could possibly want in a hockey game. It was high scoring, high flying, high intensity, and high drama.
The disheartening result is damaging for Seattle and huge for Anaheim, which has now vaulted into second place in the Pacific Division with its sixth win in as many games. The third straight Kraken loss simply means the challenge of getting back in the race is even tougher now.
For the Kraken, the intensity didn’t switch on until the second period, and they were back to chasing the game from the jump. To their credit, they never quit and continued to battle back, even as one-goal deficits turned into two-goal deficits. Every time that happened, they picked themselves up and got back to within striking distance of a tying goal, but that equalizer proved elusive.
Every inch Seattle took it gave right back to Anaheim.
Slow start proves costly for Kraken against Ducks
Of their several defensive breakdowns in the first period, only one was costly, as Grubauer stood tall to turn away the other 13 shots he faced.
That most glaring miscue came fewer than five minutes into the game. In transition, Carson Soucy—playing left defense—found himself just a few feet away from partner Vince Dunn on the right side of the ice. That meant Max Comtois was gliding in all alone on the weak side. From the dot, he wound and fired a shot that Grubauer stopped, but as the puck bounced around in front of the net, 18-year-old Mason McTavish found it and buried his second career NHL goal.
There was no pushback offensively, and Seattle got just four pucks on the usually impermeable John Gibson. As the Kraken went to the dressing room, it was clear they would need to bring a lot more heat to break through.
Said Jordan Eberle, “We’re finding ways to lose. Tonight was a little different. I thought we started really slow, they really took it to us and [Philipp Grubauer] really kept us in it. We were lucky to be down one after one there.”
A very strange, high-flying period of hockey
The Kraken did break through in the second, but so too did the Ducks in a bizarre period of hockey.
It started with Jeremy Lauzon laying a high hit on Isac Lundestrom, which the Ducks did not like. Comtois went right after Lauzon, and the two tussled, both landing themselves in the penalty box. Oddly, Lauzon got an extra minor penalty on the play for his initial hit, while Comtois—who started the brouhaha—only got the one for roughing. That dustup set the tone for the strange frame.
Troy Terry used Mark Giordano as a screen to score his 10th (!!!) goal and 17th point of the season, giving Anaheim its first two-goal lead at 3:10. Terry looked dangerous every time he touched the puck, which is no surprise with the incredible hot streak he’s been on to start the season. The 24-year-old is just oozing confidence right now, and he showed it Thursday.
Jaden Schwartz answered 35 seconds later when he took a pass from Jordan Eberle off the rush and rifled it off the crossbar and in to bring the Kraken back within one.
Just when you thought the Kraken were starting to cook, Josh Mahura, off an offensive zone face-off win, blasted it through traffic. It beat Grubauer on a shot he never saw, and just like that it was again a two-goal deficit for Seattle.
The earlier issue with Lauzon was apparently not settled in the eyes of the Ducks, as Josh Manson challenged him, and the two dropped the gloves and threw a bunch of right jabs and crosses at one another, before Lauzon ultimately took Manson down to the ice.
The fight appeared to re-energize the Kraken, as Jared McCann, playing his first game since a bout with COVID, went hard to the net and a Ryan Donato pass bounced off him and through Gibson. In case you’ve lost count, the score at that point was 3-2.
The second period scoring was not quite done, though, as Kevin Shattenkirk re-established Anaheim’s two-goal lead at 15:46 on the one goal of the night that Grubauer would have wanted back. From the right dot, Shattenkirk snapped a shot that just squeezed through Grubauer’s armpit, and as soon as he realized it had gotten through, he looked skyward in disgust.
That brought the game to 4-2 to close out the second, and surely this thing was over, right?
Not so fast. The third period was every bit as wild as the second. Oh, and before we go there, just to add one bizarre cherry on top of a bizarre period, Gibson got in the grill of Brandon Tanev behind the play and held onto his stick for a good ten seconds. The referees stood and waited for them to sort it out, even though Gibson was visibly preventing Tanev from skating away.
It was all very strange.
Eberle stays hot, but Kraken come up short
Eberle continued his hot streak 3:57 into the final frame. On a two-on-one rush, Alex Wennberg sauced a perfect pass onto Eberle’s tape. As Gibson sprawled to cover the yawning cage, a confident Eberle buried it, putting Seattle back in business. That’s the sixth goal in four games for Eberle and his eighth in Seattle’s last eight.
Six minutes later, Hampus Lindholm pinballed one through traffic, making it 5-3. NOW it was over, right? Still no.
Exactly one minute elapsed before McCann took a pass from Donato while streaking into the offensive zone. He made a hard and deft cut to the middle, and in one fell swoop let go a howitzer that pinged off the right post and in to cut the deficit to one yet again.
The Kraken continued to push, and the line of Eberle, Schwartz, and Wennberg just missed on several prime scoring chances in the closing minutes. But an ill-timed goalie pull, just as that line was changing, gave Sam Carrick an easy empty netter and put the nail in the coffin.
Just to rub a little salt in the wound, Terry added another empty netter for his 11th (!!!) of the season and brought the final score to 7-4.
Frustrating loss against a good team
This latest loss was frustrating for players and fans alike on a lot of levels. The start was not good, but Grubauer bailed the team out in the first period and gave Seattle a chance going into the second.
Then as the game went on, the Kraken would gain ground but give it right back like they were engaged in trench warfare. That simply can’t continue to happen. For all the resiliency that this team has demonstrated, it rarely seems to get over the hump when it’s trying to mount a comeback. Giving back goals after working so hard to score just kills Seattle’s momentum, and it’s the latest troubling trend for this group.
As the standings climb gets more and more daunting, nights like Thursday are a stark reminder that the Pacific Division is better than it has been in recent years. The Ducks used to be viewed as easy points, but not anymore. Their long-standing youth movement is finally bearing fruit. They have evolved into a talented, fast, and exciting hockey club, with more young, impactful players still on the way.
The Kraken truly can’t afford to take more time to figure out ways to win instead of ways to lose. The climb back into the playoff race is getting steeper by the day.
Seattle will face the Minnesota Wild Saturday in the second game of this six-game homestand.
