Historically, it has been hard to get a good read on a team until about the 10-game mark of the NHL season. Well, the 10th game of the 2023-24 Seattle Kraken campaign will be played Monday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning, a team the Kraken have never beaten before.
I have been preaching patience through the first several weeks of the season, and I have liked what I have seen over the last week of games. But the team has only locked up three out of a possible six points on this trip and six out of a possible 18 on the season. That is a lower point total than they had at this spot during the inaugural season (seven points).
Of course, the optimist in me could still say, Well, they are only two points off where they were last season (eight points), so stop freaking out.
We are all guilty of human biases in our day-to-day lives, and analyzing hockey teams is no different. I often need to ask myself if I am being critical enough about the team this season, and do I have a fair and accurate read of the current Kraken expectations? To answer that question, I am going to do my best to be more objective in this week’s Monday Musings to analyze the team’s performance to date and project if this group can make the playoffs again.
Shooting and scoring
One area the team has obviously struggled with over the season is scoring. Seattle is ranked 28th in the league with 2.22 goals per game, and they had 3.33 goals per game at this point last season. The easy thing to point out is their low shooting percentage of 7.2 percent which is also 28th in the league. This has been turning around a bit, with Seattle clocking in at 11.3 percent over the last five games, and if you isolate the high-danger shooting percentage, that is also showing signs of a turnaround.
I looked at some of the volume metrics such as shot attempts and high-danger shots over the last five games, and the Kraken are at or above league average in most categories.
So, what is the issue? In my opinion, the Kraken are still feeling the impact of the first four games of the season. The team was ice cold at shooting the puck, and it made analysts and fans alike latch onto what was being said coming into the season that we should expect a regression out of this Kraken team. It still may be true that the Kraken are regressing, but if those first four games hadn’t played out so poorly for Seattle, we would be having a different conversation right now, even with the mixed results on this road trip. Despite their record, I feel confident that the Kraken are at least an average hockey team.
The goalie situation
Both Philipp Grubauer and Joey Daccord have been playing fine between the pipes this season. I was a little surprised to see Joey get the call three games in a row, but I liked coach Dave Hakstol’s explanation after the Florida game. “Both our guys are playing well, so [Joey’s] had a little bit of momentum here, and that’s why I went back with him tonight. And he gave us every opportunity to win the game.”
Over the last two seasons, Daccord has done everything he could in the AHL and just needed some regular reps in the NHL to see if he can truly be an everyday NHL goalie. Although it is early, you can see his confidence growing every game. I think he is on his way.
Grubauer has been mostly good in his outings, but he has gotten almost no goal support. More on that in a bit.
Other hockey thoughts from around the Northwest
It is easy to look at some of the goals scored against the Kraken over the last few games and just blame it on bad luck, but good teams do not put themselves in a position to be beaten by a bad bounce or two. It is part of playing the games, and you can’t expect to get all the breaks. Seattle had some good bounce against Florida too, so it’s hard to hang the entire loss on a ricochet off a stanchion.
The Kraken have scored first in six of their first nine games of the season. They have only won one of those games.
He has not scored a goal yet, but Will Borgen has played great this season.
Matty Beniers has looked good at times this season, but I would really like to see him find the back of the net. He is also dead last in the league in +/- with a -12. +/- is a stat that isn’t widely used anymore, but still, you never want to see one of your top players ranking last in anything. Let’s get Matty going.
Both Ryan Winterton and Jacob Melanson scored their first career professional goals on Saturday in an 8-2 victory for the Coachella Valley Firebirds.
Chris Driedger started the first four games this season for the Firebirds and has a save percentage of .948 and a goals-against average of 1.52 per game. If he was disappointed to be sent down to the AHL after training camp, he isn’t showing it with his play.
The Seattle Thunderbirds are retiring Patrick Marleau’s jersey on Friday. It reminds me how often the late great Andy Eide and I used to argue about who was the greatest Seattle Thunderbird of all time. I was on Team Marleau, Andy always went to bat for Glen Goodall. Andy was always right, since he saw them both play for the T-Birds. I just chose Marleau since I was once a Sharks fan.
Speaking of the Thunderbirds, I had Gracyn Sawchyn on my radar for one of the best player performances of the week. Sawchyn had two goals and three assists in the T-Birds’ 5-2 win against the Red Deer Rebels on Tuesday. Sawychn missed two games over the weekend due to a lower-body injury.
Player performance
Jagger Firkus (Moose Jaw Warriors, WHL) – This is not a mistake. Firkus was on top of our list last week and continues his blistering pace in the WHL this season. After six points in three games two weeks ago, Firkus had nine points over four games in the last week, including a hat-trick on Sunday. Firkus now has 29 points in 14 games for Moose Jaw this season. The Warriors will come through the US division in late February and March.
Jaden Schwartz (SEA) – Schwartz had two goals and two assists over the last three games this past week for the Kraken. The points are great, but he has also been impressing me in the face-off circle during the power play. He only took five face-offs on the power play over the last week, but he won four of them. That goes a long way to help the Kraken improve their possession time on the manpower advantage.
Joey Daccord (SEA) – He went 1-1-1 for the Kraken over the last week and set a franchise record and a career high on Thursday when he made 45 saves.
Chart of the week
A Sound Of Hockey Patreon member asked us on a Mailbag podcast episode last week if we had any thoughts on the lack of goal support for Grubauer over the last few seasons. We believe it is too early to confirm if this is actually a trend this season, but it is stunning to see the difference in support, even if it is just nine games.
Goal of the week
This was easy. The Devin Shore sequence and goal from the Carolina game was incredible.
Ummmmmmmmm…. Ok, Devin Shore.
Wait for the third replay. He took Bjorkstrand's stretch pass right out of the air. Heckuva way to get your first goal with a new team.
I’m using a deeper cut for this honorable mention goal of the week, but Seattle Kraken seventh-round selection from the 2023 NHL Draft, Zaccharya Wisdom, scored his third goal of the season for Colorado College with this nifty backhander.
It would be an exaggeration to call this week a critical week for the Kraken, but I think this week will go a long way in determining how good this team could be. They have the game on Monday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning, then have two home games against the Nashville Predators – a team that beat them in the second game of the season – and then finish this week with a game against the Calgary Flames.
Any points against Tampa Bay will be a pleasant surprise. Andrei Vasilevskiy has been out all season, but backup goaltender Jonas Johansson has back-to-back shutouts over his last two games, so getting a point is looking challenging. Although Nashville is better than a lot of people expected this season, they are beatable, and the Kraken have been playing better since the Kraken lost 3-0 in Nashville in the last meeting between those teams.
The big game might be Saturday against the Calgary Flames. Before the season started, I circled the Flames game as a game of note. I thought Calgary would be a team contending with the Kraken for a playoff spot in the Pacific Division this season. Neither the Kraken nor the Flames have looked like playoff teams so far, but Saturday could be devastating for either team to lose in regulation.
This is not a do-or-die scenario for the Kraken this week, but the hole they’re digging is getting deeper and deeper, so showing some resemblance of a playoff team would go a long way right now. Ideally, this means the Kraken get four out of a possible six points this week.
If you thought Thursday’s overtime loss to the Carolina Hurricanes was painful, just wait! We have a doozy for you in this one.
The Kraken had a two-goal lead against the Florida Panthers in the second period Saturday and seemed to be in complete control after Eeli Tolvanen scored his first goal of the year. But 1:19 after Tolvanen’s goal, Gustav Forsling got the Panthers on the board with a power-play goal, and just 11 seconds after that, the game was tied.
Florida’s game winner in the third was downright miserable for Kraken fans. We’ll talk about that in a bit.
Here are our Three Takeaways from the Kraken’s 3-2 loss to the Florida Meow Meows.
Takeaway #1: Awful way to lose
You never want to see a game decided on a lucky or unlucky bounce. Well… actually, maybe lucky bounces are ok when they happen in your team’s favor. But you definitely never want an unlucky bounce to cost you valuable standings points, and that’s exactly what happened Saturday.
With the game tied 2-2 with under seven minutes left to play, Josh Mahura dumped a puck into Seattle’s zone, an innocuous-looking play. Joey Daccord drifted behind the net to field it, as goalies normally do, but the puck never got to him. Instead, it hit a stanchion and took a hard right turn, meeting Nick Cousins at the top of the goal crease for perhaps the easiest goal he has ever scored.
Daccord fell on the sword after the game. “That one’s on me. I just should have stayed in the net. Late in the game, tie game, the stanchions here are pretty bouncy, and they stick out a lot. Just an unfortunate bounce.”
But coach Dave Hakstol defended his netminder. “He plays the puck really well,” Hakstol said. “The dangerous ones up in the glass, you can get a bad bounce like we got there, unfortunately. So, no, that’s a bad bounce at a tough time for us. That’s all.”
We would agree with Hakstol. Going after pucks off the glass is a little riskier than ones around the boards, but 95 percent of those behave the way they’re supposed to. Daccord was not doing anything out of the ordinary by going back to stop that one.
For as unlucky as the bounce was on the winning goal, the Kraken had some equally lucky breaks to keep the game 2-2 in the second period. Ryan Lomberg had a wide-open net on a rebound chance but rang it off the post, and Sam Reinhart scored with 10 seconds left in the period, before a successful offside challenge from Hakstol negated the goal.
Still, that’s a tough way to lose a hockey game.
Takeaway #2: Kraken put themselves in that position
Having said all that, Seattle had this game in its grasp and let the momentum swing wildly in Florida’s favor in the second half of the second period. Things were going swimmingly, and after the first period and first few minutes of the second (especially after Tolvanen pushed it to 2-0), we thought Seattle was marching toward its best all-around performance of the season.
And then—suddenly—it was a brand new, tie game, putting the Kraken in a situation where one bad bounce could sink them.
The first goal against came on Florida’s only power play of the entire game, a blast through traffic by Gustav Forsling that eluded Daccord. Then, just a couple blinks later, Matty Beniers lost a defensive-zone face-off and tried to block Dmitry Kulikov’s point shot, but it bounced off him and then Matthew Tkachuk before floating past Daccord.
This game was a classic example of Seattle needing to play the full 60 minutes to win. We heard the team and its coach talk about this ad nauseam after losses in 2022-23, and this is a prime example of what happens when the tentacle comes off the gas.
Letting down even for a few minutes can cost you games in the NHL, and the Kraken learned that lesson for the umpteenth time Saturday.
Takeaway #3: Joey Daccord got the nod again
It was interesting to see Daccord get the nod again in this game, his third consecutive start and fourth in five games. He was coming off an overtime loss to the Hurricanes, but he set a franchise record in that game with 42 saves.
Clearly, Hakstol has confidence in him right now and is trying to ride the hot hand, and he surely recognized that Seattle has racked up all its standings points on nights when Daccord has been in net.
“Both our guys are playing well,” Hakstol said. “[Daccord] has had a little bit of momentum here and that’s why we went back with him tonight, and he gave us every opportunity to win the game.”
It’s akin to when Philipp Grubauer went out with an injury last season, Martin Jones came in, and suddenly the Kraken got red hot. We’re not saying the lack of points on Grubauer nights has been because of Grubauer (he’s had some very good performances this season), but going back to Daccord Saturday is clearly a Which goalie gives my team the best chance to win? type of decision by Hakstol.
We’ve generally liked Daccord’s game this season. The way he gloves down almost every unscreened shot is very promising, and he is looking more and more like a true NHL goalie, rather than an AHL goalie filling in. He made 35 saves again Saturday and holds a .912 save percentage and 2.88 goals-against average in five starts.
We would guess Hakstol turns back to Grubauer for Monday’s road trip finale in Tampa Bay, but it will be worth monitoring how the goalie usage plays out moving forward.
Welp, that was one of those losses that stung a bit for Kraken fans. Seattle had the lead for most of the game against the Hurricanes, but then bent, bent… bent some more, and finally broke in the last few minutes of the game, before losing 3-2 in overtime.
If you just look at it statistically, getting a point out of that one should be a nice consolation. Seattle was outshot 45-25, and Carolina had 63 percent of the shot quality in the game. Still, the game script playing out in that manner left a bitter taste.
“[Carolina] played exactly the way we thought they would,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “They generate zone time, they generate shots on goal, but we didn’t make a whole lot of mistakes other than some of the pressure plays that stayed in our zone… Obviously, we made the big mistake on the tying goal.”
Here are our Three Takeaways from a smarting 3-2 Kraken overtime loss to the Hurricanes.
Takeaway #1 (Darren): One big, costly mistake
The mistake Hakstol was referencing came from Seattle’s top forward line of Matty Beniers, Jordan Eberle, and Tye Kartye, deep in the third period. The Kraken were nursing an ever-so-tenuous 2-1 lead with under five minutes to play, and they had been bunkered in their zone for most of the period at that point.
There seemed to be an offensive opportunity brewing, so Adam Larsson jumped into a four-on-four rush with the three aforementioned forwards. Hurricanes defenseman Brady Skjei made a diving play to break up an Eberle pass, and Carolina transitioned quickly.
Kotkaniemi ties it late. Terrible backcheck by Eberle and Kartye, who both looked like they were out of gas and completely stopped skating.
“Our eyes got a little bit too big there, trying to do a little too much offensively,” Hakstol said. “We ended up with four guys probably below the tops of the circles.”
Beniers and Larsson sprinted to get back in the play defensively, and for a fleeting moment, it seemed Seattle had plenty of numbers back, as the Hurricanes broke in two against three. But the players that were following up the rush—Michael Bunting and Jesperi Kotkaniemi—were left completely unmarked by Eberle and Kartye, who both uncharacteristically stopped skating. Martin Necas spun and passed to Kotkaniemi, and Joey Daccord was hung out to dry.
To Seattle’s credit, the team didn’t let Kotkaniemi’s goal at 15:36 of the third period sink the ship completely. The Kraken got the game to overtime, where they again showed patience and control and earned several good looks. But the ’Canes got the last laugh when Necas fired a shot around a screen to beat Daccord.
Sometimes, all it takes is one little screwup.
Takeaway #2 (Darren): Joey’s big night spoiled
We aren’t giving him a full takeaway, but we need to call out Devin Shore for his stunning demonstration of hand-eye coordination to corral a waist-high stretch pass from Oliver Bjorkstrand and an impressive finish on the breakaway for his first goal as a Kraken.
Ummmmmmmmm…. Ok, Devin Shore.
Wait for the third replay. He took Bjorkstrand's stretch pass right out of the air. Heckuva way to get your first goal with a new team.
We are, however, giving a full takeaway to netminder Joey Daccord, who was fantastic and frankly deserved a win on this night. Daccord made 42 saves on 45 shots, setting a franchise record for most saves in a game. And while—as John will point out—most of his saves came on shots from the outside, Daccord looked very much in control throughout, gloving down seemingly every shot from distance with no rebound.
“It’s a frustrating loss, being up late in the game and ending up losing in overtime,” Daccord said. “But I think we’re still early on in the year, and I think we can keep building on this.”
The only regulation goals allowed by Daccord came after big booboos by his mates in front of him, including Brian Dumoulin catching an edge and coughing up the puck in a dangerous spot in the first period, and two players being left completely alone in the third.
Daccord is now 2-0-2 and has been in net for every standings point the Kraken have earned so far this season.
Takeaway #3 (John): Limiting shot quality
For as well as Daccord played in this game, the skaters did a great job at keeping most of the shots to the perimeter throughout the game. Only 29.6 percent of the Hurricanes’ shots were considered “high” or “medium” danger.
The Hurricanes managed to muster 45 shots on net, which was good enough for a season high, but their 29.6 percent medium- and high-danger percentage was a season low.
Hakstol called out in his post-game presser that the team really only made the one glaring mistake late in the third, and we would agree with that sentiment. Many of the shots Daccord faced came from the point without traffic in front. The Kraken will take those shots against all day, and that’s exactly what happened Thursday.
Stifling shot quality has been a steady theme for the Kraken in his young 2023-24 NHL season. If they can get some more consistency in the scoring category, and it looks like that is starting to come, they could be heading toward a solid run.
What a roller coaster of emotions that game was for the Seattle Kraken, as they snuck by the Detroit Red Wings to earn their second win of the season Tuesday. It also put Seattle off on the right foot to start this current four-game road trip, which will now take them to face three teams that were in the playoffs last season in Carolina, Florida, and Tampa Bay.
The Kraken had a two-goal lead heading into the third period, but they let it slip away on three goals from Detroit’s highly lethal power play. Seattle scored a late power-play goal of its own to tie it, then won it in with a hair under 5 ticks left on the overtime clock.
EBERLEEEEEEEEE! 🚨 #SEAKRAKEN WIN WITH 4 SECONDS LEFT IN OVERTIME!
Raymond hits the post, then McCann (eventually) sets up Eberle for the game-winner at the other end.
“Obviously that hurt a little bit with the power plays,” Jaden Schwartz said. “But we stayed with it, got back on the hunt, back on the forecheck, continued to work. And it paid off. Wins aren’t coming easy right now, so we’ve got to dig in and play the full 60 is probably the bottom line right now.”
Here are our Three Takeaways from a thrilling 5-4 Kraken overtime win against the Red Wings.
Takeaway #1 (Darren): What a night for Jaden Schwartz
While most Kraken players have struggled to score so far this season, Schwartz has gotten himself off to a pretty solid start. He was outstanding Tuesday, with two goals (including one on the power play), bringing him to four goals in seven games this season.
Schwartz has been something of a fixer of lines for coach Dave Hakstol during his tenure with the Kraken, often moving up and down to help players start producing. That’s because he brings a hard, tenacious style of play, and he’s willing to get into the net-front area; it’s a style that also plays nicely with the manpower advantage.
“Just trying to be competitive in there,” said Schwartz. “Every game is a little bit different. Sometimes you’re fighting for space, sometimes pucks find you.”
One thing that’s been interesting about the way he’s been deployed on the power play, Schwartz is often seen taking draws for his unit, though he isn’t a true center. On the team’s first power-play goal at 5:16 of the second period, he took the draw and partially won it to his left. With the puck contested against the wall, he hustled over to support the board battle. As soon as he saw Matty Beniers pull the puck back to Vince Dunn at the point, Schwartz turned and sprinted to the blue paint.
A missed Dunn pass to Kailer Yamamoto caromed fortuitously off the end wall and right to Schwartz, who got good wood on a backhander to chip it over Ville Husso. That got Seattle level in the game at 1-1.
SCHWARTZ! 🚨
And it's a power-play goal!
Schwartz wins the face-off, then hustles right to the front of the net. Dunn intentionally fires it off the end boards, and it pops out to Schwartz, who whacks it past Husso. #SeaKraken
Schwartz followed that up with just a big, old fashioned clapper off a rush at 17:54 of the second, beating Husso again and giving the Kraken a 2-1 lead.
Schwartz’s biggest play of the game came with time ticking down on Seattle, which had a late power play and a 6-on-4 advantage with goalie Joey Daccord off for an extra skater. Schwartz didn’t get a point for it, but when Jared McCann tied the game with 1:22 left in regulation, it was Schwartz that was right in front of Husso, wreaking havoc.
Oh, and we can’t forget Schwartz also got away with a fairly blatant stick throw to break up a scoring opportunity late in the second period, and Tye Kartye scored soon after that to make it 3-1 Kraken.
A theme for me in this game was (once again) special teams. The Red Wings power play unit came into the game white hot, with a 39 percent power-play success rate on the season. Meanwhile, the Kraken had one of the top five penalty kill units in the league with a 93.8 percent kill rate.
Something had to give, and it did. Detroit scored three goals on six power-play opportunities with all three goals coming in the third period. It was a tough period for the penalty kill unit who, in my opinion, actually looked solid and played better than the data shows. There were no glaring mistakes on the PK, and the failures on this night looked more like a combination of a lethal Detroit power play unit clicking and no lucky breaks for the Seattle killers. I don’t see a big cause for concern, even though the three goals against did raise eyebrows.
On the other side of the special teams equation is the Kraken power play, which has struggled this season. Objectively, it has been better as of late. Coming into the Detroit game, Seattle had three power-play goals over 12 opportunities in the last four games. That is a 25 percent power-play conversion rate, which would be close to the top 10 in the league if the Kraken did not go zero for six in the first two games of the season.
The Kraken potted two power-play goals against Detroit, including McCann’s dart to tie the game with less than 90 seconds remaining in regulation.
MCCANN CAN! 🚨 TIE GAME!!!
McCann with the rocket, but look who is right there in front, taking away Husso's vision… What a game by Jaden Schwartz.
The Kraken are now 13th in the league with a 21.7 percent conversion rate.
Even so, I still think the Kraken are struggling at getting set up off their offensive-zone entries, so I wanted to check that with data. A proxy I’ve been using for power-play offensive-zone time is shot attempts per two minutes of power-play time.
The Kraken still rank relatively low, but this might not be the best metric, considering Washington is first in this category and has the second-lowest power-play conversion in the league. On the other hand, Chicago, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Dallas all rank in the bottom five in power-play conversion rate on the season, so that does align with this metric. It is something we will continue to monitor.
Takeaway #3 (Curtis): After falling behind late, Kraken were resilient
The Kraken very easily could have let this game get away from them at the end of the third period. The pendulum of emotion had swung and swung hard against them. Entering the third with a 3-1 lead, the team saw three consecutive Detroit power-play goals put them at a one-goal disadvantage just over half way through the final period.
“It’s important to get results, and we felt like we played a real good first two periods,” Hakstol said. “And even on specialty teams, we did a nice job in those first two periods. And all of a sudden, it was kind of a wave of power plays. They’ve been rolling on their power play, and they made good on them. So to be able to push back– we’ve done it a couple of times now. We haven’t gotten rattled, we haven’t gone away after giving up a lead, so we did that again tonight.”
Instead of lamenting the calls against them–including a soft holding goal on Alex Wennberg that created the power-play opportunity Detroit used to go ahead–or conceding to their misfortune after a tough opening stretch in which they had lost five of six games, the Kraken got to work.
From 10:26 in the third onward, Seattle outshot Detroit 10-2. The team’s tenacious effort generated two third-period power plays as well. McCann drew the second call and then capitalized on the opportunity himself with a pinpoint wrist shot from the top of the right circle. McCann also set up Jordan Eberle for the game-winning goal with just five seconds left in overtime, after the Kraken again had the puck for most of the five minutes (and got some puck luck with a post hit by Lucas Raymond).
McCann spoke after the game about composure and a consistent mindset as the key to overcoming adversity in the third period: “It was a grind. We stuck with it–didn’t change a thing.”
The team’s goal moving forward is to build on the confidence a win like this can deliver. “We need to play with a little bit more swagger like we had last year, toward the end of the year,” McCann said. “We need to find that.”
I do my best to be objective and avoid being swayed too much by the emotional roller coaster that is the NHL season. When I evaluate the question of whether it is time to panic about the Seattle Kraken season to date, the logical part of me says it is not time to panic. Plenty of teams have stumbled out of the blocks, only to finish the season in a playoff spot.
But … My emotional side is freaking out right now.
We knew the first 10 games of the season represented a big challenge for Seattle, and if you would have told me coming in that the Kraken would be 1-4-1 through the first six games, I would have believed you based on the quality of opponents on the schedule. None of that really matters, though, because for as high as I was feeling after Thursday night’s game, it all came crashing down Saturday.
The Kraken looked out of sync against the Rangers, and it just felt like they could not get any sustained pressure or quality chances. Adding more fuel to the angst was the nature of how Andre Burakovsky left the ice after being boarded by Jacob Trouba. Sure enough, the Kraken announced Monday that Burakovsky had undergone a procedure to address the injury and would be out 6-8 weeks. That is a massive blow; the hockey gods seem to be kicking the team when it is already down.
Shooting percentages
Scoring and the Kraken’s low shooting percentage is the theme of the season so far. In 2022-23, they finished second in the NHL behind only the Edmonton Oilers by shooting 11.8 percent. This season they are currently sitting 30th in the league with a shooting percentage of 6.1 percent. I thought Thursday night’s explosion of seven goals against the Carolina Hurricanes might have been the catalyst for getting out of this scoring funk, but the Kraken scored just one goal on 19 shots to land at 5.3 percent Saturday, which is only slightly better than the sub-3 percent they were averaging in the first four games of the season.
Before I go any farther, let me call out that Saturday night might not be the best proxy for the season. The shot quality was extremely low in that game; according to NaturalStatTrick.com, the Kraken had only one high-danger shot on net the entire game. The previous low was five against Colorado.
There was a lot of chatter entering the season that the Seattle Kraken were due for a regression in scoring this season. That might be true, but this team has shooters, so we should not expect it to stay near the bottom of the league all season. Consider that Matty Beniers, Jordan Eberle, Eeli Tolvanen, and (before his injury) Burakovsky have not scored. All four of them have averaged over 10 percent in shooting their last five seasons. There is too much to go into on this, but I promise to do a deeper dive into the topic later this week.
It is still early. Let’s not panic… yet.
Early improvement in the face-off dot
We identified face-offs as an opportunity for improvement this offseason, and when Pierre-Edouard Bellemare was signed, we thought he should help the team improve in this area. While his own performance is bringing up the team’s statistics, Bellemare seems to be helping other players improve their face-off percentages as well.
Apart from Jordan Eberle, all players have improved their face-off percentages this season to date compared to all last season. Being that Eberle has only taken six draws, I would not worry too much about his 33 percent.
An area I was particularly concerned about coming into the season was the lack of right-shot centermen that could be deployed in the right face-off dot in the defensive zone. This dot is considered the strong side for a right-shot forward and the weak side for a left-shot forward. The Kraken’s four centers are all left shots, which would put the Kraken at a strategic disadvantage when taking face-offs in the right defensive-zone circle. (If you want to read more on this topic, check out this post from over the summer).
The data shows that the Kraken are weaker on the right defensive-zone circle, but even though they are missing the right-shot option (filled last season by Morgan Geekie) to take the right-side face-offs, they are still stronger on that right face-off dot.
It is early in the season, and some of the teams the Kraken have played this season were weaker face-off teams from last season. But even with the limited sample size, this is positive progress in this area.
Other Kraken thoughts
The Burakovsky injury is significant. I was counting on him to play a majority of the season to improve the Kraken offensively and replace the goals of Daniel Sprong.
The injury to Burakovsky, this will provide an opportunity Tye Kartye and Kailer YamamotoI I expect both of them to work up and down the lines and get more scoring opportunities with more skilled linemates. In my opinion, Yamamoto can create more offensive opportunities on the fourth line than Kartye, so I would bet Kartye starts most of the games up the lineup with Yamamoto getting occasional extra shifts outside of the fourth line.
It was fun to see Kartye score his first regular-season goal Thursday against the Hurricanes. It was equally fun was to see how excited he was after he scored.
I’ve often felt Alexander Wennberg is the most underappreciated Kraken player to ever wear the jersey, but I also put Jaden Schwartz in that same boat. Schwartz has two of the three power-play goals scored by the Kraken this season and is often moved around the lines to get other players going.
As a team, I believe the Kraken have played better than their record shows so far (although, maybe not so much against the Rangers). They’ve allowed 3.33 goals against per game, but three of the goals against were on an empty net.
Former 2022-23 Seattle Kraken fourth-liners Morgan Geekie, Daniel Sprong, and Ryan Donato have a total of four goals for their 2023-24 teams. The Kraken’s 2023-24 fourth line of Tye Kartye, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, and Kailer Yamamoto have three goals through the first six games.
It’s way too early to start looking at the standings, but it is calming to see that the third-place Los Angeles Kings have just two more points than the Kraken.
Player performance /Stick taps
Jagger Firkus (Moose Jaw Warriors, WHL) – Firkus has five goals in his last two games, bringing his season goal total to 10 in 10 games. That’s not bad.
Jagger Firkus does his best work in the final minute of the period
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare (Kraken) – Bellemare has a face-off win percentage of 56.5 percent, and he scored his first goal as a Kraken, netting a short-handed goal against the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday.
Vince Dunn (Kraken) – Dunn had a goal and three assists in the three Kraken games last week. I’ve mentioned several times this season that he has looked off, but I figured it was just a matter of time before he would be back to 2022-23 form. He looked back against Carolina.
I spent most of my Sunday doing data gymnastics to fix my location data from the Saturday game, since it was thrown off by the lighting issue that had the teams trading sides halfway through each period. You see, a defensive-zone face-off varies depending on the period (and arena) of the game. When the teams switch sides in the middle of a period, that logic gets screwed up. I realized this when my wife leaned over to me at the game and said, “This is going to screw up your data.”
As always, let me know if you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions on other areas to investigate by leaving a note in the comments section.
Even before the opening face-off Saturday, we saw signs this game between the Rangers and the Kraken was going to be a strange one.
Something was a little off in the pre-game show; maybe Game Ops had intentionally toned things down, but it didn’t seem like they were doing all the on-ice projections they normally do, and one set of lights didn’t go off like usual. More on this in a bit, but it was a sign of things to come.
The game itself was a real stinker from the Kraken. After they jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first period on a Justin Schultz one-timer, it was a slow, painful slide (both literally and figuratively) the rest of the way.
Here are our Three Takeaways from an ugly 4-1 Kraken loss to the Rangers.
Takeaway #1 (Darren): Did Artemi Panarin pull the plug?
After Tommie Burton brought the house down (as he always does) with his pre-game Star-Spangled Banner rendition, the lights came up, and the puck was quickly dropped at center ice. I couldn’t put my finger on it right away, but the playing surface just didn’t quite look right. As the synthetic smoke used in the pre-game show slowly dissipated, it suddenly became clear the offensive end of the ice for Seattle was darker than its defensive end.
A set of lights had malfunctioned, causing about a 10-minute delay to the game, as the officials gave technicians at Climate Pledge Arena a chance to find a solution. There was a flurry of activity on the catwalks high above the ice, including Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke pacing up and down and talking on his cell phone.
In the end, no solution was found to the lighting issue, so the NHL decided the game should go on, and that the teams should switch ends at the first stoppage after the 10:00 mark of each period to eliminate unfair advantages.
“Switching every 10 minutes is kind of crappy,” said McCann. “Especially when you get momentum, they stop the game and switch ends, it’s obviously not great, but we didn’t have our best effort tonight. We weren’t there defensively. It felt like we were soft on pucks and we weren’t making hard plays.”
Both teams dealt with the problem, so it’s hard to say this negatively impacted the Kraken (and McCann also shared similar sentiments on the issue). But Philipp Grubauer did give up the softest goal he has allowed this season just six seconds after the switch in the second period, letting a Jacob Trouba slap shot squeeze through him and lay loose in the crease for Kaapo Kakko to push over the line.
That goal came on the brighter end of the ice, so again, you can’t blame the lighting, but it is an odd coincidence in terms of timing.
“I don’t think that had an impact on the game,” said coach Dave Hakstol. “The initial delay isn’t great; it takes a lot of energy out of the building, but that’s not a crutch we’ll lean back on.”
Regardless of if the lighting situation actually skewed the game, the Kraken had no answer for Artemi Panarin’s line with Filip Chytil and Alexis Lafreniere on this night. Panarin came away with two goals (both scored on the dark end of the ice), Chytil had three primary assists, and Lafreniere added a goal of his own.
I asked Panarin what he made of the whole lighting situation, and he said, “For me, I want it darker, so it’s harder for goalies.” He then claimed responsibility for pulling the plug himself. “I’m doing all that stuff before the game.”
Mr. Leiweke, we found the culprit!
Takeaway #2 (Curtis): Kraken offense is ice cold
By any measure, the Kraken did not generate enough offense to win on Saturday night. Total shots on goal? The Kraken had just 17 in the game, a season low. Compare that with the 36 shots the team put on goal in Thursday’s win against the Carolina Hurricanes; that’s a big drop.
How about high-danger shot attempts? The Kraken had just two all night according to Natural Stat Trick–also a season low and well off the team’s average of 11.4 per game entering Saturday’s contest.
How about total shot quality? According to Natural Stat Trick,the Kraken generated shots worth just 1.38 expected goals in the game. Again, this is a new season low. The team generated fewer expected goals just once during the entirety of the 2022-23 season (at Carolina on Dec. 12, 2022) and only one other time during the team’s low-scoring inaugural campaign (at Tampa Bay on Nov. 26, 2021).
So it is fair to say Seattle has never in its existence put out such anemic shot quality on home ice. The next worst expected goal performance was a Nov. 11, 2021, a home game against the Anaheim Ducks.
“We didn’t execute very well,” Hakstol said. “We weren’t moving. We didn’t have a lot of pace to our game. You saw that five-on-five. You saw that on our power-play opportunities. The sharpness [and] crispness [was] not there.”
In one respect, I felt a bit of deja vu when two consecutive power play opportunities in the middle of the second period came up empty and drew the life out of the offense. Hakstol pointed this out after the game, saying the Kraken took themselves out of the game in the second period.
More notable from this vantage point was the team’s overall inability to get inside and generate shots from the slot area between the circles. This has been a struggle all season, but it was especially evident Saturday. If the Kraken are going to break out of their early-season offensive malaise, they need to commit to getting to the middle of the ice.
Takeaway #3 (Darren): Andre Burakovsky injured, and it seems bad
Adding (potentially major) injury to insult, Andre Burakovsky got hurt again Saturday, and it sounds like it could be serious. About six minutes into the second period, Burakovsky was hustling toward the corner in the offensive end. He took a little shove from the oft-problematic hitter, Trouba, and slammed awkwardly into the end boards, shoulder first.
Burakovsky was hunched over skating to the bench, holding his shoulder or collar bone area. He went straight down the tunnel and didn’t return, and Trouba was given a two-minute minor for boarding.
On Burakovsky’s status, Hakstol said, “I’ll wait until tomorrow morning to make sure, but I mean, I don’t think it’s going to be something that’s real short term.”
Hakstol does not give injury updates. He just doesn’t do it. For him to say that in his post-game presser, that means Burakovsky’s injury is serious. That’s awful news for both the Kraken and Burakovsky, who was Seattle’s top scorer before he tore his groin and was lost for the second half of last season.
Burakovsky worked all offseason to rehab and be ready to go for 2023-24. He lasted just four and a half games, and now we would guess he’s out for the foreseeable future.
The Kraken entered Thursday’s matchup against the Carolina Hurricanes winless through four games on the season. Call us crazy, but we still felt confident going in that Seattle was going to come out victorious, even though the team had only scored three total goals and had only beaten Carolina one time out of four previous tries in franchise history.
Sometimes, you just get a feeling on game days, and hearing coach Dave Hakstol challenge his players to look at themselves and “do a little bit more” at morning skate gave us a hunch the players would refuse to let themselves sink into a deeper hole.
Lo and behold, seven different players scored goals, including two power-play goals and a short-handed goal, and—despite some hairy moments in the third period when the lead shrunk to 4-3—the Kraken ended up with a lopsided W as their first win of the season.
“At some point in time, you just have to go out and get it done, and that’s what we did tonight,” said Hakstol. “So, a little wobble at the start of the third period, gave up a couple quick ones, but nobody got back on their heels.”
Here are our Three Takeaways from an important 7-4 Kraken win over the Hurricanes.
Takeaway #1 (Darren): Burakovsky and Dunn have entered the chat
I have to credit John Barr for this one, because he called out both Vince Dunn and Andre Burakovsky on this week’s Sound Of Hockey Podcast, saying he didn’t think either player had looked particularly sharp so far. The duo must have listened to the episode before Thursday’s game, because they came out firing and combined for five points on the night. Dunn had a power-play goal and two assists, and Burakovsky added two assists of his own, including his 200th career point.
Just a 🚀 by Dunn, who has a goal and two assists so far tonight.
“Everyone really chipping in tonight makes my game shape itself,” Dunn said. “I don’t really get any of [my] goals without everyone doing their part out there, so a lot of credit to the other guys for finding me and getting open for me to distribute to them.”
After several questionable plays in the first few games, Dunn was back to looking like the version of himself that earned consideration for the Norris Trophy last season. He was dynamic, he was physical, and he was getting himself involved offensively throughout his team-leading 22:55 of ice time.
“It’s nice to see Dunner get on the board the way he did,” Hakstol said. “It’s a challenge when you miss a good chunk of training camp like he did, and I think there were different parts of his game that had a little bit of rust … He was rock solid tonight.”
We’re singling out Dunn and (to a lesser extent) Burakovsky mostly because it makes a convenient podcast-related narrative, but the reality is there were solid efforts up and down the lineup Thursday. The group finally got rewarded with a big bundle of goals, just as we predicted on that same episode, and all at once the floodgates opened.
Now, let’s see if they remain open moving forward.
Takeaway #2 (Curtis): Joey Daccord immense early
To Darren’s point, this had the feeling of a “get-right” game. Three-goal margin of victory. Seven goals by seven different goal scorers. For five of those scorers, it was their first of the season. 12 Kraken players recorded a point. This is the type of performance that allows everyone to loosen the grips on their sticks a bit and get into the flow of the season.
The story might have been different, however, but for the play of Kraken goaltender Joey Daccord in the first period. The Hurricanes recorded an incredible 34 total shot attempts in the first 20 minutes, 21 of which made it through to Daccord. According to Natural Stat Trick, Carolina had the decisive edge in the shot quality battle early, generating 1.9 expected goals in the first period alone, mostly on the strength of seven high-danger opportunities.
Those chances started almost immediately after puck drop. Just 17 seconds into the game, Hurricanes forward Jordan Martinook received a centering pass in the slot 10 feet from the goal and fired it on Daccord. But Daccord was ready to answer the bell, large and square at the top of the crease. (Shortly after, there was net-front traffic that led to a long-range wrister deflecting in on goal off Dunn’s body, but Dunn quickly swatted it away and saved a goal.) It’s easy to imagine the game going sideways if Seattle found itself in a 1-0 hole immediately—and to a team against which Seattle has struggled over the first two years.
The high-danger chances continued throughout the period. At 8:20 in the first, Martinook had another opportunity off a rebound directly in front of the net, but Daccord gave very little space for the Hurricanes to shoot.
Then, starting at 11:24, Daccord saw a flurry of chances from Seth Jarvis and Dimitri Orlov, but deftly navigated back and forth across the blue paint to turn each away.
And, finally, in the dying seconds of the period, Daccord had his biggest save of the night. It came just after Pierre-Edouard Bellemare scored to give Seattle a 3-1 advantage. Had the Hurricanes gotten one back at that point, it would have sapped much of Seattle’s momentum going into the intermission. With respect to the save itself, frankly, we’re not sure how Daccord managed to extend on Martin Necas’s shot here. It was just a remarkably athletic play.
It wasn’t all perfect for Daccord. Hakstol said as much after the game, indicating Daccord would have some “learning opportunities” from the goals he allowed. The young netminder ended up conceding four in total, with three coming in the third period. Indeed, if you were just looking at the advanced statistics after the game, you might reach the conclusion Daccord had a mediocre outing, having conceded those four goals against on just 3.32 expected goals according to Natural Stat Trick. But, as is often said, the timing of a goaltender’s saves is critical. And on Thursday night Daccord kept a then-winless Kraken team in the game early. He allowed the skaters to find their scoring touch and build a lead they never relinquished. He was a star of the game in my book.
(PS: It’s much easier for me to write than it is for me to talk right now. I’m on the mend, though.)
Takeaway #3 (Darren): Tye Kartye is so back
After Tye Kartye made the Kraken roster out of training camp, he was scratched for opening night in Vegas, then seemed to be trying to find his footing for the next couple games, before really creating buzz with linemates Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Kailer Yamamoto Saturday against Colorado. Kartye took the next step Thursday, making himself noticeable every time he was on the ice in that fourth-line capacity.
But he became really noticeable in the third period, when Jaden Schwartz left the game (we believe it was the result of a shot block off his foot toward the end of the second period), elevating Kartye to the top line with Matty Beniers and Jordan Eberle.
“We went back to something that was familiar,” said Hakstol. “Karts has played a lot with Matty and with Ebs … He jumps in and stepped up into that role much like he did last year in the playoffs for us. He’s got a good presence about him. He plays the game the right way, and he went up there and did a good job when called upon.”
Kartye scored three goals in the playoffs last year, but he got his first official regular-season goal in the NHL just 21 seconds after Jared McCann had made it 5-3. Kartye’s goal came off a perfect pass into the crease by Beniers, and it gave the home faithful a huge sigh of relief.
Tye Kartye scored 21 seconds after McCann for his first regular-season NHL goal!
Great play by Beniers to create the chance, and Kartye goes hard to the net.
“It feels really good, and obviously that we won too, and we got off the schneid a little bit there,” Kartye said. “It feels really good.”
Kartye didn’t stop there. The very dislikable Brendan Lemieux ran over a prone McCann, earning himself a penalty late in the game. We aren’t convinced the hit was intentional (though it was Lemieux, after all, in a game that had gotten away from Carolina), but Kartye—like a veteran—went right after Lemieux as soon as he got out of the box.
Goodness, Brendan Lemieux.
I'm not sure Tye Kartye entirely knew what he was getting into with this one. pic.twitter.com/zrUpTVv5oZ
“It’s awesome,” said McCann. “He’s not known for that, right? But it’s a Soo boy sticking up for a Soo boy, so it’s nice.” (As a reminder, both players played their major junior hockey for the Soo Greyhounds of the OHL.)
And sure, Lemieux fed Kartye his lunch, but what a gutsy thing for a 22-year-old rookie to do. The legend of Tye Kartye continues to grow.
The Kraken are four games into the season, and things haven’t gone their way thus far. As such, the vibes haven’t been particularly high. In sympathy, Curtis and John’s voices are both very much broken, but they do their best in this one to fight through. Tune in to find out which host doesn’t make it all the way through.
On this episode, the guys recap Seattle’s last three games and give the latest Kraken news.
They also do a quick Kraken Roundtable, go Down on the Farm, and do a quick Let’s Get Quizzical.
Segments include Goalie Gear Corner, You Don’t See That Every Day, and Weekly One-Timers.
After such a magical playoff run last season, this is not the start the Seattle Kraken and their fans would have wanted. In their home opener Tuesday, Seattle had a good jump out of the gate, but then eased off the gas as the game went along, and Colorado took over, gliding through to a 4-1 win.
“We lacked execution in a few spots tonight,” said coach Dave Hakstol. “Against a good team, that leaves us on the wrong side of the ledger.”
The Kraken have unfortunately lived on that side of the ledger so far this season, and they remain winless through four games. Here are our Three Takeaways from the latest loss.
Takeaway #1 (Curtis): 5-on-4 play in the second period was the turning point
The game hung on the blades of the Kraken power play unit for four minutes in the middle of the second period, and they couldn’t deliver. It was the turning point in the game, and like last season, that is again quickly becoming a theme.
According to Natural Stat Trick, the Kraken generated more than 60 percent of the total shots and 64 percent of total shot quality in the first period en route to a 1-0 lead at the first intermission. Then, the team came out in the second period and kept the pressure on. Despite conceding the game-tying goal to Artturi Lehkonen, Seattle continued to carry the balance of play.
At 8:13 in the second, Seattle’s pressure seemingly paid off when Yanni Gourde drew a tripping penalty from Colorado defenseman Josh Manson. The power play quickly generated a couple close opportunities from Matty Beniers and Jordan Eberle but struggled to create any danger for much of the two minutes thereafter.
Just seconds after that power play was over, however, Gourde drew another penalty, this time an interference call on Avalanche superstar Nathan MacKinnon. All of the momentum should have been in Seattle’s favor as a weary group of Colorado penalty killers returned to the ice. But, in a familiar refrain for Seattle’s young season, the power play didn’t look cohesive and struggled to establish itself.
Worse, when a clear by Colorado defenseman Cale Makar hopped over Vince Dunn’s stick at center ice, Avalanche forward Logan O’Connor was left behind the defense to corral the puck and skate in on Philipp Grubauer unchecked. The result was a shorthanded goal and a 2-1 lead for the Avalanche.
D'oh! Kraken give up a shorthanded goal to O'Connor.
Clear around the boards by Makar hopped right over Dunn's stick, and O'Connor was off to the races.
Seattle didn’t recover. From that point forward, the Avalanche generated more and better scoring chances than the Kraken. In the third period, Natural Stat Trick had the Avalanche with more than 75 percent of the total shot quality, a dominant number. Overall, Seattle finished 0-for-4 on the power play, but the failed opportunities in the middle of the second period were a big part of the story in this one.
Takeaway #2 (Darren): Are the guys gripping the sticks too tightly?
Somewhat comically, Hakstol was asked this exact question about players gripping their sticks too tightly trying to force the puck into the net, and he said, “Oh, you guys [the media] will talk about that. We won’t.”
So here we are, aggressively taking the bait and talking about that.
Regardless of how much the Kraken discuss their offensive struggles in the dressing room, the struggles are there right now. The team collectively has registered just three total goals in four games, and every goalie they have faced has looked like a world beater against them. That is never a good sign and brings back memories of the team’s inaugural season.
The good news is that the Kraken are getting looks, so in theory, pucks will start to go in the net at some point. But the lack of finish is certainly setting off alarm bells.
Some examples Tuesday, Jaden Schwartz had a chance in the first period where he had all day to pick his spot on Georgiev, and he put it into his pads. Andre Burakovsky had a look on a two-on-one rush with Eeli Tolvanen, took his time to line up his shot, and rifled it off the end boards. Gourde had a wide-open opportunity to end the second period, and Georgiev slid across and robbed him with his left pad.
CHAOS to end the 2nd period!
Gourde gets robbed by Georgiev, then Lehkonen painfully blocks a shot before an odd-man rush at the other end.
2-1 Avs after 40 minutes. The #SeaKraken played well again that period, but allowed a 5v5 goal and a SHG.
When things were going well for the Kraken last season, they would have scored on at least a couple of those, and Tuesday’s game might have had a different outcome.
With the number of chances the Kraken are getting (they ended the night Tuesday with 3.04 expected goals for across all situations), it does feel like one positive outcome in a game is all they need for an offensive jumpstart. If they can get one game where a few guys get on the board, monkeys will start coming off backs, and the floodgates will open. But Seattle does need that to happen relatively soon, or they will have dug themselves a massive hole in the standings before races even get underway.
“Everybody wants to score a little more and provide a little bit more,” Hakstol said. “But you can’t wave a magic wand and have that happen.”
Takeaway #3 (John): Shot quality to date
Lack of scoring was the main theme of this game and the season to date. As we have mentioned several times, the eye test says the Kraken are getting chances, but are they good chances? Certainly, we can call out the more memorable opportunities in last night’s game (as Darren did), but are we seeing a good volume of high-quality shot attempts compared to the rest of the league?
Using the always reliable Natural Stat Trick, I pulled the season-to-date data for all games to see how the Kraken stacked up.
This somewhat confirms what the eye test is telling us. The boys are getting chances but have been unable to bury the puck with those chances. Let’s take a look at how that compares to last season.
The shooting percentage last season was one of Seattle’s strengths, and based on the 2022-23 chart, that applied to high-danger shots as well.
Now, I do not expect Seattle to lead the league in high-danger shooting percentage again, but I think they are still a much better shooting team than they are showing and should be able to get close to league average… eventually. In the meantime, it is really frustrating, and if there was a magical formula to just “shoot better,” I am sure the team would have used it already. Sadly, Hakstol confirmed there is no “magic wand.”
If we take a conservative, lower-than-league-average high-danger shooting percentage of 30 percent, and multiply it by the 31 high-danger shots Seattle has taken, the Kraken would have scored 9.3 high-danger goals at this point. Subtract the two high-danger goals they have scored and the team would have seven more goals to show in the season. Those additional seven goals would have helped.
We can cite data all we want, but at the end of the day, the Kraken are not winning and that is a concern. But we are also only four games into the season. Last season the club was 1-2-1 after four games, and there was a lot of doom and gloom chatter from the fans at that point as well. I still believe the 10-game mark is where we can start to draw some conclusions about this team, so I will do my best to be patient.
