Three Takeaways – Grubauer, Kraken shut out Penguins 2-0

by Darren Brown | Mar 1, 2024 | Three takeaways

Philipp Grubauer has stated his case that he does not want to be the backup goalie for the Seattle Kraken anymore and earned an impressive 33-save shutout in a 2-0 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday. 

Seattle didn’t have much jump to start the game and allowed Grubauer to get peppered with 18 shots in the opening frame. But the team kept most of Pittsburgh’s offerings to the perimeter, and the German Gentleman stood tall to help the Kraken get to the intermission with a 1-0 lead. 

“When you have that type of goaltending, it builds confidence because it erases mistakes,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “Mistakes happen all the time in this game, and when a goaltender takes one of those off the board, all of a sudden, it’s a little easier to focus on the positive things.”

At the other end of the ice, Seattle got a fortunate goal off a goofy bounce by Oliver Bjorkstrand and a tenacious power-play goal by Alex Wennberg. That was more than what Grubauer needed to help his team take the two points.

Here are our Three Takeaways from a big 2-0 Kraken win over the Penguins.

Takeaway #1: Grubauer is rolling

With the way Grubauer is playing right now, Hakstol almost has no choice but to continue leaning on him in the goal crease, even though Joey Daccord deserves a chance to get back in after a rough outing against the Minnesota Wild last Saturday. 

Grubauer improved to 4-0-0 with a whopping .947 save percentage in five appearances (including his relief appearance in that Wild game, when the decision went against Joey’s record) since returning from the injury he suffered on Dec. 9. 

Sometimes it’s nice for a goalie to face some outside shots to start the game and build some confidence, and that’s exactly what happened Thursday. But still, 18 in a period is a little much, and the Kraken needed their netminder to play very big in that opening frame. 

Grubauer was tracking the puck as well as we’ve ever seen from him. There was a slap shot in the second period that got tipped and slowed down halfway to the net, and Grubauer simply kicked it away as if it was the easiest shot he had ever faced. Those types of deflected shots can and should fool any goalie, so when he handled that with ease, we knew he was really cooking.

We thought Grubauer’s best save of the night was the first one in the below clip on Sidney Crosby during a power play. 

There were a couple tough factors on this play, with the first one being the read on the pass. Grubauer likely did not have a clean view of Kris Letang at the point, which is why it’s so common for goalies to be late getting across on plays like this. Yet he recognized the pass and got a good push from right to left, sliding blade-first into the far post. The second challenge was the screen created by Jamie Oleksiak trying to block the shot. The puck went right between Oleksiak’s skates, yet—again—Grubauer tracked it into his pads, which were firmly clamped down across the ice, leaving nowhere for that puck to go. It was a textbook handling of this play.

The shutout was Grubauer’s first since April 7, 2022.

“It’s been a while for myself, but obviously it’s more important to get those points than to get the shutout,” Grubauer said. “It’s huge for the team too, because everybody played their part.”

Takeaway #2: That’s how you close out a game 

How many times have you seen this team—in its three-year existence—take a lead into the third period and then sit back for 20 minutes and either give up the tying goal or have a mad scramble to the finish? 

That did not happen Thursday. The Kraken kept the pedal down and tilted the ice for much of the third, while avoiding taking risks that led to odd-man rushes. Instead, they allowed just five shots against Grubauer in the frame and fired 12 on Tristan Jarry. 

“The group was really committed to the simple, basic things in the third period,” Hakstol said. “And I think we had an understanding coming out of the first that we really weren’t at our best. We lost a lot of the races in the first period, and we were a half-step slow in some areas. So we had to work through that and get better throughout the game, and we did that. In the second period, we were a little bit better. The third period was… it was a real good period for us.”

The Kraken were playing like they would not be denied of an insurance goal, and Wennberg’s power-play goal at 15:02 of the third was a great example of that. He took the puck hard to the net and got stopped, but then Kailer Yamamoto was right there to poke at it, and Wennberg kept swatting at the loose puck in the crease until it finally caromed off Jarry’s glove and popped up under the bar. 

There was no sitting back in this third period and no mad scramble, because Seattle played one of the most structurally sound periods of hockey it has played and cruised through what we thought would be a highly stressful third period. 

Takeaway #3: Just keep swimming

It has to be a tad frustrating for this group to look at the standings right now and see that—even as they’ve picked up points in six of their last seven and are 5-1-1 in that span—they STILL trail both the Nashville Predators and Los Angeles Kings by a whopping seven points. 

Glass half full, the Preds are on a seven-game heater right now that won’t last forever, and the Kraken are doing well to keep pace with them. The Kings have slowly inched back within reach, and the Kraken did step over the Wild with their win last night. They are also now level in points with both the St. Louis Blues and Calgary Flames (who also have won four in a row). 

We’ve been saying all along that the toughest thing about Seattle’s position in the standings is the number of teams they have to jump over to get back into a wild card spot. They’re right on the cusp of putting themselves ahead of all the other chasers, though, so they should keep their eyes on the prize and keep winning a game at a time. 

The gap to a wild card spot really hasn’t closed, but we’re back to believing Seattle can still do this. 

Darren Brown

Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.

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Three Takeaways – Roller coaster continues, Kraken beat Bruins again in shootout

by Darren Brown | Feb 27, 2024 | Three takeaways

“Just when I thought I was out… They pull me… BACK IN!” Ok, but seriously, we don’t know what to make of this Seattle Kraken team right now. After sweeping the season series against the Boston Bruins by fighting tooth and nail for a 4-3 shootout victory, the Kraken are back to five points from a playoff spot. That’s still a huge mountain to climb, though, and the NHL trade deadline is looming ever closer.

The players aren’t doing a great job of giving clarity to their general manager on what he should do in advance of that March 8 deadline. They handily knocked off the high-flying Canucks, followed that up by laying an egg against the Wild, and then rebounded for a thrilling come-from-behind win over another of the best teams in the league, the Boston Bruins, on Monday.

“Our level never really changed throughout the game,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “We competed very hard, the confidence level was good… [We got] timely saves, timely plays, collectively and individually. That gets it done for a big two points.”

We’ll pause our What should this team do at the deadline? questions here, and instead just talk about what happened Monday. Here are our Three Takeaways from a thrilling 4-3 Kraken shootout win over the Bruins. 

Takeaway #1: A big night for Grubi

If this team stays in the playoff race beyond the deadline, it will be interesting to see how Hakstol’s goalie usage evolves. There have been interesting twists and turns in this saga throughout the season, with Daccord rising to near-star levels during Grubauer’s injury absence, then Grubauer returning and not getting many opportunities to play with Joey having seized the net. 

Now, Daccord has had a couple of his less-stellar outings of the season in a row, and Grubauer has been playing like he wants the crease back. 

“[Grubauer was] solid all the way through,” Hakstol said. “Really solid, some big saves at the right times, three for three in the shootout. I mean, there’s not much more we can ask for from Grubi tonight.”

32 shots against isn’t a massive volume, and his .31 goals saved above expected isn’t all that dazzling of a number. But Grubauer came up with some gigantic stops at critical junctures in the game, and he also shut down both of Boston’s Charlies (Coyle and McAvoy) and sealed the win by kicking away David Pastrnak’s second cheeky chip shot of the game.

Pastrnak scored the game’s first goal with almost the exact same move he made in the shootout, pulling the puck behind him and then sending a soft wrist shot meant to deceive the netminder. 

“He came in way slower than in the game,” Grubauer said of the shootout attempt. “So [he had] a little bit more time to make a move in the shootout. But this guy has so many tricks in the bag. You don’t expect him to do the same thing twice.”

Grubauer’s biggest saves came A.) with the game tied 2-2 in the third period, when he slid to his left and robbed the face-licking Brad Marchand twice (seen below), and B.) when he confidently waffleboarded away a Jake DeBrusk breakaway opportunity.  

Hakstol tends to lean heavily on one goalie at a time. Early in the season, it was Grubauer. Then Grubauer went out, and Daccord took the net and helped save the season. Now Grubi seems to be heating up.

What happens next? 

Takeaway #2: Burakovsky has to score soon

On a night when Oliver Bjorkstrand and Andre Burakovsky swapped places in the lineup (with Bjorkstrand making a rare departure from his usual line with Eeli Tolvanen and Yanni Gourde), Bjorkstrand broke a nine-game goalless drought, and Burakovsky notched his third assist in four games. 

Bjorkstrand’s goal came at a huge moment and looked for a fleeting few minutes like it would be the game-winner. 

“It’s nice,” Bjorkstrand said. “I think I’ve been struggling a little bit, so sometimes it’s just getting that goal, and it kind of gives you a boost. I felt like I was able to create some chances today and build momentum off that, and good things happened.” 

Bjorkstrand’s goal didn’t hold up as the winner because Coyle deflected a Pastrnak shot in with 2:52 left, comically tricking Boston fans into throwing their hats on the ice. But Seattle recovered from that letdown quickly and looked awesome through much of an exciting OT period.

Meanwhile, Burakovsky has perhaps been Seattle’s second-best forward (behind Jared McCann) since the All-Star break/bye week, and yet he still remains mired with ONE GOAL in 27 games on the season. 

The good news is that he’s started to chip in with assists, and we believe the floodgates are going to open soon. He’s getting so many looks, one is bound to go in sooner or later. 

“About 10 minutes ago, we just said we’re going to bring a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken in, I think, maybe for practice on Tuesday,” Hakstol joked, referencing a mix-up between Pedro Cerrano and Jake Taylor in the movie Major League. 

For folks like Sound Of Hockey’s John Barr, who hates funny things, the bit in the movie is this: power hitter Cerrano can’t hit a curveball, so he requests a live chicken to sacrifice to the god Jobu, who he believes can help him break his slump. But Taylor misunderstands the request and gets him a bucket of Colonel Sanders’ finest instead. Needless to say, the KFC offering does not break Cerrano’s slump. 

With the way Burakovsky has been struggling to score, Seattle may want to jump right to the live chicken. 

“He’s just got to keep doing the things that he’s doing right,” Hakstol said, more seriously. “The puck’s not going in, he’s hitting posts, he’s hitting bodies at net front. The big thing for him is continue possessing the puck, attack the net, get inside a little bit more, and keep shooting the puck. And good things will happen for him.” 

Personally, I would recommend that Burakovsky simply says, “F*** you, Jobu! I do it myself.” That’s what ultimately worked for Cerrano in the fictional film about a totally different sport, so surely it would work for Burakovsky.

Takeaway #3: A successful goalie interference challenge! 

I haven’t kept stats on this (I feel like Alison has?), but anecdotally, it sure feels like the Kraken lose goalie interference challenges wayyyyyyy more than they win them. After former Kraken Morgan Geekie appeared to give the Bruins a 3-2 lead (in what could have made for an incredible storyline if it had stood and gone as the winning goal), Hakstol asked the officials to take another look at the play. 

On a partial breakaway, Geekie deked and shot, slammed into Grubauer, then pushed the puck over the line as he was falling to the ice. 

Grubauer was surprised after the game when we told him it was his former teammate, Geekie, who had run into him. 

“Was that Geeks?” Grubauer inquired. “I mean, you never know these days what the call is going to be, if it’s called interference or not. I didn’t even see or notice that he touched the puck a second time. I think that was a great call by Toronto. It could have been a turning point of the game here.”

By the way, it was something of a rough night for Geekie, who took a tripping penalty, had a goal negated, was a minus-one, and got hit in the face with a shot from Kevin Shattenkirk. 

He did get a nice tribute video from the Kraken, though, so perhaps that was a consolation prize. We always liked that guy. 

Darren Brown

Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.

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Three Takeaways – Kraken pick a bad time for a dud against the Wild

by Darren Brown | Feb 25, 2024 | Three takeaways

Not good. The Seattle Kraken needed those points more than they’ve needed two points all season. And after coming out like gangbusters in the opening minutes, the Kraken let things snowball out of control in the second period and got smoked 5-2 by a Minnesota Wild team that entered the game one point ahead of them in the wild card standings. 

Minnesota’s best players were their best players, and once Seattle got into penalty trouble, the Kraken simply had no answer. 

“I don’t think we should be frustrated, I think we should be pretty upset with ourselves,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “There’s moments in the game that are game-changing moments that two nights ago [in a 5-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks], we met every one of those moments. Tonight, we didn’t meet very many of them.”

Joey Daccord got yanked for the first time this season, the power play went 0-for-5, and the penalty kill allowed two crucial goals. 

Here are our Three Takeaways from a bad 5-2 Kraken loss to the Wild. 

Takeaway #1: Tough night for Joey 

We are such big Joey fans, so it was tough to see him get torched for four goals on 13 shots and replaced by Philipp Grubauer two minutes into the second period. He simply hasn’t been as sharp this week (he was getting scored on left and right at practice on Friday), and we fear the overtime loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Monday may have stung his confidence. 

Now, will this outing—in which Daccord registered a season-low .692 save percentage—destroy that confidence that has been so high for most of his time as Seattle’s starter? 

“That’s part of being a pro, right?” Hakstol said. “At this time of year, we can either walk the walk here and have a short memory and find confidence in ourselves, make the corrections that we need to and move forward two nights from now. Or we’re just talking to talk, and it doesn’t mean anything. And Joey is no different. He’s a confident pro, he works really hard at his game.”

Daccord may have been partially screened by Tomas Tatar on Marcus Johansson’s first-period goal that sapped Seattle’s early momentum, but it squeezed through his arm in a way we haven’t seen many pucks beating him this season. 

Then, on a 5-on-3, Mats Zuccarello and Kirill Kaprizov toyed with Daccord behind his net until they got him looking the wrong way, and Kaprizov stuffed it in the short side. 

That one is certainly not Daccord’s fault (it’s the fault of the two guys in the penalty box), and Kaprizov has scored that exact goal multiple times this season. But that put things in motion, and the wheels came off for Daccord and the Kraken in the second period. 

Matt Boldy made an elite play to start the second (also on the power play), and beat Daccord with a backhander, then Kaprizov sniped his second off the bar and in, and that was it for Joey on the night. 

“To be honest with you, I had that instinct [to change goalies] one goal earlier,” Hakstol said. “But Joey has been really good for us. He’s fought hard, he’s battled. Tonight wasn’t his night. This is not on him. But he, just like everybody else, is going to have to address his own performance, shake it off, and be ready to go for the next one.”

Hopefully for the Kraken’s sake, Daccord will remember that he is reason No. 1 that Seattle is even in the playoff conversation right now and forget about this tough night quickly.

Takeaway #2: Penalties, penalties, penalties

Special teams were the biggest deciding factor in this game, and Seattle gave the Wild’s lethal top players plenty of opportunities on this night, especially through the first half of the game. Meanwhile, the Kraken got five chances with the man advantage themselves and failed to cash in. 

“I didn’t like our early power play when we had an opportunity to turn the game in the first period,” Hakstol said, referencing an advantage opportunity after Alex Wennberg drew a hooking call on Jonas Brodin at 16:40 of the first. “We come out in the second on another penalty that I don’t like that we took at the end of the first, but we have an opportunity again to get that kill to push momentum our direction. 

“We failed to clear the puck four or five times before the goal was scored. So, it’s things like that… Those are clear points in the hockey game, and things unraveled pretty quickly for us over the next five, six minutes at the start of the second period.”

Adam Larsson took the elbowing call that started Seattle down a man to start the second. On the ensuing power play, the Wild got the Kraken running around, and eventually this happened: 

Takeaway #3: That was a killer

The standings are almost like smoke and mirrors when a team gets to this point in the season and is fighting for its playoff life. As the Kraken won three out of four games before this one and took points in all four, they didn’t seem to gain much ground on a wild card spot. Yet, they drop one game to one of the teams in the same area as them on the table, and suddenly they look miles out of the race. 

“It’s not the time of the year to be showing up for half the game or losing five minutes of momentum and panicking as a team,” Vince Dunn said.

There are six teams with a real claim at a wild card spot, from Los Angeles—currently in the top spot with 68 points—down to the Kraken, who now bring up the rear of that group with 59. 

With the damaging loss Saturday, Seattle is now five points behind Nashville, which has won four games in a row, and will have to leapfrog four teams (the Flames, Wild, Blues, and Predators) to get back in the playoff bubble. The Kraken are now down to a measly 18.3-percent chance of making the playoffs, according to Money Puck. So, it’s not impossible, but it sure is improbable that this team will make the postseason. 

“It hurts, especially against a group where we know we’re competing against them to get in the playoffs,” Yanni Gourde said. “Those are big games, and as a group, we didn’t respond well to the pushback they had after we scored the first goal. They came back, and we just didn’t have an answer after.”

With every loss since the All-Star break, the Kraken have inched closer toward the “sell” end of the seesaw. This one felt like a big lunge toward the front office having no choice but to wave the white flag before the March 8 trade deadline.

Darren Brown

Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.

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Three Takeaways – Jared McCann cooks Canucks, Kraken win 5-2

by Darren Brown | Feb 23, 2024 | Three takeaways

The Seattle Kraken are playing like they don’t want general manager Ron Francis to throw in the towel at the March 8 trade deadline. With points in four straight games (3-0-1), they’ve kept themselves in the playoff hunt and earned another “signature” win Thursday, their second victory in that category during this stretch of improved play (we consider the 4-1 win over the Boston Bruins on Feb. 15 to be the other one). This one came against the usually high-flying Vancouver Canucks in 5-2 fashion at Climate Pledge Arena on Thursday. 

“That was a solid performance all the way through,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “We got good contributions from everybody. Our play with the puck drives a lot of our success tonight as far as moving the puck, taking care of it, making good, hard plays, and getting through the neutral zone. We played fast, and that’s the way we looked tonight for most of the night.”

Jared McCann and Jordan Eberle led the way with seven points between them, and Philipp Grubauer improved to 2-0-0 since his return from injured reserve on Jan. 23 (yes, he has only played two games in a month since being activated).

Here are our Three Takeaways from an impressive 5-2 Kraken win over the Canucks. 

Takeaway #1: Jared McCann is cooking

McCann has quietly been on a heater for the last 15 games, in which he’s racked up 22 points (11-10—21), and Thursday marked his first career four-point game. He exudes confidence right now, and as the game went on against Vancouver, you could sense more and more that he was really feeling it. 

“I’ve never been a guy to focus on points,” McCann said. “Sometimes, they come, sometimes they don’t. [I just] try to control what I can control, and that’s just my effort.” 

Well, his effort has been outstanding ever since he got temporarily “demoted” to a de-facto fourth line for a couple games, and since returning to the top line with Matty Beniers and Eberle, he has been almost unstoppable. 

“I think from Day 1, I’m just trying to get him out of his own head,” Eberle said. “He’s very skilled, he has one of the best shots I’ve ever seen. If you can get him to play with some confidence like he is now, he’s a dangerous, dangerous player.” 

McCann’s power-play goal got the second period off on the right track for Seattle. The Kraken had temporarily lost the puck in the corner, but Alex Wennberg, Andre Burakovsky, and Jaden Schwartz swarmed Ian Cole and forced him to cough it up. In a desperate attempt to escape the pressure, Cole handed it to the wrong guy in the wrong spot. 

McCann was standing all alone in the slot and had time to spin, pick his spot, and wire a perfect shot off the post and in. 

That marker put Seattle in the driver’s seat for the first time in the game, and although Vancouver got a lucky goal that pinballed off Justin Schultz and Sam Lafferty and floated over Grubauer, the Kraken deserved everything they got in this contest. So too did McCann, who also set up Vince Dunn and Eberle for goals of their own. 

Takeaway #2: Gourde line was humming

After wins, we usually dedicate our Takeaways to players that scored goals or made big saves, but on this night, we were impressed by the Oliver Bjorkstrand, Yanni Gourde, and Eeli Tolvanen line. The trio came up empty on the scoresheet, but every time they were on the ice, they wreaked havoc on Vancouver’s defenders. 

“They did what they do,” Hakstol said. ”They go out, they play hard, they take on any different matchup that you want. I mean honestly, they’re coming off of a game [Monday against Detroit] where they weren’t at their best. So we knew tonight that they would have a great effort.”

Most notably, there was a stretch that started with 4:10 left in the first period in which the Canucks could not get out of their zone for about 1:45 of game time. It started with the McCann/Beniers/Eberle line, but they swapped out for a fresh Gourde line, and then Vancouver was stuck. 

Every time a Canucks player touched the puck, they were immediately met by one of those three forwards and forced to turn it over. They were buzzing, cycling the puck, and getting shots and tips through to Thatcher Demko. Bjorkstrand even hit the crossbar during the sequence. 

So, it did’t result in a goal, but the shift got the ice tilted in Seattle’s favor and set the tone for the rest of the game. 

“They’ve grown over time, right?” Hakstol said. “We put them together… I think it was right around Christmastime last year when Tolvy came into the lineup. That line has pretty much stayed together throughout. We’ve moved around a little bit, but they continue to grow with chemistry. And that’s important, and the bigger factor with those guys is their competitiveness, and like I said, when you come off of a night that maybe isn’t your best— those guys are competitive guys, and you saw their contributions tonight and the way they played.”

Takeaway #3: No ground gained

It does feel like the Kraken have gotten themselves onto a pretty good roll over the last four games, in which they’ve knocked off the Islanders, Bruins, and Canucks, and lost in overtime to the Red Wings. And yet, at 59 points in the standings, they remain three behind the Blues for the last wild card spot, while the Predators are now level in points with St. Louis at 62. 

Nashville won its third game in a row, 4-1, over the Los Angeles Kings Thursday, and St. Louis took down the Isles 4-0. 

Meanwhile, Calgary won 3-2 in overtime over Boston, keeping the Flames level with Seattle, and Minnesota—the Kraken’s next opponent—was idle and will play Friday in Edmonton.

This is exactly why it’s so hard to gain ground at this time of year. Three points sounds like nothing, but when you have multiple teams that are playing for their playoff lives, it turns into a dogfight that’s less about “Which team can win the most?” and more about “Which team can lose the least?” 

Seattle is doing its part right now, but it will need to keep rolling for much longer to get back into the playoff picture. The rest of this regular season could be very stressful.

Bonus Takeaway: Canucks weren’t happy

Not to take anything away from the Kraken’s performance, but it’s probably worth noting the Canucks were not happy with the way they played in this game. They’ve had a rough stretch of games lately, and the loss was their fourth in a row, their longest skid of the season.

“I don’t have much to say,” Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet said. “Not much compete from the guys, and that’s on me. I’ve got to take the blame for that. I didn’t get the guys to compete hard enough, so I’ll take the heat on this one. A lot of no-shows tonight.”

That’s a hilarious quote, by the way. It’s like Tocchet is saying, Hey, everybody, please blame me for the players not showing up to play. It’s my fault. They stunk. But blame me. But they stunk.

Darren Brown

Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.

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