The NHL trade deadline is fast approaching, and the Seattle Kraken front office will have decisions to make. Will the team win enough in the next two weeks to convince Ron Francis to keep the group together?
In this episode, the guys discuss that, plus the past week of play for the Kraken. Also, some discussion of Darren’s University of Washington story on soundofhockey.com and plenty of hijinks.
Segments include Goalie Gear Corner, Weekly One-Timers, and Tweets of the Week.
With about two weeks remaining before the March 8 NHL trade deadline, the Kraken playoff picture remains murky. After picking up one point on Monday in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Detroit Red Wings, Seattle now sits three points behind the St. Louis Blues for the last wild card spot in the Western Conference, very much within striking distance of its second postseason berth in a row.
But the Los Angeles Kings have started running away with the top wild spot since replacing coach Todd McLellan with interim coach Jim Hiller, and as of the writing of this story, two teams—the Minnesota Wild and Nashville Predators—sit between the Kraken and the Blues. Jumping over teams at this time of the year gets harder and harder the deeper into the season you go, so clearing that three-team logjam ahead of the Kraken is daunting.
Whether you believe the team can make the playoffs or not, the Seattle front office is reaching the end of its runway for some difficult decisions. Our general belief (and this is just conjecture) is that the team is deciding to either sell off the players it doesn’t think will back in 2024-25, or—if Ron Francis and his staff expect the team to compete to qualify for the playoffs—keep the group together for the rest of the season and risk unrestricted free agents walking for nothing in July.
It’s a tricky spot for all involved, and it certainly leaves some uneasiness in the Kraken dressing room, especially for those that could be on the trade block if Seattle doesn’t win the bulk of its next seven games.
“We all have a good level of trust in one another, and there’s the reality that the business side of the game is always there,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “It becomes more of a spotlight as you come towards the trade deadline because, obviously, the questions start to be asked about it. And it comes a little bit more to the forefront, but at the end of the day, our trust level is very good.”
If the Kraken go into full sell mode, two players to keep an eye on will be defenseman Justin Schultz and forward Tomas Tatar. But the two biggest decisions revolve around key veterans Jordan Eberle and Alex Wennberg.
Eberle and Wennberg have been central pieces for this franchise since its inception, but will they remain in Seattle beyond this season? Are we watching our last two weeks of these players in Kraken uniforms?
Decisions hinge on future fit in Seattle
We see two layers of decisions that need to get made on Eberle and Wennberg.
The obvious first question is, Will the Kraken make the playoffs? If team brass believes the Kraken are destined for the postseason, then we envision both players sticking around for the remainder of the season. So, that’s the first layer of decision making, simply choosing to show confidence in the group or not.
The second layer, though, is more complex because it will hinge on whether the Kraken see either or both players signing extensions beyond 2023-24.
Jordan Eberle
Sound Of Hockey asked both Wennberg and Eberle about their respective mindsets over the weekend to try to gauge if there is real interest in a return to Seattle next season and (maybe) beyond.
Eberle’s tone has not changed since training camp, when he publicly stated in no uncertain terms that he wanted to stay.
“I think my sole focus right now is just to be here,” Eberle reiterated on Saturday. “I want to get this team into a playoff spot and be a part of that. I think from Day 1, it’s kind of been fun to be here and build it and have a lot of guys come in and see us trending in the right direction.”
Most players will say the “right thing” when asked these questions, but there’s a kind of sincerity in Eberle’s words that make us truly believe he wants to stay.
“My family loves it here, and I think my sole purpose right now and my goal is to try and help this team get in,” Eberle said. “And at this point, I’m sure— hopefully, we’ll get something done. But I think more importantly, we’ve got to try and get this team into the playoffs.”
‘Hopefully, we’ll get something done’ refers to a contract extension. Players don’t say things like that unless they want to remain with a club.
Again, mostly conjecture here, but we also think there’s interest from the Kraken in bringing the 33-year-old winger back beyond this season. That doesn’t mean they will necessarily sign Eberle to an extension before the deadline, but we do think he will be here for the remainder of the season and at least one or two more years, regardless of how the next two weeks go.
Alex Wennberg
As for Wennberg, we aren’t so convinced that a mutual desire for a reunion is there for next season and beyond, even though he had nothing but positive things to say about his three seasons in Seattle.
“It’s great,” Wennberg said. “Obviously, we had our first kid here, so the whole thing, it’s [been] a great time. We’ve got great memories coming in, and obviously hockey-wise, it’s been good as well… [Seattle is] similar to Sweden, so you get that feeling as well. There’s a lot of good things.”
Wennberg’s situation is different from Eberle’s, though. At 29 years old, the center remains in his prime and has one more opportunity to cash in on a big free-agent contract this summer. He has played every scenario and every role for Seattle and leads all Kraken forwards by almost a minute in time on ice per game this season.
“It feels like every year, [my role] might change a little bit, but right now, I kind of get the role a little bit more defensively, taking a lot of draws and working all over the ice,” Wennberg said. “But I feel like it’s fit me pretty good. I feel like right now, with the team we have, we have whatever it takes to succeed. So for me to kind of chip in and do my part, it’s been a great fit, for sure.”
Still, despite all those positive comments about his time in the Pacific Northwest, we still get the sense Wennberg will want to test the market this summer. Perhaps we’re reading into this too much, but when we asked Wennberg more directly about his contract situation, he was a lot more cagey than Eberle.
“I actually have nothing I can share on that,” Wennberg said. “I feel like that’s personal, and right now, all I’m focused about is hockey. So for me, rather than look at the situation—it’s a stressful thing—I’d rather just leave that on the other side, let that way come all natural, and just play the game of hockey.
“If you’re poking around the extension part of that, it just— it is what it is. Obviously, there’s a business side of it as well, but for me, I’ve got nothing bad to say [about Seattle]. There’s a lot of good things with Seattle, and I like the city a lot. That’s all I can say.”
Trade rumors percolating
With all this in mind, we were not surprised to see Wennberg’s name pop up in a trade rumor article by the New York Post’s Larry Brooks on Tuesday.
Rental centers can earn premium returns this time of year, when true contenders like the Rangers and Bruins look to shore themselves up down the middle before a push for the Stanley Cup.
If Francis doesn’t see the team making the playoffs, and he doesn’t see Wennberg returning beyond this season, then getting everything he can in a deadline deal (and bringing up Shane Wright from AHL Coachella Valley to replace Wennberg) is the way to go.
Staying the course for now
As for what’s happening in the Kraken dressing room, the team and its coach are trying to ignore the distractions of the trade deadline and stay focused on the task at hand, which is reaching the playoffs for the second consecutive season.
“I felt like early on, we really gave up a lot of points,” Eberle said. “I look at our record, and I kind of grit my teeth. I feel like we should have been a lot better. But at the same time, we’re in the mix. We found a way to get some wins that were big and kept us in it, and I think, obviously we’re a healthy team—knock on wood—right now. And we need to continue to keep growing and building our game because I still think there’s another level that we can get to.”
Added Hakstol, “Everybody that’s in that scenario [with an expiring contract], is a really good veteran player, and they’re all very intelligent, good teammates. So, we’re gonna make sure that we keep doing the job in the dressing room and on the ice together, and the business area will take care of itself.”
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.
When news broke in August that the University of Washington was officially joining the University of Oregon in a monumental move from the Pac 12 to the Big 10 conference, local hockey fans—Sound Of Hockey included—began speculating if this could mean an expansion of Division I college hockey to the West Coast.
After all, the Big 10 sponsors a men’s hockey conference made up of seven teams: Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Penn State, and Wisconsin. Wouldn’t it make sense for the Big 10 and for college hockey to add at least one team in this region, and perhaps multiple?
“I’m confident that Washington, Oregon, UCLA, Utah, Texas, Georgia… I’m confident they would all be successful,” said Mike Snee, executive director of College Hockey, Inc., an organization focused on promoting and growing NCAA Division I men’s and women’s hockey. “It’s just a matter of, would they do it?”
‘Would they do it?’ is certainly a big question for UW, but so too are ‘Could they do it?’ and ‘Should they do it?’ Does UW have the means to add varsity hockey to its repertoire, and if it did, how successful would it be?
Could they do it?
Sound Of Hockey spoke with UW director of athletics, Troy Dannen, to learn about the feasibility of Husky hockey one day transforming from a club sport into a school-sponsored D-I program. He made it clear there would be major hurdles for a men’s or women’s team to be added and that right now, it really isn’t on the roadmap for the university.
“There’s three things,” Dannen said. “One, there’s the equity piece.” Dannen explained that to comply with Title IX, 55 percent of new opportunities have to be given to female students, because 55 percent of UW is female. So, if they wanted to specifically add men’s hockey, that would also mean they would have to add either women’s hockey or a different female sport.
“If I’m adding men’s hockey, I’m certainly at least adding women’s hockey, so it’s a much broader undertaking to think about expansion, particularly on the male side, than just, ‘Hey, there’s other schools of the Big 10 that do it.’”
Worth noting, the Big 10 does not sponsor women’s hockey. Only four Big 10 schools have varsity women’s hockey programs, and Minnesota, Ohio State, and Wisconsin play in the Midwest-centric Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA), while Penn State plays in College Hockey America (CHA).
Dannen continued his list of hurdles that would need to be overcome. “Two, there’s just the finance piece, the cost of doing that business, and if there’s not an automatic growth on the revenue side to offset those expenses, then where are we taking the costs away from? What sport or what program [do we cut from] in order to fund a new sport?
“So, that’s two, and three is obviously infrastructure. It doesn’t matter whether it’s swimming, hockey, lacrosse, there needs to be practice and competition facilities. And so, where are those and what are the costs of those? It’s a pretty massive undertaking to decide that you want to add a sport when you think about all those factors.”
Arena would be largest hurdle
That last piece Dannen mentioned is especially daunting. Where would a D-I men’s and/or women’s team play?
UW’s club hockey teams, which compete in the American Collegiate Hockey Association (ACHA), practice and play their home games at Kraken Community Iceplex, the practice facility and corporate headquarters for the Seattle Kraken. It’s an outstanding facility for the ACHA, but it is not fit for D-I hockey, nor is Climate Pledge Arena, which seats 17,151 fans, way too big for the college game. Meanwhile, Angel of the Winds Arena and accesso ShoWare Center—the respective homes of the Western Hockey League’s Everett Silvertips and Seattle Thunderbirds—are the right sizes for D-I hockey but are simply too far from campus.
The Washington Huskies ACHA men’s hockey team celebrates a goal at Kraken Community Iceplex. (Photo/Cheyenne Mingo)
“You’re in a major metropolitan area with tons of entertainment options,” Snee said. “This would need to be just intimately connected to the school on campus or across the street from the campus, and it would need to be their building.”
Unfortunately for local college hockey fans, new arenas don’t come cheap. Augustana University in Sioux Falls, S.D., recently launched a D-I men’s program and joined the Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA). It opened sparkling new 3,000-seat Midco Arena on Jan. 26, which came with a price tag somewhere in the $65 to $80 million range, according to Snee. And that’s in Sioux Falls, where real estate and building costs are significantly lower than in Seattle.
Snee also estimated that operating a men’s hockey program costs $4-5 million annually, so in total, he approximated that a new men’s program for UW would require a pot of about $160 million.
Should they do it?
That rough $160 million estimate is a big chunk of change that UW certainly won’t field without a few massive unforeseen gifts from deep-pocketed donors. Such gifts have been catalysts for new programs popping up in several different areas of the country, and that is what would need to happen at Washington.
At Penn State, Kim and Terry Pegula—owners of the Buffalo Bills and Sabres—gave what Snee said was “pretty close to $100 million” to get men’s and women’s programs off the ground and to build a hockey-specific arena. Augustana was funded largely by donations from banking and healthcare magnate T. Denny Sanford, and Arizona State University received a gift from an anonymous donor for $38 million and a second large gift from the Mullett family. Those gifts led to the elevation of ASU’s men’s team from the ACHA to NCAA D-I in 2015, and Mullett Arena, also the temporary home of the Arizona Coyotes, opened in 2022 as part of the package.
Snee surmised that ASU, which happens to be the alma matter of Kraken netminder Joey Daccord, is the best comparable for the University of Washington.
“Both [Seattle and Tempe, Ariz.] are experiencing relatively rapid hockey participation growth, especially Seattle in the state of Washington, for understandable reasons,” Snee said. “But it’s not only having an NHL team, but having that NHL team absolutely crush it when it comes to getting kids involved in hockey and marketing their team in the way they’re marketing it.”
Snee said it’s obvious ASU’s move to D-I hockey has been a smashing success and believes UW would have a similar response from the local community.
“You can see how well Arizona State’s working, regardless of how you want to measure it,” Snee said. “On the ice, they are very successful. Off the ice, tickets do very well. If you ever walk around campus down there, there are tons of people wearing jerseys. If you go to their road games, whether it’s in Boston, Minnesota, Michigan, there are a lot of alumni living in those areas, attending those games.”
Kraken connections to college hockey
Funding aside, could Washington replicate ASU’s success? Daccord, who flourished as a Sun Devil and eventually became the first ASU alumnus to play in the NHL, certainly thinks so.
“I think the blueprint is definitely there,” Daccord said. “And I think the desire for hockey is there. So I think it would absolutely do well and succeed, and having seen how well it took off at Arizona State firsthand [from inception] to now is incredible. I think that’s a perfect comparable, and I think that they absolutely could do the same thing if they wanted to.”
The 27-year-old goaltender said the success of the ASU program required vast amounts of money, but also a steadfast commitment from the school’s leadership.
“The athletic department, the coaching staff, everyone involved with the program was so committed to making it happen,” Daccord recalled. “And it was like, ‘Hey, we’re 100 percent doing this. We’re committed to this. We’re not just going to go in with one foot in and one foot out and hope it works.’ They were like, ‘Hey, we’re making this work.’”
Another Kraken connection with deep ties to college hockey is head coach Dave Hakstol, who played three seasons at the University of North Dakota from 1989 to 1992 and was the men’s team’s head coach from 2004 to 2015 before making the jump to the NHL. He sees college hockey developing and thinks expansion to the West Coast could be the sport’s “next step.”
“If you look at the number of new college hockey buildings over the last five years, for me that points to the investment in the college hockey game that’s continuing to grow,” Hakstol said. “The number of new programs that have joined the Division I ranks over the past five years, as well as the number of schools that are looking at the feasibility of it, I believe, is continuing to grow… It’s going to continue to grow, and there’s a very strong push from within, for the growth of the game, and I believe that matches the number of available players to play college hockey.”
Hakstol also recognized the challenges that Dannen pointed out, but he too believes it could work in the market.
“No matter what college campus you go to, there’s financial challenges with facilities, equity with men’s and women’s sports, and the expense of adding new programs. But what a campus and what a site and what a great spot it would be for college hockey. Do I believe that? Yeah, absolutely.”
Would they do it?
With the arrival of the Kraken, hockey has been growing by leaps and bounds in the Pacific Northwest. Factor in the collapse of the Pac 12 and this tectonic shift in the college sports landscape, and D-I college hockey does suddenly make some sense. Schools like UW have been playing in a conference that did not offer college hockey, so if they had introduced the sport in the past, they would have been on an island both geographically and—potentially—in terms of finding regular competition. So adding the sport likely wouldn’t have worked before.
But just because there might be augmented interest from the local market and a ready-made schedule of in-conference opponents does not mean any conversations of substance are happening around adding varsity hockey.
“I would just say, no,” Dannen said. “I’ve only been here four months, but at least serious conversations, no.”
Dannen, the former director of athletics at Tulane University who also calls himself a big hockey fan, has been to several Seattle Kraken games since taking the AD role at the University of Washington in October. He is familiar with how the game is growing in the region, but he said that aside from the three other roadblocks he pointed out—equity, financing, and infrastructure—there is also a pressing issue that needs to be resolved before any school would consider adding any new sports, let alone an extremely expensive sport like hockey.
The introduction of name, image, and likeness (NIL) rules that allow student athletes to get legally paid has injected some level of chaos into college athletics. Dannen said the addition of new sports at Washington is unlikely until things stabilize on that front.
“There’s been anecdotal conversations about hockey, wrestling, lacrosse, sports that— once we decided to go to the Big 10, people look and see what the other Big 10 schools are doing,” Dannen said. “I would tell you in general, right now, given the flux in college athletics, given that we don’t know where we’re going to end up with— whether it’s revenue sharing or employment of student athletes, I think it’s farfetched for anyone to have expansion on the radar screen until we really figure out what our long-term model is going to look like.”
No, they wouldn’t
Snee confirmed that while other confidential schools have launched feasibility studies with College Hockey, Inc., there has been no indication to his organization (which is typically looped in on these types of conversations) that the University of Washington has any interest at this time in adding hockey on the men’s or women’s side.
AD Dannen even indicated that wrestling is a more likely add than hockey, because of its lower barriers to entry and because it is currently one of the fastest-growing women’s sports. And even though hockey is a revenue-generating sport, Dannen called it “incremental revenue” and said that only football and (to a degree) men’s basketball are self-sufficient in terms of their abilities to bring in enough dollars to fund themselves.
So, although the ‘Could they?’ and ‘Should they?’ questions can be answered affirmatively by some parties, the ‘Would they?’ question gets a resounding negative response from the director of athletics at UW.
Of course, if a deep-pocketed donor called tomorrow and offered a nine-figure gift to get hockey off the ground, that could change the conversation.
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.
The Kraken took what should probably be considered a “good” standings point from the Detroit Red Wings on Monday after getting a tying goal from Jaden Schwartz at 7:25 of the third period to force overtime. But with their current circumstances, Seattle can no longer afford to leave anything table, and this is another game where it feels like the group did just that.
“The point is a real important point,” Hakstol said. “It’s disappointing to lose the point in overtime, but the point that we got is valuable.”
Seattle had the better of the chances on this night afternoon (we’re still confused about exiting Climate Pledge Arena to find daylight), and it had a golden opportunity on the power play with 1:44 left in regulation and then 16 seconds at 4-on-3 in overtime but couldn’t convert.
Remember when the Kraken had a two-goal lead against the St. Louis Blues at home on Jan. 26 and ended up losing 4-3 in overtime? This game had a different script, but it is similar in that the second point was right there for the taking and slipped away. By the way, the Blues are still the team Seattle needs to be targeting, and they lost 4-2 to Toronto on Monday. So, the Kraken gained a point on St. Louis, but again… that second point sure would have been swell.
Here are our Three Takeaways from a 4-3 Kraken overtime loss to the Red Wings.
Takeaway #1: Back and forth, Kraken chasing
The Kraken flew out of the gate in this game, but Alex Lyon made some outstanding saves in the early going, robbing Eeli Tolvanen, Andre Burakovsky, and Jordan Eberle to keep the game scoreless. That is, of course, until Moritz Seider one-timed a Patrick Kane pass from the blue line that eluded Joey Daccord.
1-0 Red Wings. Moritz Seider with an absolute bomb from the point.
It was hard to tell if the puck changed angles off Tolvanen, who was partially screening Daccord. It almost looked like Joey was off his angle on the play, which is why we have a feeling it may have taken a deflection.
Either way, eye balls and analytics agree it wasn’t Daccord’s best game of the season. Pucks were bouncing off of him more than usual, and his .875 save percentage was his eighth lowest of the campaign. He was also on the minus side of the “goals saved above expected” stat at a -1.72, according to Natural Stat Trick.
That Seider goal set the tone for the game and put Detroit in the driver’s seat. From there, it was a chase for the Kraken all game long.
Fortunately for the Kraken, Yanni Gourde got Lyon to bite on a beautifully executed fake slap shot during a 6-on-5 delayed penalty situation, and Schwartz was gifted a yawning cage for the equalizer.
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE SCHWARTZ! 🚨 #SeaKraken had a 6-on-5 for a delayed penalty. What a pass by Yanni Gourde.
That’s when we started to envision the Kraken coming away with a victory, but as has been the case so many times this season, Seattle just couldn’t get that clutch goal late, even with a power play in the waning minutes.
Once the game got to overtime, and the Red Wings killed the remaining 16 seconds of Olli Maatta’s brutal cross-checking penalty, you just knew a game-winner was coming for Detroit. Sure enough, the Kraken defense had a moment of apparent disinterest, and Ben Chiarot one-timed a Dylan Larkin pass through Daccord’s wickets.
It was a big day for Jared McCann, who had two goals and several solid looks at a potential hat trick in the third period. He extended his point streak to five games (4-2—6) and scored goals No. 23 and 24 on the season.
He’s been playing especially well since getting elevated back onto a line with Jordan Eberle and Matty Beniers, and you can tell he’s really feeling it right now. He wants the puck on his stick to fire off his wicked snap shot as often as possible.
On his power-play goal in the first period, McCann tried for a seam pass that missed Burakovsky on the far side. But Burakovsky recovered the puck off the boards and got it up to Vince Dunn. From there, there was nowhere else that puck was going other than back to McCann. Once he got it, he picked his spot and clanked it off the far post and in behind Lyon.
MCCANN CAN! 🚨
No. 23 on the year for Jared McCann, a power-play snipe over Lyon's glove.
Good retrieval by Burakovsky to keep that play alive.
He followed that up by whacking a Jamie Oleksiak rebound through Lyon’s five hole in the second period to tie the game at 2-2.
McCann now leads the team in goals by a whopping 10 (Tolvanen is second on the team with 14). Assuming good health, McCann is a shoo-in to hit at least 30 goals again this season after potting 40 in 2022-23. Could he reach 35 or more?
Takeaway #3: Ding dong
You know who looked downright scary for the Red Wings in this game? Former Seattle Kraken winger Daniel Sprong, who surely got some extra joy out of scoring Detroit’s third goal of the game against his old club.
The goal came off a 2-on-1 rush with Christian Fischer, and we saw the blistering shot that helped him score 21 goals in 66 games as a fourth-liner for Seattle last season.
**Author’s note: That’s an egregiously bad caption by the Red Wings social media team. YOU SAY “DING DONG” OR YOU SAY NOTHING!
Anyway, Sprong wasn’t made available for comment after the game, but his coach, Derek Lalonde, has been gushing over him the past couple days.
Here’s what Lalonde said about Sprong on Sunday: “Great [fit], added depth, his scoring is a gamebreaker at times. I think it’s a credit to him. He’s averaging almost one and a half to two minutes more than where he was last year on a playoff team, and I think he’s earned that with him being a little more responsible away from the puck too.”
And here’s what Lalonde said Sunday after the game: “Great on the finish, and that’s what [Sprong] does… He doesn’t need much for offense, and he had some more looks in the third that could have iced the game.”
We’ve said it many times before, but Sprong was one of our favorite players to cover last season, so we’re perhaps a bit biased. But, we think it was a mistake for the Kraken to let him go. They sure could use his scoring right now…
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.
In last week’s Monday Musings, I highlighted the Seattle Kraken’s quest for a playoff berth. To stay in hunt, I forecasted they would need at least three points from their three games that week. They stumbled out of the gate with a 3-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils, leaving a lot of us with little hope. The very next night, they secured a 2-1 shootout victory against the New York Islanders, and then followed that up with a gritty 4-1 win against the Boston Bruins, earning a total of four out of six points available over those three games.
The Kraken still find themselves on the outside of the playoff picture with most experts giving them a 15-30 percent chance of making the playoffs. The Western Conference wild card race is particularly intense, with seven teams vying for two spots. It’s rare to see such a tight race with so many teams in the conversation this late in the season. Each of these teams is just one hot streak away from securing a coveted playoff position. The fact that both wild card spots remain up for grabs gives me hope that the Kraken can defy the odds and clinch a postseason berth.
Eight of the remaining 28 Kraken games are against these “in the hunt” opponents. It is true that earning two points against one of these teams is as valuable as against any other team, but the crucial difference lies in preventing these teams from gaining points. I recall the St. Louis game on Jan. 26. For the most part, the Kraken dominated that game and should have won in regulation, but the Blues managed to hang around and ultimately won it in overtime. Consequently, the Kraken secured only one point instead of two, while the Blues earned two points instead of none. This resulted in a three-point swing in favor of the Blues.
If the Kraken had won that game in regulation, the Blues, currently holding the second wild card spot, would have 58 points, and the Kraken would have 57 points. Although the Blues would still occupy the wild card spot, their lead over the Kraken would have been reduced to just one point. I understand that dwelling on past events serves no purpose, but it highlights the critical nature of these head-to-head matchups.
Matt Rempe and Andy Eide
As soon as the former Seattle Thunderbird Matt Rempe was called up to the New York Rangers, I thought of our dear friend Andy Eide. Andy loved Rempe and would have been so stoked to see him make his NHL debut. Andy wrote a great story about Rempe halfway through his rookie season.
Rempe was always a long shot to make it. He was not drafted in the WHL Bantam Draft and was a sixth-round selection by the New York Rangers in 2020. Andy always treated the junior players really well and was mindful that these elite athletes were just kids, and he always had a soft spot for the dark horses. He used to love to talk about Scott Eansor, Cade McNelly, and Matt Wedman. There were others, but those are the ones that stood out for me.
Like Rempe, all those players are household names to Thunderbirds fans, and Andy would share these players’ names beyond the Thunderbirds’ fan base. Rempe had quite the debut: an outdoor game and a fight one second into his first shift.
Since the Winter Classic, the Seattle Kraken have captured 86 percent of the points available when scoring first and only 28 percent of the points when trailing first. They scored first in the Islanders game and trailed first in the Flyers, Devils, and Bruins games.
The Kraken scored their first power-play goal in five games on Thursday against the Bruins, their longest drought of the year. It isn’t that the Kraken’s power play has been bad as of late, they just have not been drawing the opportunities. They rank just 30th in the league in power-play opportunities per game with 2.74. Last season they were 21st in the league. I can’t pinpoint the root cause of it, other than it is driven by a lack of high-end talent.
It was fun to see the boys ribbing Andre Burakovsky for his blocked shot against the Boston Bruins. That was his seventh blocked shot of the season, three more than Marian Studenic, who played two games for the Kraken.
Joking aside, I think the last two games have been Burakovsky’s best games of the season. He is due for a breakout game. (If I say this every week, eventually I will be right).
Do not be surprised if Jordan Eberle remains with the team after the trade deadline without signing an extension. Eberle has made it clear that he wants to stay in Seattle, and the Kraken brass see an opportunity for him to continue his career here as well. Both realize there is a fit and are comfortable waiting to see if they can work something out.
Just a friendly reminder that the Kraken will be wearing the Winter Classic jerseys next Saturday when they take on the Minnesota Wild. Seattle’s goalies were seen wearing their WC gear at practice this weekend.
The Coachella Valley Firebirds announced that Shane Wright is currently out day to day after this hit on Thursday.
I mentioned Carson Rehkopf last week, and it seems like I can’t go a week without mentioning him. He had five points in two games over the weekend. Maybe I should give him his own section.
The Portland Winterhawks and Everett Silvertips both clinched playoff spots in the WHL. Both teams are power houses in the US Division, and I would not be surprised if either of them made the WHL Finals this season.
The PWHL set a record attendance figure to see a women’s hockey game on Friday. 19,285 fans saw Toronto beat Montreal at Scotiabank Arena. The league is averaging 5,527 due to the limited capacity of the arenas they are currently playing in. Before the Scotiabank Arena game, the Toronto team usually plays in Mattamy Athletic Centre, an arena with a capacity of 2,796. This league appears to be exceeding expectations, and I am excited to see how they build on this momentum.
I am often asked about the possible expansion of women’s pro hockey to Seattle. It is possible, but I believe a prerequisite will be a suitable arena with a capacity of 8K to 10K within five miles of downtown Seattle or Bellevue. I also think it would require some additional teams in Western Canada to create clusters of teams to ease travel.
Finally, if you are expecting a lot of action in the trade market this week, you are in luck. Things typically start to ratchet up about two weeks before the deadline, which would mean they will start around Feb. 23. It’s usually a slow burn for about a week after that, and then things increase the five days before the March 8 deadline.
Players of the week
Matty Beniers (SEA) – He had big performances in his last two games with four points, including this beauty of a sequence.
MATTY MAGIC! 🚨
That's one way to respond after a tough turnover last game.
Beniers goes HARD into the boards after a collision with Pulock, but seconds later, he scores his seventh goal of the season.
Chris Driedger (CVF) – Posted a .942 save percentage over three games for the Coachella Valley Firebirds with two shutouts. Driedger is showcasing his work to future employers, since his three-year deal with the Kraken ends this season. We’ve always liked Driedger and will be rooting for him to find a spot that will give him an NHL opportunity this summer.
Zaccharya Wisdom (CCT) – The Kraken’s seventh-round selection from the 2023 NHL Draft had seven points in his two games against North Dakota over the weekend including this four-goal performance.
We have been big fans of Seattle Kraken prospect Oscar Fisker Mølgaard ever since he appeared on the Sound Of Hockey Podcast last summer. So, when he delights, we like to amplify.
The week ahead
Let me know if you have heard this before, but the Kraken have a big week in front of them, and every point will be critical. This week seems particularly challenging with two games against playoff bubble teams and another one against a playoff lock. The bubble teams, Detroit and Minnesota, will be playing for their postseason lives while Vancouver currently has the best record in the league. The Minnesota game seems particularly huge given that they are tied in the standings. It feels like the Kraken need to get four out of a possible six points this week with at least one point against the Wild.
Thank you all for reading and be sure to buckle up for this home stretch.
If the Seattle Kraken get hot enough down the stretch to make the playoffs, we will all remember their win against the big bad Boston Bruins in their barn on Feb. 15 as a signature moment of the 2023-24 season. Heck, we all remember the team’s 3-0 win at TD Garden on Jan. 12, 2023, which was then Seattle’s seventh win in a row and Boston’s first home loss of the entire 2022-23 season.
The circumstances of this one are a little different, but it’s a massive victory nonetheless. Seattle is at a stage where it feels like any loss could signal to the front office that it’s time to give up and start selling expiring contracts. But this result over one of the league’s best teams staves off any such decisions for at least a little longer.
The Kraken very much owe this win to their two Boston-area natives, Joey Daccord and Matty Beniers. Here are our Three Takeaways from a 4-1 Kraken win over the Bruins.
Takeaway #1: Joey dazzled
The legend of Joey Daccord continues to grow throughout the Kraken sphere. As a kid, he grew up idolizing Boston sports teams, including the Bruins, and going to games at TD Garden. Thursday marked the first time he had ever played in that building, and with family and friends in attendance, he put together a marvelous performance.
“It was a really special night,” an emotional Daccord said. “I’m just kind of trying to put everything all in perspective. I grew up through and through a Boston sports fan, I was here when the Bruins won the Cup, I went to Game 6. It’s just… yeah it’s been a long road. I’m obviously pretty old for a rookie, and for my first time playing in the Garden, it couldn’t have been more special.”
Like Philipp Grubauer on Tuesday, you could tell early on that Daccord was locked in. The high-flying Bruins peppered him with shots in the first period, racking up 16 in the first 20 minutes. Boston scored its lone goal during that onslaught, but even that came after Daccord had robbed David Pastrnak with what looked like one of his best saves of the season. It took a bad bounce back to Pastrnak, though, and then pinballed around until it ended up in the net.
Joey Daccord getting hung out to dry in the early going here. Unbelievable save on the first opportunity for Pastrnak, but no help on the rebound.
That’s it. That was all that got through the Kraken netminder, other than a few shots that hit posts and stayed out.
“He had lot of work early,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “He had less work as the game went on and in the third period, but maybe his biggest save came in the third period on 88… He’s continued the type of play that he’s provided for us over the past couple of months, and he was a real catalyst for us tonight.”
The third-period save Hakstol was reference was this sprawling glove save on Pastrnak:
In all, Joey stopped 36 of 37 shots, and had a whopping 3.16 goals saved above expected.
Here are more of his highlights from the game, for your viewing enjoyment.
Takeaway #2: Matty magic
Is Matty Beniers back? There have been a lot of questions about the 21-year-old sophomore center’s offensive production this season, which has fallen off a cliff after his Calder Trophy-winning season in 2022-23.
But since a rough game in New Jersey on Monday, in which he turned the puck over to Erik Haula and then watched Jack Hughes score an elite goal for the Devils, Beniers has four points in two games. He had Seattle’s only goal against the Islanders on Tuesday and notched three points (1-2—3) Thursday in his hometown.
Asked if these couple games could help him get going offensively, Beniers laughed and said, “I hope so… I think I’ve just been playing the right way and been able to get some points and everything you guys see. As long as we’re winning, I’m happy.”
It’s no coincidence, though, that two of Beniers’ better games of the season have led to Seattle getting two important wins. He is a key piece of this team, and it needs him producing. So, seeing him potting a couple and creating opportunities lately has been promising.
The way he produced Thursday also indicated that he is starting to feel it. On the 3-on-1 with Eeli Tolvanen and Oliver Bjorkstrand, his give-and-go return pass to Tolvanen was executed perfectly and placed right in Tolvanen’s wheelhouse. Swayman had no chance of stopping it, thanks to the way that Beniers quickly got the pass back in a spot where Tolvanen could unload for his 14th goal of the season.
EELI GOALVANEN! 🚨
Off a 3-on-1 rush with Matty Beniers and Oliver Bjorkstrand, Tolvanen runs a give-and-go with Beniers, and Bjorkstrand drives to the net.
And Beniers’ goal was a thing of beauty. Alex Wennberg came up with a daring shot block, then found Matty behind Boston’s first layer of defense. Before he shot, he made a hard cut to his right to improve his shooting angle and sniped it past Swayman to effectively put the nail in Boston’s coffin at 8:36 of the third period.
MATTY MAGIC! 🚨
HUGE block by Alex Wennberg, who then finds Beniers in the neutral zone. Matty with a great finish in his hometown.
“It’s nice to see the offensive production,” Hakstol said. “You can feel good about that. And again, that play is at the right time… But I liked his 200-foot game tonight, and that’s what we really value within his abilities.”
Can Matty get on a roll now? And will that spark the rest of the team to also get on a roll?
Takeaway #3: An important win
This was a big one. The ice was tilted in Boston’s favor for much of this game, but the way you beat good teams is by getting outstanding goaltending and taking advantage of offensive opportunities when they present themselves.
The Kraken did just that, with a power-play goal off a rush by Jordan Eberle in the first period, then the 3-on-1 goal by Tolvanen and the quick-strike goal by Beniers in the third. For their efforts, the Kraken got to fly home in good spirits after salvaging four of eight points on a trip that started off in miserable fashion.
“It was a really good win,” Beniers said. “Great to come into Boston and beat one of the best games in the league right now. So it’s obviously a confidence booster and a testament that we can play the right way and win games like that.”
The two points were a big help in the standings for the Kraken, who continued their steep uphill climb to try to get back into the playoff picture.
“It was really important in terms of the road trip itself,” Hakstol said. “We finished the road trip [2-2-0], and just for our group to continue to— I feel like we’re building momentum.”
The Kings and Blues—the two teams in the last two wild card spots—each won Thursday, so no ground was gained on those clubs, and the Kraken remained four points back. But the Predators and Flames, who also were ahead of the Kraken entering play on Thursday, each lost (Nashville was embarrassed 9-2 at home by Dallas, and Calgary lost 6-3 at home to lowly San Jose). What that means is that the Kraken jumped over Calgary and are now tied with Nashville.
An NHL season is such a roller coaster. Two games ago, we were ready to throw in the towel and call it a season. Now, we’re starting to believe again that this team can make the playoffs.
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.
As the Kraken hold onto their season by a thread, the boys are back to do some more crow talk, after Darren’s crow-related complaints last week sparked lots of discussion.
Seattle had two terrible games out of their All-Star / bye week break but bounced back with a shootout win against the Islanders. How long before they’re forced to sell?
Also on this episode, the guys discuss the Ridly Greig/Morgan Rielly brouhaha and much more in Bad Boys and Weekly One-Timers.
While the Kansas City Chiefs were electrifying the world with their Super Bowl win on Sunday night, we were thinking about a different kind of “Chiefs” team, specifically a key player on the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League. Berkly Catton, a player who has the speed and agility of Patrick Mahomes and the ability to always find open space like Travis Kelce, is making a case to hear his name called early at the 2024 NHL Draft.
A native of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Catton spends most of his summers just like any other Canadian kid with NHL aspirations: shooting pucks. The 18-year-old said he takes pride in the amount that goes into working on his shot and how he’s been able to translate that to the WHL.
“I spend a lot of my summers just shooting pucks, learning that it’s not easy to score goals in this league,” Catton said. “I think by doing that I’ve taken my shot to the next level.”
The forward leads the Chiefs with 38 goals on the season, good for fourth in the league. “I’m getting to scoring areas a lot better with the maturity and confidence I have in myself. It’s about growing my game, and it’s been growing quite a lot lately.”
Catton appears on the highlight reel almost every night for the Chiefs and got them on the board twice last Friday against the Tri-City Americans. His first goal was a display of his spatial recognition and passing instincts. It was a goal he said he had “blind confidence” on in his celebration, as no one knew initially the puck was in the net. The goal was confirmed minutes later.
Catton tries to emulate some of the most skilled NHLers to separate himself from other prospects and create open ice. “[I watched] players growing up that had a similar style game I strive to play.” Catton used Jack Hughes as an example of a player he looks up to. “Seeing how they do it, and then implementing that into my game. I think I’m a player that can see those opportunities unfold on the ice, then execute very quickly and quite well.”
While he is on the shorter end for a forward at 5-foot-11, Catton more than makes up for it with his hands and his hockey sense and his explosiveness that allows him to create odd-man opportunities for himself.
He showed off this explosiveness with another highlight on Friday evening with his second goal of the contest. Bolting to support linemate Connor Roulette on a 2-on-1 rush, Roulette found Catton open once he caught up. Catton made a dazzling move down low on Americans goalie Lukas Matecha, a shorthanded goal that extended the Chiefs lead to 4-1.
“I pride myself on my ability to accelerate,” Catton said about how his speed would translate professionally. “Lots goes into having elite-caliber speed, but ultimately it’s about that want and drive to score that a lot of the top-level players have, and I think I have that.”
Catton’s knack to find the open ice, then make smart adjustments on the fly will entice teams with a need for more dynamic offensive players.
Chiefs head coach Ryan Smith had high praise for Catton as well. “He’s simply electric,” Smith said. “One of the best there is in this league, if not the best. His edge work is great, he gets around guys and really controls the puck well.”
For a younger, 2006-born player, it was surprising to hear the list of players Catton rattled off when reminiscing about some of his childhood favorites.
Berkly Catton takes the ice. (Photo/Larry Brunt, Spokane Chiefs)
“There’s so many options, but I probably liked watching Pavel Datsyuk and Sergei Federov the best growing up,” Catton recalled. “Those two were some of the best at creating space and making the most insane plays. Sidney Crosby too, with me being a smaller guy like him, and seeing how well he protects the puck. I have been trying to emulate them as best I can for a long time.”
A budding leader
Another asset of Catton’s game would be his leadership abilities. Of course, he leads the Chiefs statistically in goals, assists, and points (38-44=84), but he is also one of Spokane’s alternate captains and was a captain at this year’s Kubota CHL Top Prospects game in Moncton, New Brunswick.
He has the qualities of making his linemates better while making himself better along the way. “He wants to be the guy to make the plays when he has the puck,” Smith said. “He’s got that confidence about him where he knows that the sky’s the limit, and he’s just going to continue getting better and better.”
Now the main question. Where could Catton end up landing? Most draft rankings have him getting selected in or around the top 10, with the biggest knock on his game being his size. Columbus, Buffalo, Montreal or Minnesota are a few teams bound for a top-10 pick that could use the help to diversify their offensive attack in the ways that Catton can provide.
We do also wonder if the Seattle Kraken might grab Catton, should he be available when they select. The super-skilled forward does fit an organizational need for Seattle, which has shown a penchant for drafting locally, with three prospects playing in the U.S. Division this season. Having that high-end prospect developing in your backyard could be beneficial for both the organization and the player.
While size and physicality features on Catton don’t strike many as appealing, his strong work ethic, offense generation, and elite, game-wrecking instincts may be too good to pass up. Whichever team has the opportunity of drafting him will be getting a developed hockey mind.
Header photo by Larry Brunt, courtesy of the Spokane Chiefs.
What a difference a day can make. After an abysmal performance Monday in New Jersey, the Seattle Kraken looked like a different team against the New York Islanders on Tuesday and earned a 2-1 shootout win to snap a three-game skid.
With the Los Angeles Kings, St. Louis Blues, and Nashville Predators all losing on this night, the win remarkably pushed Seattle right back to within four points of either of the two wild card spots. So, for as much as we thought it might be time to throw in the towel on Monday, suddenly this team has life again.
“It’s a heck of a road game,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “That’s the way you have to play it. You’re playing teams that are in a fight for a playoff spot every single night, or fighting for playoff positioning every single night. And this is the type of game that you have to play.”
Here are our Three Takeaways from a critical 2-1 Kraken shootout win over the Islanders.
Takeaway #1: A nice return for Philipp Grubauer
It was oddly unfamiliar to see Philipp Grubauer between the pipes for the Kraken on Tuesday. Though the German Gentleman was activated off long-term injured reserve way back on Jan. 23, Joey Daccord continued to hold down the goal crease for the next six consecutive games. Hakstol stuck with the guy that had helped get his team back into the race, even as we thought—on several occasions—that surely he’d turn to Grubauer and give Daccord a break.
Finally, Grubauer got the nod Tuesday for the first time since suffering an injury in Seattle’s loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Dec. 9, and he looked good in his return.
One thing that has plagued Grubauer through his tenure with the Kraken has been when games start with few or no shots on goal. When a shot finally comes, it tends to be off a doozy of a rush or takes a weird deflection, and suddenly he’s off on the wrong foot.
Grubauer seems to like getting into a rhythm with a few early shots to let him feel the puck, and he really didn’t get much work at the beginning of the game Tuesday. But when he did—and things picked up toward the end of the opening frame when Andre Burakovsky took a bad-luck four-minute penalty—you could tell he was tracking the puck well, despite facing only a couple offerings in the first half of the opening period. Shots were hitting him and either sticking to him or getting steered into the corners.
“In practice you can only work on so many game situations, but once you get out there, it’s a totally different story,” Grubauer said. “There’s a lot of positives you can draw out of [missing time], and you see the game from a different perspective and you can slow it down a little. But obviously it takes a little bit of time to get back into it, and I was saying to the guys, there’s no better way than killing off a four-minute power player there to get back into it.”
We especially liked this play where he read the pass and got his paddle down to deflect it, then reacted in time to make a pad save on a quick shot from a prime scoring position.
“Really solid tonight,” Hakstol said. “He did a nice job being real settled and calm in net, and I mean, our guys did a really good job in front of him.”
Grubauer stopped 26 of 27 shots on the night for a .963 save percentage, his highest of the season. Two of those shots came in overtime, and he also stopped all three of Oliver Wahlstrom, Bo Horvat, and Mathew Barzal in the shootout to seal the deal. For his trouble, he earned first star honors and the Davy Jones Hat.
While Daccord was awesome in his long stretch of play since Grubi went on the shelf, we all knew the Kraken would need both goalies at some point. The question was how the team’s No. 1 goalie (is he still No. 1?) would play when he returned to the net.
One game is a small sample size, but that was a very positive outing for Grubauer. If this team is going to make the playoffs, it will need Grubauer to get hot down the stretch.
Takeaway #2: Bounce back for Matty
After a tough outing for Matty Beniers on Monday against the Devils—he rode the pine for 11 minutes following a terrible turnover that led to a goal—the forward had one of his best games of the season Tuesday.
He scored Seattle’s only regulation goal, and it came mere seconds after he got thrown awkwardly into the end boards and briefly appeared injured. But Beniers dusted himself off and retreated to the neutral zone in time to receive a stretch pass from Jared McCann just outside the Islanders blue line.
Matty cruised in and fired it off Ilya Sorokin’s blocker and in, giving Seattle a 1-0 lead at 5:27 of the first.
MATTY MAGIC! 🚨
That's one way to respond after a tough turnover last game.
Beniers goes HARD into the boards after a collision with Pulock, but seconds later, he scores his seventh goal of the season.
“It definitely hurt,” Beniers said. “I was trying to just get off the ice, and then I saw the opportunity, and I was like, ‘I’m not that hurt.’ It didn’t feel good, but plays will happen like that in hockey. And [Ryan Pulock] just kind of got me off balance, I went into the boards pretty hard. Canner made a nice play, and I was just fortunate to be there.”
This season has not gone according to plan for Beniers, and the Kraken desperately need him to find his game. Perhaps Tuesday was a step in the right direction for the reigning Calder Trophy winner.
Takeaway #3: The Kraken showed life
One thing we found interesting from that Davy Jones Hat presentation video in Takeaway #1 was Hakstol joking that the team had heard enough from him during the day. Clearly, there was a lot of conversation had amongst the team in the lead-up to this game, and the players and staff were not happy with how things had been going since the All-Star break and bye week ended.
Whatever was said worked. Since Seattle’s nine-game win streak ended on Jan. 15, this group had not looked right but finally put together a cohesive performance against the Isles.
“It was awesome, I think, all night from the whole team,” Beniers said. “I don’t think our battle level and compete was there the last two nights, and that’s kind of been our identity since the beginning. So that was the big emphasis on tonight was we’re not going to get outworked, we’re not going to get out-battled.”
Indeed, the Kraken came out of the gates fast Tuesday and managed to overcome a couple penalty-related stumbles. And even as the game wore on, and they dealt with the fatigue of a back-to-back, the Kraken stayed on the gas and pushed for a go-ahead goal.
“We worked hard defensively, we did a lot of really good things, we had some saves when we needed to, our penalty kill did a really nice job tonight,” Hakstol said. “And I really liked our third period.”
Now, had the shootout gone the other way, we probably would again be writing that the sky is falling. But the Kraken earned two points in this game and truly deserved them. Can this be a spark to get the Kraken going again?
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.
If you were looking for an inspiring performance from the Seattle Kraken on Monday to reinvigorate your belief that they could make the playoffs, well… you didn’t get that. The Kraken laid an egg for the first 40ish minutes of this game against the New Jersey Devils, ultimately lost 3-1, and dropped themselves farther out of the race.
The first period looked messy, and the second period was even worse. It seemed like the team sort of found its game in the third period, but not until the point when overcoming a three-goal deficit would have been bordering on miraculous. And after a stinker in Philadelphia on Saturday, Seattle’s first game back from the break, you can’t blame this one on rust.
“No, we’re not resting on that crutch tonight,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “Game 2 [since the All-Star break and bye week]. That’s on utter readiness, compete, [being] ready to go… For the first 35 minutes of this hockey game, we weren’t at a level that’s acceptable, and that takes us out of the game.”
It’s not looking good, folks. Here are our Three Takeaways from a 3-1 Kraken loss to the Devils.
Takeaway #1: Costly mistakes from young players
It was a tough night for a couple of Seattle’s younger players. Matty Beniers and Ryker Evans each played starring roles on New Jersey goals, and even Hakstol—always reluctant to call out his players directly—made it clear Beniers had blown it on Jack Hughes’s second-period marker that ended up as the game winner.
After Seattle had broken up a rush, Beniers found himself with the puck on his stick and a clear lane ahead of him to either hit the gas and skate it out of the zone or make an outlet pass into the neutral zone. Instead, he came to an almost dead stop, allowing Erik Haula to catch up to him and strip him of the puck.
The Devils quickly transitioned back to offense, and Hughes eventually made an elite play to bank the puck in off Joey Daccord’s mask 48 seconds into the period.
Lackadaisical play by Matty Beniers, who gets stripped by Erik Haula. Jack Hughes with an elite shot, banking it in off Joey Daccord from the goal line. #SeaKrakenpic.twitter.com/2286bTx90P
“The turnover came off of his tape, and ultimately… that’s his responsibility,” Hakstol said. “But there’s five guys on the ice that have to be in the right spots in order to move that puck and get it going and look organized.”
Ok, so Hakstol sort of spread around the blame, but that miscue is on Matty. It’s just a lack of awareness for where the opponents are on the ice and the wrong decision to not immediately get his feet moving.
Evans followed that up four minutes later by getting burned up the wall by Timo Meier. Beaten on the play and trying to recover, Evans did well to avoid taking a penalty and actually got a piece of Meier’s shot to slow it down. That may have fooled Daccord, though, because he kicked the rebound on the off-speed pitch right into the slot for Dawson Mercer.
We should also point out that Evans didn’t get much help on the play, and Jamie Oleksiak missed an opportunity to lift Mercer’s stick. Still, it’s a bad read and a slightly too aggressive angle that created the rush.
Mistakes like these will happen for young players, and Evans and Beniers were certainly not alone in committing errors on this night. They have to keep playing, though, and learn from those moments.
Takeaway #2: Another poor offensive showing
Against Philadelphia, the Kraken had a sloppy start to the first period but were playing with decent pace. As the game went on, they got worse at creating offensive opportunities and only took two shots at Cal Petersen in the third period.
Monday’s game had a different script. The first 40 minutes were downright painful to watch, before the Kraken finally woke up in the third when it was extremely unlikely they would get back in the game.
“Really our compete, our execution just took us out of this hockey game for the first 35 minutes,” Hakstol said. “That’s really what led to most of our issues.”
Pepper in a couple ill-timed penalties, including a too-many-men call when two Kraken players jumped over the boards at once, and you have yourself another ugly loss.
“We came apart a little bit in the second period, and that’s something that can happen when things aren’t going well and things don’t look good,” Hakstol said. “You have to find a way to work out of it together, and that’s what the third period looked like to a certain degree, not to our level. But that was the positive of it.”
For the second game since the break, Seattle just wasn’t generating much of anything. Through those first two periods, there was such little push that goalie Nico Daws—a 23-year-old with a 3.12 goals-against average and .896 save percentage in 34 career games—looked completely untested.
Takeaway #3: They look like sellers
We’ve held out optimism that this team would find its game again after the break and get itself right back in the playoff bubble with a win streak. But after these two games against the Flyers and the Devils, the outlook is bleaker than ever.
It’s hard not to wonder at what point general manager Ron Francis starts pulling the trigger on selling off his expiring contracts. In theory, he may get better value for veterans like Alex Wennberg and Justin Schultz if he moves them now, when there’s an extra month of service time left in the season that they can provide to their future teams (Schultz may be more important to the Kraken now, though, if Brian Dumoulin’s lower-body injury causes him to miss significant time).
As of the writing of this story, the Kraken had dropped to six points out of the last wild card spot, with three teams to jump over in order to get back into the picture. How far do they need to sink for Francis to make moves?
“I think, regardless of where the standings are, I think we just have to focus on our game,” Oleksiak said. “It’s a test for us, in terms of adversity and character, how we respond to it. And I think it’s a good opportunity for us [to play again Tuesday against the New York Islanders]. So we’ve just got to focus on one game at a time and take it from there.”
There’s still a chance they can turn this thing around, but man, that was not a strong performance. If the Kraken players want to send the message to Francis and his staff that they intend to make the playoffs and should be kept together, they better do it in one of the next two games on this road trip. The longer they wait to deliver that information, the more likely it is that players get traded away. Once that happens, the towel will have been thrown in on the season.
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.
