They lost the game 3-1, but the Seattle Kraken were downright watchable against the Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday. Being “watchable” doesn’t sound like much, but it is a significant improvement over how Seattle performed in its three prior outings, all of which they lost on home ice by a combined score of 12-4. Still, this one brought the same result and extended the team’s losing streak to six games (5-0-1).
Unlike in the three previous contests, there were some things to like about this game, from Philipp Grubauer’s 34-save showing that put him back over a .900 save percentage for the season, to Jaden Schwartz returning to the lineup and contributing with a tying goal.
“We battled really hard all night, fought back to tie the game up, and stayed with it on the power play in order to do that,” coach Dave Hakstol said.
It’s never fun to lose to the Vegas Golden Knights, though, and damaging their playoff hopes would have been nice.
Here are our Three Takeaways from a 3-1 Kraken loss to the Golden Knights.
Takeaway #1: The power of the Schwartz
Schwartz returned after a four-game injury hiatus and had a solid outing. He tipped in a Ryker Evans shot from the point for a power-play goal that tied the game 1-1 at 13:29 of the third, so that was his biggest play, but he did seem to have some nice jump in this game in general.
🚨 NEVER UNDERESTIMATE THE POWER OF THE SCHWARTZ! 🚨
Jaden Schwartz, in his first game back from injury, tips a Ryker Evans shot in for a game-tying PPG.
“I mean, obviously, you want to come back and help the team out as much as you can,” Schwartz said. “I thought overall it was a back-and-forth game. Both goalies played good, and it could have gone either way. It would have been nice to take that into overtime.”
From our vantage point, it seemed to be a relatively quick ramp up to game action this time for Schwartz, who we only saw skate with the team in practice on Wednesday. Usually, when a player is returning from injury, he eases back in with a couple of sessions with the team and often doesn’t fully participate the first and/or second time out. But Schwartz was fully involved at Wednesday’s practice, taking regular line rushes and full contact, and then got into the game Thursday.
By contrast, Vince Dunn seemed to be working his way back more slowly, first skating on his own, then participating in a couple of practices with the main group. But he left midway through Sunday’s practice after a half-effort on a drill, and he hasn’t skated with the team since. Hakstol confirmed to reporters at morning skate Thursday that he was not on the trip. We wonder if there was a setback in Dunn’s recovery.
Back to Schwartz, he is one of those players that doesn’t always stand out in an individual game. But when he comes back from an absence, you do notice him because of his tenacious forechecking and willingness to go right to the front of the net.
It was good to have him back in there. Now, if only the Kraken can get Dunn back…
Takeaway #2: Close call on the winning goal
This was one of those “bend but don’t break” games for the Kraken, and it looked for a few minutes like they were on their way to a rope-a-dope victory. They withstood body blow after body blow, thanks in large part to Grubauer standing tall, but Brett Howden drove hard to the net with a minute left in the game, and Keegan Kolesar cleaned up the rebound.
#SeaKraken challenged this play for offside with 1:20 left. Could have also considered a goalie interference challenge.
Hakstol tried an offside challenge, and replay showed that it was about as close to being offside as it could possibly be. But there wasn’t an angle that showed 100-percent certainty that it was offside, so the play stood.
“That was my judgment call on it,” Hakstol said. “It’s extremely close. I believe it is offside. Obviously, it’s a really close, tight play at the line, and I feel the responsibility [to make the call] because of how hard our guys fought.”
With the way Howden ran into Grubauer in the crease, we thought there could have also been a challenge for goalie interference on this one, thought whether that would have succeeded is anyone’s guess.
Takeaway #3: The Golden Knights get ’em again
With the Kraken firmly out of the playoff picture, our expectations when watching these games have changed. Winning just isn’t as big of a deal anymore, and realistically, losing more often than not will be beneficial to the club in the long run.
Even so, when Schwartz tied the game with 6:31 left—a goal you could see coming from a mile away with the way Seattle was sticking in the game—we became ignorantly hopeful the Kraken were going to pull out a rare victory in Vegas.
Instead, the Golden Knights landed yet another demoralizing blow to Seattle, which is now 2-9-1 all time against Vegas. And this one came on the heels of the 5-4 overtime loss that effectively ended the Seattle’s season on March 12. The Kraken got the win in the Winter Classic, but man, these guys just own Seattle and continuously find ways to inflict pain
How did we manage to let ourselves get disappointed by a game that means nothing to the Kraken? Ugh. Alas, in a season full of skids, the current one is the second longest of the season.
“We’ve got to stick together and climb out of this together and try get some momentum going our way,” Schwartz said.
Indeed. The Kraken now head into a string of four very winnable games against Arizona, Montreal, and Anaheim twice. How about they rack up a few W’s for the psyche of the fanbase?
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.
For veteran WHL players like Spokane Chiefs forward Shea Van Olm, playoff experience he has already garnered needs to rub off on the teammates around him. Harnessing confidence could be the difference between winning and losing in an upcoming playoff series.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to play in two Memorial Cups now,” Van Olm, who played in the previous two Memorial Cups with the Edmonton Oil Kings and the Kamloops Blazers, said. “I’m trying to bring the experience I have and bring my advice and knowledge into our locker room now that shows what it takes to go on a deep playoff run.”
For Van Olm and other 20-year-old players set to graduate out of the WHL, the regular season has flown by too fast. He and others will look to extend their respective seasons for as long as possible.
Deep playoff runs are in the plans for every team qualified in the U.S. Division, especially the top two.
Portland Winterhawks: 46-15-3-1–96pts
Back on top of the standings are the Portland Winterhawks, winning their first U.S. Division championship since the canceled 2019-20 season. They will compete as the top U.S. seed in the playoffs for the first time since 2014-15, back when current Seattle Kraken forward Oliver Bjorkstrand was on the team.
It’s been yet another week in the CHL Top 10 rankings for them too, checking in at No. 4, after statement victories against the Tri-City Americans and Wenatchee Wild. The Winterhawks pummeled the Americans on Friday night, 11-1. Forward Nate Danielson caught fire yet again, with two goals and two assists in that game, but so did the Winterhawks social media team with this laugh-out-loud tweet in response to the Kelowna Rockets.
At 7-0-1-0 in the month of March, they’ve outscored opponents 44 to 20. Their plus-123 goal differential for the season is still among the best across the entire CHL.
The Winterhawks are guaranteed to finish as either the first or second seed in the Western Conference and are sitting a point behind the Prince George Cougars for first place. They face three games in three days to round out the regular season this weekend, with a road trip to Tri-City on Thursday and then a home-and-home series with the Seattle Thunderbirds on Saturday and Sunday.
With these upcoming games against eliminated opponents, as well as having an extra game in hand on Prince George, the weekend presents a good opportunity for the Winterhawks to catch and surpass the Cougars and snatch the top spot in the conference. Portland will face either Kelowna, Victoria, or Spokane in the first round.
Everett Silvertips: 43-18-2-3–91pts
The Silvertips are officially locked into the third seed in the Western Conference playoffs and are on a five-game winning streak. They will look to stretch the ice to continue to create offense in the playoffs.
“The biggest thing is staying strong and making sure we’re playing to our identity,” Silvertips defenseman Kaden Hammell said. “It’s been really good going into [this time of year] so far, and hopefully that means we can go into the playoffs feeling really good, too.”
Everett will stick to its foundations of rolling all four lines and finding the depth contributions from everyone on the ice.
The Silvertips will have home-ice advantage in Round 1 at Angel of the Winds Arena, with possible opponents being Wenatchee, Vancouver, Kelowna, Victoria, and Spokane.
Wenatchee Wild: 33-29-4-0–70pts
The final push for the Wild has felt like more of a nudge. There’s no real leadership presence on the forward side to drive the play themselves, and the defensive side looks bleaker by the game.
Outside of Graham Sward, their defensemen looked lethargic against the Spokane Chiefs on Sunday, leading to a 6-1 defeat.
A lack of physicality and no answers for dynamic players are a few of the causes for concern, especially when the Wild go to the penalty kill. The Wild have killed just 74.1 percent of their penalties on the season, sixth worst in the league.
The Wild wrap up their inaugural WHL regular season with road games on Friday in Victoria and Saturday in Everett. They are currently occupying the fourth seed in the Western Conference, but only three points separate them from the current sixth-seeded Kelowna Rockets, making them eligible for seeds four through six. With their likely playoff opponent being either Vancouver or Kelowna, just one point on the weekend clinches them home-ice advantage in the first round.
Spokane Chiefs: 29-31-5-1–64pts
What an awesome way to clinch a playoff spot. With the game looking destined for overtime, thanks to a tying goal from Chiefs phenom Berkly Catton with 2:10 left, Will McIsaac finished off found a winner with 13.6 seconds remaining in regulation. McIsaac claimed to have “blacked out” after from the high emotions.
🍀 | Where there’s a Will there’s a way (to the playoffs)!
With 13 seconds left in regulation, Will McIsaac punched our ticket to the post-season with his 6th goal of the year! Berkly Catton and Conner Roulette earned assists on the play.#GoChiefsGo | @walotterypic.twitter.com/bckzPD1eBd
Spokane coach Ryan Smith wants the focus to remain one game at a time, not worrying about playoffs until the official end of the season.
“We’ve got to worry about next weekend first,” Smith said. “We don’t know who we’re going to play, but it’ll be a tough matchup whoever it is. But we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. We’re focused on getting ourselves healthy and going the right way.”
The Chiefs finish up the year with road games in Seattle and Tri-City and have the possibility of finishing as high as the sixth seed. Spokane will likely face either Prince George or Portland in the first round, and due to strenuous travel to and from both cities, the series would be formatted in a two home, three road, two home format instead of a more traditional two-two-one-one-one.
The WHL playoffs are set to begin Friday, March 29. Series previews to come next week.
Header photo taken by Brian Liesse, courtesy Seattle Thunderbirds.
It’s a PACKED mega episode of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast this week, with Kraken radio play-by-play voice Everett Fitzhugh in studio for the entirety of the episode.
Also featured in this episode is two fantastic interviews with Kraken prospects Shane Wright and Ryan Winterton.
The mood is bad after a terrible week for Seattle, but there’s some incredible conversation in this one.
Segments include Weekly One-Timers and Tweets of the Week.
The last month of this Seattle Kraken season could be loooooooooong. Because after Monday’s 6-2 embarrassment at the hands of the Buffalo Sabres, this team looks like it’s prepared to march to the end of the campaign losing every game. There’s no bite, no jam, no pushback, no… whatever word you want to use to describe what the Kraken are lackin’ (rhyme intended) right now, it’s not there.
Post-game media scrums have begun feeling akin to the pressers the players used to do in the inaugural season, when some combination of Jordan Eberle, Yanni Gourde, and/or Mark Giordano would be sent to a podium (we weren’t allowed in the dressing room that season because of COVID) almost every night, and they would talk about the group’s deficiencies and how they could be better in the next meaningless game.
Heck, Eberle even harkened back to that first season in his press scrum on Monday. “I said it two years ago, the line between winning and losing is so thin, and right now we’re on the other side of it.”
This is different than that 2021-22 season, though. Argue all you want about whether this current group ever had the talent and the depth to make the playoffs, but that first-year team never stopped trying despite those many deficiencies. Even in their ugliest losses that year, no matter how overmatched they were, the Kraken always did something to give their fans reasons to cheer. For as bad as they were, they were still an easy team to root for because of the tenacity they showed every single game.
These last few outings, we simply haven’t seen that from the Kraken. It’s like they give up a goal, and that’s all it takes to completely deflate them and remove any desire to battle back into the game.
Here are our Three Takeaways from a painful-to-watch 6-2 Kraken loss to the Sabres.
Takeaway #1: Skinner and Thompson torch Kraken
Part of us thought coming into this game that perhaps Buffalo, which had never beaten the Kraken in five previous chances, could be the remedy to at least get some positive feelings going again. The Sabres are a pretty good team this season, but they’ve been a great matchup for Seattle over its first three campaigns (Buffalo was the last team in the NHL that had never beaten Seattle).
And after Eberle scored 26 seconds into the game on a nice feed from Tolvanen, that theory briefly seemed like it might be proven out over the course of the night. But that belief lasted all of 25 seconds, because Tage Thompson ripped a snap shot under the bar to tie the game before it hit the 1:00 mark, and Jeff Skinner and Alex Tuch followed that up with goals of their own within five minutes of Thompson.
“You score first shift, and then they score right after, that kills you,” Eberle said. “But that being said, I mean, we should be resilient… They get one, and you should be like, ‘Alright, we’re fine.’”
Coach Dave Hakstol admitted there was frustration on the bench.
“I’ll be blunt and honest,” Hakstol said. “This is the first time that I’ve seen frustration come onto our bench… That’s the first time I’ve seen that. We had the day of practice yesterday, and obviously, we weren’t able to flush [the frustration] out, and it affected us today.”
Skinner took advantage of the frustrated team and added two more tallies on the night for his seventh career hat trick.
Takeaway #2: A hard night for Joey
That was about as tough of a night as you can get for a goaltender. Joey Daccord was yanked from the game after allowing three goals in the first 5:41. When he exited, the scoreboard showed that he had faced seven shots on goal, but after the game, the official stats were adjusted down to just four. So, Daccord was credited with one save on four shots, a .250 save percentage, before he was pulled for the second time in his career (previous was Feb. 29 against Minnesota).
All three goals were good, hard shots into perfect spots, but we noticed on the first Skinner goal that made it 2-1, Daccord seemed to be reacting as if the shot was going to his left, when it actually was going to his right. He clearly wasn’t tracking the puck well, and it was the right call for Hakstol to get him out of the game when he did.
“Those are quality shots,” Hakstol said. “The first goal against, with Thompson, I mean that’s just a [heck] of a shot, right? But you get to a point where, even though they’re from pretty good areas, the second and the third ones are still pucks that I know, when Joey’s on, he stops. He sees those and he makes those saves.”
Indeed, all three were unscreened shots that Daccord would normally stop. For his sake, we hope this outing doesn’t hurt his confidence too much.
Takeaway #3: Where do they go from here?
With the season on the line, the Kraken spent almost two weeks laying a giant egg and went 0-4-1 on a crucial five-game homestand. After the third-period collapse and subsequent overtime loss to Vegas, the group played three straight games in which it looked fully ready to hit the golf course.
But the Kraken have 15 games and almost a month of hockey left. The fans deserve better than what they just watched on that homestand.
“This league is about winning,” Eberle said. “And not just that, but playing well, feeling good about your effort, feeling good about— I mean, you may lose, you may win, but you want to feel good about a 60-minute effort where we went out there and put everything on the line. It’s been kind of inconsistent throughout the whole year, and that’s kind of been frustrating. And we need to find a way to just [play hard] the last 15 games here every night. I mean, it’s a privilege to be in this league.”
On the plus side, Seattle’s draft position is getting better with every passing miserable loss, so perhaps the organization is comfortable with letting things get more and more uncomfortable over this final month. But tanking is traditionally done by having a bunch of young players in the lineup, mixed with journeyman veterans that help reach the salary cap floor. That’s not what this roster is. Is the front office really ok with this roster of proud veterans just losing by playing terrible hockey?
We’re fine with losing at this point, and the more losing Seattle does for the rest of the season, the better it will be for the long-term future of the franchise. But in the spirit of what Eberle said, watching the team lose in this uninspired, beaten-down fashion is tough.
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.
The last three games have gone as poorly as possible, and I am in no mood to relive them. The Seattle Kraken playoff odds were long a week ago and got exponentially longer with each of the three losses this week. MoneyPuck gives the Kraken just a two-percent chance of qualifying for the playoffs, but I think even that is generous at this point.
I am sure there is some mathematical combination of wins and losses across the two wild card teams and three teams sitting out of the playoff bubble that gives Seattle a two-percent shot at making it through, but it is not going to happen.
Season expectations
At the beginning of the season, if you would have told me the Kraken would finish out of the playoff picture with around 85 points in the standings, I would have thought that sounded about right. Last year’s unsustainable shooting percentage was unlikely to carry over at the same rate this season, especially with limited additions and the notable departures from last season. But truth be told, this is not how we expected this campaign to unfold. The team started ice cold with just three wins in their first 10 games of the season, and except for a brief period in November, the group was clawing to get into the playoff picture all season.
Injuries seemed to plague this team from the start. Brandon Tanev was hurt in Game 1 of the season against Vegas. Andre Burakovsky went down in the sixth game of the season and missed 20 of the next 21 games. Sprinkle in injuries to Jordan Eberle, Jaden Schwartz, Vince Dunn, Justin Schultz, and even Philipp Grubauer, plus the illness that seemed to destroy the team for a stretch in January, and you start to feel this was not your typical hardship for a team.
Now, injuries are part of the game, and plenty of other teams overcome a similar quantity of injuries. But as much as we say this team’s strength is its depth, that depth only goes as far as about 20 players. Once you dip below those 20, things thin out quickly.
Where can we get some goal scoring?
It has been a theme all season, but the team has struggled to score. The Kraken are 28th in the league in scoring, averaging just 2.68 goals per game. I’ve heard a lot of people and pundits say the Kraken need a high-end goal scorer. Well, no kidding, but you don’t just go out and get a high-end goal scorer. They do not become available, and if they do, you are going to have to overpay and commit too many years to a contract.
I’ve said it before, and I will say it again. Spending on the high-end scorers that reach free agency is risky business. Sam Reinhart will score more than 50 goals this season and could hit free agency this offseason. Do you think Ron Francis should pursue a 28-year-old Reinhart for $10-plus million dollars a year for the next seven years when the forward’s previous high-water mark was 33 goals a season? I don’t.
The best chance at getting that goal scorer is to draft and develop or somehow convince another team to do something idiotic at the trade deadline. This is probably why I am most excited about what Carson Rehkopf could bring in the future. I have talked about him all season and generally think he could have the most potential in the franchise right now to become that high-end goal scorer. There is a long way to go to prove that out, but I am certain he will be given an opportunity to make the team next season.
Rehkopf will be 19 years old at the beginning of 2023-24, and based on the CHL development agreement, if he does not make the NHL roster, he will need to return to the OHL next season.
One bright spot for the Kraken this season has been their defense. I don’t necessarily mean the defenders themselves, but the team defensively as a whole has performed well. A good chunk of the defensive performance attribution needs to go the goalie tandem of Joey Daccord and Grubauer. At .925, the Kraken have the second-highest save percentage of any team since Dec. 1, behind only the tandem of Connor Hellebuyck and Laurent Brossoit in Winnipeg.
I knew the goalies had been solid but did not expect them to be second in the league over that time span. It sure would be nice to see this trend continue next season.
Other Musings
It is probably stating the obvious, but one player to keep an eye on down this stretch is Ryker Evans. He has been in the lineup since the Vince Dunn injury and will probably get more opportunity even after Dunn comes back. Evans is ahead of schedule in his development. He is one of eight defensemen in the NHL from the 2021 NHL Entry Draft but still needs time to grow and get used to the speed of the top league in the world.
I do expect a few prospects from the Coachella Valley Firebirds to come up before this season is finished. Shane Wright and Ryan Winterton are the obvious players in question (though Wright is close to burning a year of his entry-level contract, so we don’t expect him until the last few games). I also wonder if Logan Morrison or Ville Ottavainen might get an opportunity down the stretch.
The Firebirds are currently second in points across the AHL and are 8-0-1-1 over their last 10 games.
Despite his struggles this season, I still think Andre Burakovsky could be the best pure goal scorer the Kraken have on the roster right now. But he obviously needs to stay healthy. Can he do that through next season?
The Kraken overtime game against Vegas was Seattle’s 18th overtime game of the season, a franchise record. They had 17 overtime games last season and 12 in 2021-22.
I never thought I would say this, but can we not have any Saturday home games next season? The Kraken are now 0-6-2 at Climate Pledge Arena on Saturdays. Lucky for us, the Kraken have only one more Saturday game this season.
Face-off goals against reared its ugly head last week. It happened once against Vegas when Pavel Dorofeyev scored one second after a draw and a second time when Roman Josi scored three seconds after a face-off for the Predators’ third goal on Saturday. On both goals, the issue was not losing the face-off; it was that someone should have challenged the shots.
2-1 VGK's.
Wonky goal there, after Karlsson broke his stick on the face-off. It popped up, and Dorofeyev whacked it before it hit the ice. pic.twitter.com/0T0onlU9ht
Those face-off goals were the seventh and eighth time the Kraken have been scored on within five seconds of a face-off. That is second in the league behind the Tampa Bay Lightning who have allowed 10 face-off goals.
Another ghost from seasons past that showed up this week was the response goal the Kraken allowed to Vegas. After Oliver Bjorkstrand put the Kraken up by two goals with 8:30 left in the third period, the Golden Knights scored less than a minute later to claw within one. Vegas really came to life after that goal, and the rest is sad, season-ending history.
That was the eighth response goal the Kraken have allowed this season, which is about middle of the pack across the league. I don’t have the numbers, but I remember it being much more common in Season 1.
The Kraken are one of four teams without a hat trick scored in a game this season. I would like to see one before the season is done. The only home hat trick in franchise history came against Buffalo in Season 1 when Eberle scored three goals against Buffalo. The Kraken play Buffalo Monday.
I like seeing players’ first career goals, and I love it when they are at home. Ryker Evans has played 21 NHL games and has yet to score a goal.
Player performances
Kole Lind (CVF/SEA) – The Coachella Valley Firebirds winger has a six-game point streak with nine points. It would be nice to see him play some NHL games to close out the season.
Eduard Sale (KIT/SEA) – The Kitchener Ranger has 12 points in his last 10 games with five goals over that span. Sale has underperformed this season in relation to his draft position, so it is great to see him starting to hit his stride.
Jani Nyman (ILV/SEA) – The second-rounder from the 2022 NHL Draft had only one game this week, but he was able to net three power-play goals and 11 shots in Ilves’ regular season finale in Liiga. They are the second seed in the playoffs with their first game of the playoffs on Thursday against KalPa.
Shane Wright is somewhat quietly having quite the rookie year in Coachella Valley.
What to watch for from here on out
After the loss to the Washington Capitals on Thursday night, I came to grips with the reality that these remaining Kraken games will not mean much in the playoff picture. My mind immediately started to wonder how I would watch the remaining games of the season. I am excited to watch and enjoy seeing Seattle win when it can, but with the playoff hopes out the window, I need some additional narratives to look out for.
The first thing I am excited about is to see the Kraken play the spoiler against Western Conference playoff bubble teams. They have four games remaining against these bubble teams, all road games. They play Vegas next week and will face Los Angeles, St. Louis, and Minnesota in April. The biggest game will be this coming Thursday where the Kraken will look to disrupt the Golden Knights’ playoff expectations. It won’t ease the pain we received from Vegas’ last-second heroics at Climate Pledge on Tuesday, but it might give us something to smile about for the evening.
Additionally, I am excited to see which prospects get the call-up and how they compete on the big stage. We saw Wright and Winterton log three games in November, but I have to imagine they are even more prepared now with several more months of AHL games under their belt. Are there any others that might get the call?
Programing note. There will be no Monday Musings next week. My weekend is packed, and with a Sunday-evening home game, it is unlikely I will be able to carve out the time needed to produce anything worth reading.
If you have any questions or want me to dig into certain topics for the following week, let me know in the comments, and I will do my best get back to you or add to my backlog of research.
If you follow along closely with the written content we create here at Sound Of Hockey, you know that I typically write a “Three Takeaways” after every game. If you also listen to the Sound Of Hockey Podcast, you know that—despite the devastating 5-4 Seattle Kraken overtime loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday—I remained in a chipper mood on this past week’s episode.
But after the past two games, I’ve found it hard to pull out compelling “Takeaways,” and my hockey-related mood can no longer be categorized as “chipper.”
Part of the positivity on the last podcast episode was simply endorphins from lots of exercise the day we recorded, blended with a string of sunny weather in Seattle. But part of it was that I still genuinely believed this team could lump together a bunch of wins down the stretch against bad teams and backdoor its way into the playoffs. Heck, I even wrote a Notebook article on Thursday afternoon about how several players on the team thought they could still do the thing, and how I believed what they were telling me.
But after a 2-1 Kraken loss to the Capitals on Thursday night, and Saturday’s 4-1 loss to the Predators, it has become painfully obvious that this team is done. They are not yet mathematically eliminated, but they are eliminated from contention in every other way, and the tone within the dressing room has shifted.
“You have to hit it head on,” coach Dave Hakstol said Sunday. “We have to understand the reality of our situation, and then our goal and our opportunity is to change that picture. We can’t look too far down the road, so we have to have a great mindset, and we’ll have a mindset of that going into [Monday’s game against Buffalo] to work to change that picture.”
With the team sitting nine points behind Vegas for the last wild card spot with 16 games left, and MoneyPucknow giving Seattle just a two-percent chance to reach the playoffs, the players seem to know their season is dead in the water, even if they won’t overtly admit it.
“It’s obviously very frustrating,” Jared McCann said. “We haven’t been able to score many goals, so it’s been kind of a grind lately. I don’t feel like we’re out of this at all. We’re just going to keep pushing, and you never know what’s going to happen. We’ve got to stay positive.
“It’s easy to be negative, and it’s easy to spread negativity, too, but we’re lucky to be in the National Hockey League. We have some of the best jobs in the world, and you’ve got to come in every single day and just look at the positives. I know, obviously, things aren’t going well for us right now, but just look at the positives and keep moving forward.”
Sure, injuries have been a factor, but…
When general manager Ron Francis traded second-line center Alex Wennberg to the New York Rangers in advance of the March 8 trade deadline, he made Seattle’s odds of reaching the playoffs even longer than they already were. We still maintain that this was the right thing to do, given where the team sat in the standings at the time, and with the writing very much on the wall that the Swedish center would not return to Seattle beyond this season.
But remember, with Wennberg held out of the lineup for two games to avoid a pre-trade injury, the Kraken ripped off two (at the time) huge back-to-back road victories in Calgary and Winnipeg. They showed they could be competitive without Wennberg, so even after the trade, we still held onto hope that the “resilient group” could battle its way through the rest of the season.
We’ve since learned, however, that with Wennberg jettisoned, Seattle could no longer survive with any injuries to key players. Vince Dunn has been out since that Calgary game, when Martin Pospisil hit him with a cheap shot from behind that earned the Flames forward a three-game suspension. Jaden Schwartz has been out since the first game of this (so far) winless homestand, a 3-0 loss to the Jets.
“Obviously, teams deal with different things and adversity throughout the season,” said defenseman Brian Dumoulin, who has been filling in on the top pair with Dunn sidelined. “We’re no different here, but I mean, I know we’ve got enough in this room to compete and win hockey games, and we’ve got to get back to that.”
Without Dunn, Schwartz, and Wennberg, Seattle’s lineup looks thin. Hakstol shook things up Saturday, moving McCann back to the top line with Matty Beniers and Jordan Eberle, and bumping Tomas Tatar down to the fourth line (which we don’t think is a good fit for the veteran winger). Halfway through the game Saturday against Nashville, the new forward lines had generated just eight shots on Juuse Saros, and they were shut out on the night at 5-on-5.
Unsurprisingly, the lines went right back in the blender at practice on Sunday.
No matter what Hakstol has tried the last couple games, Seattle is simply not generating. The absence of Wennberg, Schwartz, and Dunn is partially to blame, but so too an apparent recognition that their season is over.
The group has only had a handful of games with its full lineup healthy this season, yet the fact of the matter is that every team in the league deals with injuries. This is why you need depth, and after the whole (very productive) fourth line walked last summer, everything needed to go exactly right on that front for the Kraken to have another successful campaign.
They can only blame themselves
Injuries are not enough to let this team off the hook for the many stretches of poor play that have led to its demise. There’s no excuse for dropping eight consecutive games in the heart of your season. There’s no excuse for losing the last game before the All-Star break, 2-0, to the lowly San Jose Sharks. And there’s certainly no excuse for blowing two-goal leads at home and losing in overtime in critical games against St. Louis on Jan. 26 and Vegas this past week.
In an 82-game season, you can get away with having dips in performance, but when the valleys are more abundant than the peaks, you will fall from contention in March.
That overtime loss to the Golden Knights was the nail in the coffin. Had Seattle held onto its two-goal lead and won in regulation, then ridden that momentum into the game against Washington and won, the team would have come into the game against Nashville just four points out of the playoffs. Instead, in the blink of an eye, Seattle experienced a three-point swing in the standings and allowed the negativity from that damning loss to sap their effort in the next two games.
Now, it’s (all but) over. We know it, the Kraken know it, and at this point, I’m not even sure if there are exciting storylines to look forward to for the next month of Kraken hockey.
I think I need to go get some more exercise.
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 we first published our original article on the playoff chances of the Seattle Kraken back in January, we planned to provide updates monthly. But as the playoff picture is becoming clearer, we will update weekly going forward. We will review how the team did the previous week and look ahead to what they need to do in the upcoming week.
Unfortunately for Kraken fans, Seattle had a miserable week and lost in painful 5-4 overtime fashion to the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday, then 2-1 in regulation to the Washington Capitals in an uninspiring performance on Thursday.
Can the Kraken still make the playoffs?
Believe it or not, there is still reason for optimism that the Seattle Kraken can sneak into the playoffs.
According to tankathon.com, the Seattle Kraken have the easiest remaining schedule of any team in the NHL.
The Kraken have generally performed well against playoff-bound teams.
There are still three playoff spots within striking distance, both wild card spots and the third spot in the Pacific Division.
The Kraken have one or two games in hand on the teams ahead of them.
The Seattle Kraken do have a nearly impossible uphill climb to make the playoffs at this point. They are nine points behind both Vegas and Los Angeles and will need one of Vegas, Nashville, or Los Angeles to start losing. Vegas is 3-6-1 in their last 10 and is the most likely candidate. I am also not sold that Nashville is as good as its current win streak implies.
With the Golden Knights losing to Calgary on Thursday, it’s easy to imagine how different Seattle’s situation would be if the team could have figured out ways to win both Tuesday and Thursday in regulation. Blowing a two-goal lead and giving Vegas two points, then coming up empty against Washington was a five-point swing in the wrong direction for the Kraken, who would be just four measly points from a wild card spot on Friday if they had gotten those victories.
Review of team categorization and win percentage targets
As you might remember from the original article, we’ve broken the NHL teams down into three categories: Playoff Bound, Bubble, and Tankers.
Playoff Bound – Teams that should make the playoffs, those near the top of the standings. The Kraken’s target was 45 percent of points against these teams.
Bubble – Teams fighting to make the playoffs, most likely as wild cards. The Kraken’s target was to get 65 percent of these points.
Tankers – Teams most likely to miss the playoffs, should be Seattle’s easiest opponents. The Kraken needed 90 percent of these points.
The team categorizations have had some changes since January. The only change this week is Vegas has moved down to a Bubble team. The teams that are bolded are teams against which the Kraken have a remaining game.
Point percentages
We set point percentage targets for each team categorization back in January. Here is how the Seattle Kraken have been doing against each group, since Jan. 1.
Playoff – 5-3-1 – .611 point percentage
Bubble – 4-6-3 – .423 point percentage
Tankers – 5-1-0 – .833 point percentage
Overall – 14-10-3 – .574 point percentage
The Kraken are doing really well against Playoff and Tanker teams, but struggling against the Bubble teams. This has to end now if they want to have any hope to even apply pressure to the teams in wild card spots. Even though the Kraken have struggled against the Bubble teams, they have almost followed the pace of 93 points, and using the target percentages, the Kraken are currently on pace for 92 points.
93 points
Before the start of the season, our own John Barr wrote, “When looking over the last 11 seasons, excluding the 2019-20 season that had a unique play-in format, the average minimum point total of the bottom playoff team was 92.4 points on the season.”
Using this average, 93 points has been what Sound Of Hockey established as the target. Will 93 points be enough to get into the playoffs this year? It is starting to look like the 2023-24 season will require more than the average. Let’s look at where Vegas, Nashville, and Los Angeles are trending for their final season point total:
Vegas Golden Knights – 88-97 points (16 games remaining)
Nashville Predators – 96-98 points (15 games remaining)
Los Angeles Kings – 96-97 points (17 games remaining)
The season point total projection ranges are calculated taking the point percentage for the season and for the last 10 games to give a range. For the Nashville Predators, who are on an 11-game unbeaten streak, the point percentage before the streak started was used for the low total.
If these teams continue on their season points percentage pathways, the line would become 97 points to grab a wild card spot. With tie-breakers, 98 points would pretty much guarantee the Kraken a spot, but that is definitely a tall order. The Kraken would need to get 30 out of 36 remaining possible points, and that is unlikely.
Despite their comeback win over Seattle on Tuesday, the Golden Knights have been slumping as of late, going 3-6-1 in their last 10 games for a .350 point percentage. Vegas needs to turn its play around quickly, as the low end of its point projection (88 points) is within striking distance for multiple teams, including the Kraken.
For this week, we will leave the target at 93 points, but based on how Vegas does over the next week, we might increase the target.
What has happened this month
Overall, the Kraken have done ok, going 2-3-1 against some stiff competition. The losses did sting with a shutout loss to the Jets, a heart-breaking overtime loss to the Golden Knights, and one-goal losses to the Capitals and Oilers.
Mar. 2 – Loss 2-1 against the Edmonton Oilers
Mar. 4 – Win 4-2 against the Calgary Flames
Mar. 5 – Win 4-3 against the Winnipeg Jets
Mar. 8 – Loss 3-0 against the Winnipeg Jets
Mar. 12 – Overtime Loss 5-4 against the Vegas Golden Knights
Mar. 14 – Loss 2-1 against the Washington Capitals
The Kraken also lost two players to injury this month. Vince Dunn is out with an upper-body injury, though he could return soon, and Jaden Schwartz has an undisclosed injury and has not been seen skating.
The Kraken also traded center Alex Wennberg to the New York Rangers on March 6. Jared McCann has stepped into the second-line center role and has exceeded expectations, but still, losing Wennberg did make the team significantly thinner. Playing in five games as a pivot, McCann has six points, including two short-handed goals.
Upcoming week (March 15-21)
The good news is the Kraken have the easiest schedule in the league, meaning we should hopefully start seeing some wins pile up. Here is a look at the games coming up this week:
March 16 – Nashville Predators (Bubble… but on a tear)
March 18 – Buffalo Sabres (Tanker)
March 21 – Vegas Golden Knights (Bubble)
The Kraken pretty much have to go 3-0-0 this week, but the target win percentages are based on the rest of the season, so there can be some losses before the end of the campaign. The games against Nashville and Vegas are especially important, though, as not only are the two points crucial for the Kraken, but not giving either of those teams points is equally important. If the Kraken are able to run the table this week, they would be back on pace for 94 points. Then next week (Mar. 22-28), the Kraken play four tanker teams, which could still (even after all the misery this past week) set them up for a last-gasp playoff push.
Overall
With the Kraken having a much easier schedule these next couple weeks, I definitely have some optimism (maybe too much) on what they can accomplish. But the players have to want it, and they have to come out every night treating every game as a playoff game. They said the right things earlier this week, but their effort on Thursday against Washington did not scream desperation.
With 17 games remaining and nine of them against Tanker teams, the Kraken have an opportunity for some wins. They have been getting solid goaltending out of both Philipp Grubauer and Joey Daccord since the new year.
If the Kraken can piece together some offense and string a few victories, they can put pressure on those wild card teams ahead of them.
It was a big week at a variety of hockey levels, from high school hockey all the way up to the NHL, where the trade deadline passed, Jordan Eberle hit 1,000 games, and the Seattle Kraken lost in miserable fashion to the Vegas Golden Knights.
The guys break all of that down and more, and they go around the league for a game of “Interesting or Carry On.”
Segments include:
If you were feeling down after that soul-crushing 5-4 Kraken overtime loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday, we’re here to tell you that you’re not alone. Seattle’s players were also devastated after the defeat, which ended miserably with the Golden Knights rallying back from two down—including scoring the tying goal with 16 seconds left—and winning it on a Jack Eichel breakaway in overtime.
With the context of where Seattle sits in the standings after the loss, nine points behind Vegas for the last wild card spot, it definitely felt like a season-killing loss.
“It’s been tough sledding,” goalie Joey Daccord said. “I think this whole year, I feel like we’ve been taking two steps forward, one step back, you know? We kind of had a good run there, won a couple games in a row, won two huge games on the back-to-back [against Calgary and Winnipeg], and it’s like everything’s going the right way. And then we lose a couple in a row, and it feels like the end of the world.”
What the Kraken and their fans are experiencing now is the consequence of inconsistent play earlier in the season. By allowing losing streaks to pile up all the way into the beginning of February, and by failing to close out a slew of in-the-bag games during the course of the campaign, now every missed opportunity for a regulation win could be the last straw. The Vegas loss on Tuesday was another one of those missed chances.
“When you’re leading 4-2 with… I don’t know, what was it, five minutes to go? And you end up getting only a point?” Tatar said. “This is disappointing.”
**Author’s note: The response goal from William Karlsson to make it 4-3 came with 7:37 remaining, but still, it was a two-goal lead in the third period that should have stood up.
The team knows it was a bad hit to the postseason chances, which have now dwindled all the way down to 10.1 percent, according to MoneyPuck. Even so, after chatting with several Kraken players on Wednesday, we do genuinely believe they are far from giving up on this season.
“This is all up and down,” Tatar said. “Like, we won those two games in a row, and then things all of a sudden look very reachable. Now we lose, it kind of slips away. I mean, at the end of the day, we know how many points will get you in, and we’re still in that race. There are two big games [ahead against Washington and Nashville], you just have to do the job.”
“The next one”
From speaking with Daccord, Tatar, and Andre Burakovsky, we got a consistent message that the group still believes it can make the playoffs, even though it would take a minor miracle for that to happen. (Some back-of-the-envelope math tells us the Kraken would need to win about 14 of their last 18 games and get some help from at least one of the teams they’re chasing.) They also all indicated that the focus for the team needs to be on what is happening right here and now.
“We focus on the next one,” Burakovsky said. “We can’t look ahead at where we’re playing in a week or whatever. We need to focus on the next one, win that one, and move on to the next one. Take the good parts from the next game, and move that into the next one.
“There’s a lot of games to play, we’ve got 18 left or something [like that]. We just need to win. I think overall, [Tuesday] was a good game, and we should have had that one, for sure. Unfortunately, we only got one point, but there’s a lot of points to work for, and that’s what we’ve got to do.”
Daccord added that getting too caught up in the standings and scoreboard watching can get in the players’ heads, especially when they see those teams they’re chasing continuing to find success.
“The next game, the next period, the next shift, whatever it may be, you’ve just got to stay focused and stay present with the task at hand,” Daccord said.
Not throwing in the towel
Of course, a professional hockey player would have to say all these things, because that’s what they’re expected to do in these scenarios. They can’t answer a question about how they feel about a team’s playoff chances with something like, “Oh, we have no shot,” or “There’s no way we’re getting out of this hole.”
With that in mind, it’s easy to question how wholeheartedly the players believe their own words when they talk about their drive to stay in the race. Even so, there was a certain sincerity in the sentiments of the players, especially from Daccord, who always makes you want to run through a wall.
“We’ve been through a lot of adversity this year, and it hasn’t gone our way as much as we would have liked, but I think we’re never going to give up, no matter what,” Daccord said. “And we’re just going to keep fighting as hard as we can, and at the end of the day, when all the chips are down, we’ll see where we end up… We’re a very competitive group, and we’re going to work our tails off to the very end.”
Burakovsky producing
Last week, our own Blaiz Grubic wrote an article on Burakovsky’s struggles this season. In it, he indicated that the winger’s play had improved in the last 10 games or so, and that his goal last Tuesday in Winnipeg that got him off the schneid could open the floodgates.
It’s hard to say if the floodgates are officially “open” at this point, but Burakovsky did score his second goal in three games Tuesday and said he could sense that he had been playing better hockey well before finally breaking his 18-game goalless streak.
“I have been making plays for a while and skating good and just being a little bit [unlucky with a lof of] posts and out for me,” Burakovsky said. “I want to help the team win games, and like I said, I’ve been feeling great for a while. And I mean, I don’t think because I’m scoring in the last three, it doesn’t reflect that I’m playing better. I’ve been feeling confident and playing good hockey for quite some time now. The goals have started going in for me now, and that’s basically the only difference.”
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.
The final leg of the WHL regular season is on. Clinching scenarios, positioning battles, and many different teams making last-ditch efforts to make the dance have been just some of the storylines to come out of the league during the second half. With just two weeks until the season concludes, the time to push is now.
Portland Winterhawks: 43-15-2-1 — 89 points
A favorite throughout the year to win the Ed Chynoweth Cup has been the Portland Winterhawks, and for good reason. The Winterhawks have been one of the most well-rounded teams in not just the WHL, but the CHL as a whole. They rank second among all CHL teams in goals scored at 300 and eighth in goals allowed at 184.
The CHL itself agrees with the sentiment of Portland being among the best nationally, as the Winterhawks have been included in 19 out of the 22 CHL Top 10 lists put out bi-weekly throughout the season. With two weeks to go before the regular season concludes, Portland is exactly where it expected to be.
Winterhawks defenseman and Seattle Kraken prospect Tyson Jugnauth was on the CHL TopX Show this week, stating the importance of clinching home-ice advantage in the playoffs and being only a point behind Prince George for the Western Conference lead. “To secure that top spot is gonna be huge,” Jugnauth said. “It’s talked about in the room… it’s more important to us to win each game every night. [We] hope to be in first by the end of the season and hope to be in the Memorial Cup.”
Jugnauth has seven goals and 25 assists in 31 games since joining the Winterhawks in November. He made it a point to mention his team’s balanced attack being about as good as it gets in the league, which is spot on for what this group has accomplished. Nine total players on the roster have 15 or more goals on the season, and there are 12 players with over 30 total points, both of which rank among the best in the league.
“We’re a really consistent team,” Jugnauth said. “We play with skill and [have] poise with the puck every single night. I think the biggest thing is it’s hard for teams to handle the depth… We have four good lines, six good defensemen, and two good goalies… Over the course of 60 minutes, that just wears different teams down.”
Highlighted by Gabe Klassen who recently hit the 100-point mark on the season, James Stefan with 46 goals, top five in the WHL, and San Jose Sharks prospect Lucas Cagnoni leading all defensemen in assists (63) and tied for points with Wenatchee’s Graham Sward (76), this roster already had plenty of depth before the trade deadline.
Even with all the firepower the Winterhawks already had, general manager and head coach Mike Johnston felt they needed another forward piece to push them over the top. And that’s what he did when Portland acquired Detroit Red Wings first-round pick Nate Danielson from the Brandon Wheat Kings at the WHL trade deadline. Danielson has nine goals and 21 assists in 23 games played with the Winterhawks, and the team has benefited from the added production, going 19-4-0-0 since Danielson entered the lineup on Jan. 17.
So, what could do Portland in? Despite having a gargantuan 35-13-1-1 record against teams currently in playoff positioning, the thorn in the Winterhawks’ side throughout the year has been a team they might face in the first round of the playoffs. Portland has one more meeting with the Spokane Chiefs before the end of the season, having gone 4-2-0-0 against the Chiefs through their first six meetings, with Spokane winning two out of three of the games played in the Rose City this season. An upset could be in the works if the Winterhawks don’t get off to a fast start in the first few games in a potential series between the two.
The Winterhawks were semifinalists in last year’s playoffs, taking out the Everett Silvertips in five games in Round 1 before being swept by the Memorial Cup hosts Kamloops Blazers in round two.
With Memorial Cups in 1982-83 and 1997-98, as well as a WHL championship under Johnston in 2012-13, the current version of this Portland team is about as good as it gets in the league this season, and it is poised to make a run at a fourth Memorial Cup appearance.
Everett Silvertips: 41-18-2-3 — 87 points
Another team that’s been electrifying on home ice this season has been the Everett Silvertips. The environment in Everett is about as good as you can find in the Western Hockey League, and there’s no exception come playoff time. The cowbells will be in full effect when they ring in the first round at Angel of the Winds Arena at the end of March.
The Silvertips hold the third-best winning percentage in the WHL on home ice, having lost just twice since the calendar flipped to 2024, and they haven’t lost back-to-back games at home all season. Defenseman and Kraken prospect Kaden Hammell knows how the benefits of home ice will aid his team.
“Holding home-ice advantage is very big,”Hammell said. “Having your own fans behind you for the first two games is huge. I think every win matters at this point of the year for that exact reason.”
— x – Everett Silvertips (@WHLsilvertips) March 2, 2024
Top goal scorers in Austin Roest and Dominik Rymon continue the charge for the Silvertips going into the playoffs, and Everett is getting contributions from all four of its forward lines. The roster may not be as deep with talent like the aforementioned Winterhawks, but the Tips can still come at teams in waves and stay in games even when it seems like they’re out of it.
Just last week hosting the Moose Jaw Warriors, the Silvertips clawed back from two separate two-goal deficits to force overtime, gathering the point that would clinch them home-ice advantage in the first round. While they wound up losing in a shootout, they showed they’re a group that gets invigorated by the home crowd.
“Getting to play the extra home game in a series in front of your fans is as important as ever,” Roest said following the game. “In front of these fans, it’s the best place to play regardless. But especially come playoff time.”
The troubling part for this team might just be leaving the friendly confines of Angel of the Winds Arena, as the Silvertips are more mediocre on the road at 18-13-0-0. Also recalling the fact they haven’t won a game against top-seeded Portland at Veterans Memorial Coliseum in over two calendar years, it could mark some trouble if they wind up meeting in the later rounds.
The Silvertips have made the playoffs in every season since their franchise began play in 2003, but they’ve only made the finals twice throughout their 21-year history, losing in the inaugural 2003-04 season to the Medicine Hat Tigers in four games, and again in 2017-18 to the Swift Current Broncos in six games. They had trouble in the first round of last year’s playoffs, struggling to find success down in Portland yet again, and losing in five games.
As of now, Everett would play host to the Victoria Royals in the first round. The Silvertips went 4-0-0-0 against the Royals in the regular season, including taking both games from the Royals in a home-and-home this weekend, winning 4-1 on Friday in Everett, and 6-2 on Saturday in Victoria.
Wenatchee Wild: 32-26-4-0 –68 points
It’s been a tale of two halves for the Wenatchee Wild in their inaugural season in the WHL. Despite trading away Conor Geekie and Matthew Savoie in January, the Wild maintained a steady pace in the Western Conference playoff picture, clinching their first ever appearance in the WHL playoffs.
There’s no true gamebreakers on this roster right now, though, and it could be a fatal flaw when they begin the first round. They have capable scoring pieces, like the team’s lone 30-goal scorer Kenta Isogai, and a pair of near-25-goal scorers in Briley Wood and Evan Friesen. But they now lack the elite talent that Geekie and Savoie brought in the first half of the season.
This is a team with some serious playoff experience, however. The Wild, when they were known as the Winnipeg Ice, made the WHL Finals last season, falling in five games to the Seattle Thunderbirds. The franchise has one Memorial Cup win in 2001-02, as well as three WHL championships in 1999-00, 2001-02, and 2010-11 from their days in Cranbrook, B.C., as the Kootenay Ice.
Seeing them be more careful with the puck in their own zone would help their goaltending, but it’s difficult to see how they will generate enough offense, especially against a clamp-down defensive opponent like the Kelowna Rockets.
Spokane Chiefs: 27-29-5-1 — 60 points
While they haven’t officially clinched a playoff spot as of now, being 10 points ahead of the Tri-City Americans with fewer than eight games left in the regular season makes it safe to assume the Chiefs will be the last team to make the playoffs in the Western Conference.
While they will likely be the eight seed, Spokane is not a team to fool around with. It’s hard to ask for much else from a top-line combination of leading scorer Berkly Catton (106 points), Conner Roulette (97), and Shea Van Olm leading the way, but they will need those guys to have huge performances, as well as timely goaltending performances from Dawson Cowan to survive past Round 1.
Catton became the fourth player in the WHL to surpass the 100-point mark, as well as the third to surpass 50 goals. His week was highlighted by a gorgeous move to get around two Victoria Royals defenders on the way to putting it in the back of the net.
BERKLY CATTON CANNOT BE STOPPED 🚨🚨
His 47th goal of the season and 4th point of the night gives the Chiefs a two-goal cushion at 1:40 of the third. Assist to Parrsy.#GoChiefsGopic.twitter.com/h8n4IuNt25
Assuming they clinch their spot, the Chiefs will return to the playoffs after a one-year hiatus from postseason play, last making it in 2021-22 when they were swept by the Kamloops Blazers in Round 1. The Chiefs have two WHL championships and two Memorial Cup championships in franchise history, winning in both 1990-91 and 2007-08.
On the outside looking in: Seattle Thunderbirds (50 points) and Tri-City Americans (47)
There’s not much to write home about for either of these squads this season. The Thunderbirds have felt like a shell of their former championship-level selves all season, with many of their players graduating out of hte WHL and many of their returning players suffering long-term injuries at various stages of the season. And for the Americans, what looked like it was about to be a strong season from their quick start in October quickly got away from them. Both teams have solid foundational pieces that they will look to nurture for better results next season.
Neither team is officially eliminated, but the playoffs are becoming less likely by the day for these clubs.
Entry-level contracts signed
Austin Roest has been one of the more consistent players on the Silvertips this season, as he’s above a point-per-game pace at 32 goals and 31 assists in 56 games. The Nashville Predators drafted Roest in the sixth round of the 2023 NHL Draft, and last Friday, he signed his entry-level contract with the organization. Roest was focused on getting a deal done as soon as possible.
Austin Roest has signed an entry-level contract with the #Preds!
“It’s been talked about for the last month or so, so to finally sign it and make it official is an unbelievable feeling,” Roest said. “Ever since I was little, it’s been the goal and the dream [to make the NHL]. To get one step [closer] is an amazing feeling and tough to describe how it feels.”
Nashville did quite the business within the U.S. division this week. On Thursday, the Colorado Avalanche signed Seattle Thunderbirds defenseman Jeremy Hanzel to an entry-level contract, then promptly dealt him to Nashville as part of the Yakov Trenin trade. In return, the Avalanche received Wenatchee Wild defenseman Graham Sward, along with a 2025 third-round pick.
The first round of the WHL playoffs are set to begin on March 29. Header photo by Brian Liesse, courtesy Seattle Thunderbirds.
