This is Part II of What the Kraken can do with their pending unrestricted free agents. Part I can be found here. In Part I, we reviewed the Seattle’s pending UFA’s that are over 30 years old and outlined what can be done with each of the four players. For Part II, we will shift our focus to the trio of UFA’s under 30 years old.
Kraken UFA players
For review, these are the seven pending UFA’s in question, split by over/under 30 years of age.
Alex Wennberg (Age 29) – Target: re-sign for four years at $4.5 million AAV
Alex Wennberg was signed to a three-year, $13.5M deal as a free agent in the days following the Expansion Draft. Wennberg is one of the more divisive players on the Kraken, as fans either love what he brings to the team or desperately want him to shoot more.
Let’s start this with a little quiz, but don’t worry; it will be easy. (Hint: The answer to every question is “Alex Wennberg.”)
Iron-man Adam Larsson has played every Kraken game, but who is next in games played? Wennberg. 208 games and counting.
What Kraken forward has the most blocked shots in franchise history? Wennberg. 156. The next closest forward is Brandon Tanev at 121.
What forward has averaged the most ice time per game over the first three seasons? Wennberg. 18:23 average time-on-ice per game. He also averages the highest power-play-plus-penalty-kill time of any forward on the team with a 3:50 (PP: 2:06, PK 1:44) average per game.
Most face-offs taken? Wennberg. He has led in the number of face-offs taken overall in every Kraken season.
Who leads the Kraken in percentage of high-danger shots at 15.38 percent? Wennberg.
What player leads the team in takeaways minus giveaways? Wennberg. He leads the team in both takeaways at 158 and takeaways minus giveaways at 88. “Best friend of the pod,” Alison Lukan, wrote a great article on this topic last year.
How did you do on the quiz? If you got less than seven out of seven, feel free to try again. Remember the answer is “Wennberg.”
The Swedish center is trusted in all situations on the ice, consistently rolled out on the PP and PK, and is defensively sound. To address the amount of shots Wennberg takes, this is nothing new to his playing style, but the key to focus on is that he opts to pass rather than take low-percentage shots. But he takes high-percentage shots as they are available. Here is a heatmap of Wennberg’s shot attempts this season, as found on Moneypuck.com.
The following three trades were used for comparison (player name, age when traded):
Andrew Copp (Age 27) – The New York Rangers sent first-, second-, and fifth-round picks plus an AHL prospect to Winnipeg in 2022.
Lars Eller (Age 32) – Colorado traded a second-round pick to Washington in 2023.
Eric Staal (Age 36) – Buffalo fetched third- and fifth-round picks from Montreal in 2021.
At 29, Wennberg should fall somewhere between the Eller and Copp trades, if Seattle decides to move him. A first-round return might be asking a bit much, but a second-rounder and an additional pick is more practical.
Shane Wright is developing in the AHL and will look to make the Kraken next year. This does create a log jam in the center position if Wennberg stays, but having too many centers is a good thing, and the Kraken have options with the current rostered players that can play both wing and center. We would rather see Wright make the team first and eventually ease him into a top-six center role. Keeping Wennberg around gives them the ability to do that.
Wennberg, a former first-round pick, has a 10-team modified no-trade clause (M-NTC).
What it would take to re-sign Wennberg?
Three comparable contracts were used (player name, contract terms, age when signed):
Vincent Trocheck (seven year at $5.625M AAV, signing age 29) – First-line center averaging over 21 minutes per game. This physical forward also plays in all situations and averages 50-60 points a season. It helps that Artemi Panarin plays on his wing.
Phillip Danault (six years at $5.5M AAV, signing age 28) – Shutdown center that has a scoring touch, tallying over 50 points in each of the past two seasons.
Alexander Kerfoot (two years at $3.5M AAV, signing age 28) – Since joining Arizona, Kerfoot has played both PP and PK minutes. He has a career average of ~40 points a season.
Wennberg is currently at $4.5M AAV, so he falls in the middle of these contracts, and that is about right. Both Trocheck and Danault were able to sign longer-term deals due to their skill sets. The defensive-minded Wennberg is in the same camp and will be looking for the longest term possible (four-plus years).
We think the Seattle Kraken will look to capitalize on his early 30’s and try for another three-year deal. We see the AAV landing in the $4-$5.5M range with a three-to-five-year term.
Chris Driedger (Age 29) – Target: Let walk
The goaltender was the Kraken’s Expansion Draft pick from the Florida Panthers after he compiled 21 wins and a .930 save percentage over two years. Unfortunately, the Canadian netminder has not panned out in Seattle, posting an .899 save percentage in the inaugural season before getting injured in the IIHF World Championship in 2022. Since that time, Driedger has only played two NHL games and spent the rest of his time in the AHL.
The WHL product cleared waivers after this season’s training camp, as other NHL teams did not want any part of his $3.5M cap hit.
With Philipp Grubauer being activated off injured reserve Tuesday, Driedger was re-assigned to the Coachella Valley Firebirds. A trade still could happen, but there are currently teams in need of goaltending, and a deal has yet to be done. This indicates his cap hit and small sample size, since returning from injury, are issues. The Kraken will most likely keep Driedger as an insurance plan in the AHL, in case there is a future goalie injury. We foresee Seattle letting Driedger and his 10-team M-NTC walk at the end of the season.
Devin Shore (Age 29) – Target: Trade for a fifth-round pick
The veteran of over 400 games is the perfect depth insurance policy. He can play center or wing and jump up and down the lineup as needed. Having this flexibility is something that NHL clubs in the playoffs value. Shore is on a two-way contract, meaning he is paid $250K in the AHL and the league-minimum $775K when with the Kraken.
The following two trades were used for comparison (player name, age when traded):
Curtis Lazar (27) – New Jersey sent a fourth-round pick to Vancouver in 2023.
Ryan Carpenter (31) – Calgary traded a fifth-round pick to Chicago in 2022.
In return for Shore, a fourth- or fifth-round pick could be expected.
Overall
Trades are hard to predict, and we don’t see the Kraken pulling the trigger to sell, as long as they have a path to the playoffs. Another aspect that was not covered is the NHL salary cap is expected to go up to $87.7M next year, so every team is going to have some extra flexibility.
Please comment on what trades you feel are possible and if the Kraken should re-sign or trade their existing UFA’s. If you missed part I, you can find it here.
Next project is to review the Kraken’s restricted free agents (RFA), so look for that in the coming weeks.
The boys are back in studio for this episode, and John and Darren popped over to Chicago Blackhawks practice on Wednesday to catch up with Ryan Donato. It’s a relatively brief chat, but it’s great to hear from the fan-favorite former Seattle Kraken.
Also in this episode, a high level of shenanigans, including Darren talking about his harrowing arrival at BarrDown Studios for recording. Plus, discussion about the streaky Kraken’s latest streak and what Seattle might do with its pending UFA’s this season.
Segments include Bad Boys, You Don’t See That Every Day, Weekly One-Timers, and Tweets of the Week.
Most of my “Musings” do not come to me until the final Kraken game has been played for the week, so with a Sunday-night game against Toronto this week, I’m required to push the Monday Musings to Tuesday. For all of you who were refreshing your browser on Monday looking for these Musings, sorry, but “my process” is my process. (Foreshadowing: The Kraken have another Sunday game this coming week.)
Alright, the Kraken are streaking again!!! But, not in a good way. Seattle has now dropped four games since it won nine games in a row. Sickness, injuries, and now a suspension have made this stretch particularly challenging. To the credit of the players, I feel the effort was there in three of the four games, but the Kraken have zero points to show for it.
I talked about it on the Sound Of Hockey Podcast last week, but the high-end talent is abundantly obvious when they play against the likes of the New York Rangers, Edmonton Oilers, and Toronto Maple Leafs, and is obviously lacking for Seattle. That is not to say the Kraken cannot beat teams with high-end talent, but they need their traditional balanced approach with threats to score on all four lines. With Matty Beniers, Vince Dunn, and Yanni Gourde all out of the lineup, that balanced attack weakened.
Missing Vince Dunn
Dunn might be the most notable departure from the team right now. He had four goals and six assists over his last eight games and was on the ice for close to 50 percent of the Kraken’s power play time over that span. Dunn’s skill is another variable that a defensive unit needs to contend with, which might give opposing teams pause before playing aggressively during the Kraken power play.
The impact is that it opens other opportunities on the power play. Ryker Evans has been ok in backfilling for Dunn but will need a lot more time in the NHL before becoming a dynamic part of the Kraken power play.
Is it time to ignore face-off percentages?
After the Edmonton post-game broadcast, there was a little chatter about the Kraken’s struggles on the face-off dot. We have covered this before, but face-offs are not as meaningful as once considered. There are still a host of old-school believers in the importance of face-offs, which is why it gets discussed as a point of emphasis from time to time.
Let’s look at the Kraken’s face-off percentages this season and the outcomes by game.
It is easy to look at the last four games and point to the face-off percentages as proof that draws are important, but then look at the nine-game win streak. In only one of the nine games during the streak did the Kraken have a winning face-off percentage. Bottom line, there is certainly room for improvement in the face-off circle, but it is not the driving factor for the current string of losses.
Other Musings
There is no denying the Kraken have been struggling to score goals lately, but they are also struggling to get pucks on net. Sunday’s 17 shots versus the Toronto Maple Leafs ties a franchise record for the fewest shots on net in any game. The Kraken have now reached a franchise low of shots on net over a 10-game span.
The Kraken are also not drawing a lot of penalties right now. Only the San Jose Sharks have fewer power-play opportunities per game in January.
Based on historical records, I put the Kraken’s playoff chances at 22 percent. If they get six points out of a possible eight before the All-Star break, their chances jump to 32 percent. They increase to 40 percent if they manage eight out of eight.
I believe if this team can get and stay healthy for the rest of the season, they can make the playoffs and disrupt any opponent with their balanced lineup, just like last year. Health remains a big question mark, though.
Alex Wennberg played 14 minutes of Auston Matthews’ 21 minutes of time on ice Sunday. Wennberg’s contributions are appreciated.
I still think about the below play and wonder if it would have changed the outcome of the game against the Oilers.
Oh, that stinks. Joey Daccord makes an incredible stretch pass to Alex Wennberg, who scores, but Kailer Yamamoto was changing lines offside on the other side of the ice.
As much as I love Wennberg, it is hard to imagine he will re-sign with Seattle and is likely a trade candidate if the Kraken are out of the playoff picture come Trade Deadline. If Wennberg is traded, I expect Shane Wright to be called up and stick with the Kraken for the remainder of the season.
Andre Burakovsky still looks like he is struggling out there. He has one of the best shots on the team but has been off so far. He may need a few more games to settle back into his normal game.
Player performances
Jagger Firkus – Firkus continues to be incredible playing for the Moose Jaw Warriors. He had a hat trick on Friday against Swift Current and is averaging three points per game since returning from the IIHF World Junior Championship.
David Goyette – Another second-round selection for the Kraken has seven points over his last three games playing for the Sudbury Wolves in the OHL.
Oscar Fisker Mølgaard – A friend of the Sound Of Hockey pod and yet another second-round draft pick of the Seattle Kraken, Fisker Mølgaard has points in five straight games playing for HV71 in the top Swedish league. He has six points over those five games after notching just seven points in his prior 28 games. Oscar is still just 18 years old.
Remember how I said face-offs don’t matter? Well, one area I obsess on is the lack of face-off wins when killing a penalty. My logic is simple; if you win face-offs while killing a penalty in the defensive zone, you increase your chances to clear the puck and killing 15 to 20 seconds off the clock, thus limiting the number of shot attempts during the penalty kill.
AH HA! The data says the Seattle Kraken are the second worst at winning face-offs when killing penalties in the defensive zone. This confirms my eyes, correct? Well, sort of, but my logic might be flawed.
If my assertion is correct, a team’s penalty kill percentage should go up as its short-handed face-off win percentage in the defensive zone goes up. It would be illustrated in the graph with a trend line going from bottom left to upper right.
This visual says quite the opposite. My theory has holes, but it won’t stop me from pointing out that two of Edmonton’s goals last Thursday were after a Kraken defensive-zone face-off loss while Seattle was shorthanded.
Bottom line, there probably is some more research to be done here, but I am becoming more and more skeptical of face-offs as a meaningful stat. If only someone would have told me this before doing all this work.
Goal of the week
Whoa! That is a nasty goal by Jared McCann with 5:36 left.
Theoretically, this should be one of the easier four-game stretches on the schedule, as Seattle faces Chicago, St. Louis, Columbus, and San Jose before the All-Star break/bye week. However, Yanni Gourde still has one more game to sit out due to his suspension, and there is no ETA provided for the return of either Beniers or Dunn. It is critical that the team secures at least four points out of a possible eight, but the Kraken really should aim higher, given the level of competition they will face.
As always, I appreciate the feedback, discussion, and thoughts in the comments section, even if they go against observations in the post. If there are any questions or areas you would like me to explore, leave a comment and I will either respond or post in future articles.
The Kraken are inching closer to a major inflection point in their season, when their front office will need to decide which players with expiring (or soon to expire) contracts should be kept and which ones should be moved on to new teams. As Seattle has floundered over the past week, we’ve begun thinking again about what the team might do if it has to be a seller at the NHL Trade Deadline, which falls on March 8.
In this two-part series, we’re going to look at all the players on expiring contracts, focusing first on the older ones (over 30 years old) in Part I, then shifting in Part II to those under 30.
For Part I, we think it will be a useful exercise to go through each pending UFA, discuss what he brings to the Kraken, and consider if the team should re-sign the player or look to trade him if in a selling position.
Let us start with a definition for unrestricted free agent (UFA). A UFA is a player who is not under contract and is free to sign a deal with any NHL team. Players are considered UFA’s if they are 27 years of age or older or have played at least seven NHL seasons. UFA’s can only negotiate/re-sign with their current team during the season, but once free agency opens in the summer, they can sign anywhere. Talks with other NHL clubs can start after the NHL Draft on June 29, and players can officially sign with other clubs on July 1.
Possible trade returns
It is hard to get exact value of what a player will return in a trade. There are many factors that play into trades, such as team salary cap situation, player age, player performance, salary retainment, and contract term remaining. For this exercise, trades over the last three years were reviewed, and focus was put on trades for rental players that best matched the Kraken player’s position, age, and performance.
By the way, a “rental” is a player targeted in a trade whose contract is expiring at the end of the year. Barring a deal that is too good to pass up, we would only expect the Kraken to sell at the deadline if they are out of the playoff picture. If the team does end up selling, the third-year franchise will be looking to harvest draft picks to augment its prospect pipeline and and grab more chips to hopefully find some star power through the draft.
Notes on re-signing players
There are two main pieces to an NHL contract, average annual salary and term. As players move deeper into their careers, teams want shorter terms, whereas players want longer terms, as this could be their last NHL contract. We will compare some contracts that closely match the Kraken UFA’s performances and ages.
Kraken UFA players
The Seattle Kraken have seven players that will be UFA’s at the end of the season. After realizing it would take a really long article to review all seven players, we have decided to split it up into to two parts.
The players (separated by over/under 30 years old) are:
Jordan Eberle (Age 33) – Target: Re-sign for three years at $5 million AAV
Eberle came to the Kraken as the Expansion Draft pick from the New York Islanders. He is a top-six forward that has been on a 20-goal pace 10 out of his 11 seasons. This campaign is the first season he is off the 20-goal pace. He has played in 982 career games and is set to cross the 1000-game mark in mid-March.
As an alternate captain for his entire tenure with the Kraken, Eberle has played on the top line and provided mentorship to budding young star, Matty Beniers. Eberle is second in Kraken franchise history with 47 goals. Among Eberle’s offensive skill set is a wicked backhand and some smooth hands in tight spaces. His current contract comes with a $5.5M cap hit.
Trade return possibilities:
The following three trades were used for comparison (player name, age when traded):
Calle Jarnkrok (Age 30) – Seattle General manager Ron Francis was able to get a second-, third-, and seventh-round pick to Calgary in 2022.
Rickard Rakell (Age 28) – Pittsburgh sent a second-round pick, Zach Aston-Reese, and two AHL players to Anaheim in 2022.
Gustav Nyquist (Age 33) – Columbus fetched a fifth-round pick from Minnesota in 2023.
In all of the trades above, salary was retained, which the Kraken have the flexibility to do as well. Eberle’s possible trade range could be as low as a fifth-round pick or as high as multiple picks topping out at a second-rounder.
At the time of his trade, Nyquist was injured, but had been scoring at the same clip as Eberle, which does not bode well. Jarnkrok was scoring above his career average at the time of his trade from Seattle to Calgary and returned a bounty of picks. Eberle does have a 16-team no-trade list as part of the modified no-trade clause (M-NTC) in his contract.
The good news is GM Ron Francis swung a solid return in the Jarnkrok deal, so hopefully he can push for a return matching the Boi Boi Calle trade. Expect a deal to include at least a second-round pick plus additional picks or prospects.
What it would take to re-sign Eberle?
David Perron signed a two-year, $9.5M contract as a UFA just after his 33-year-old season. Perron scores just a hair under Eberle, but matches him in leadership, playing time, and power-play experience. Another player contract we could compare to is the Kraken’s own Tomas Tatar, but we will be talking more about him later.
Eberle is on the back nine of his career. If the Kraken want him back, they would likely be targeting a one- or two-year deal, similar to Perron’s, and we would imagine the Eberle camp pushing for a third or fourth year.
The winger is trending on a ~40-point pace, and if that continues, a pay cut could be in his future. On the other hand, if he returns to form and has a stellar second half of the season, a contract in his current range is likely. It should be noted that scoring is down for the Kraken as a whole, so Eberle’s point totals could be a result of a more defensive game plan.
The former first-round pick does bring power-play abilities and leadership to the group. If he re-signs with the Kraken, which he has said publicly he wants to do, we predict a two- or three-year deal in the $4.5-$5.5M range for Eberle to finish his career with the Kraken.
Justin Schultz (Age 33) – Target: Trade for second-round pick
Schultz joined the Kraken as a free agent, signing a two-year $6M deal with a 10-team M-NTC before the 2022-23 season.
With Ryker Evans knocking on the door, we believe Schultz is the most likely defenseman to not be with the Kraken next year. That takes re-signing him off the table, so we will focus on trade return.
Schultz runs the second power-play unit and has settled into a third defense pairing with his previous Pittsburgh Penguins teammate Brian Dumoulin.
Comparable trades (player name, age when traded):
Ben Chiarot (Age 30) – Florida really wanted Chiarot and paid first- and fourth-round picks, plus an AHL player to Montreal in 2022.
Mark Giordano (Age 38) – The first ever and only Seattle Kraken captain returned two second-round picks plus a third-round pick to Toronto in 2022. It should be noted Colin Blackwell was included in this deal with the Maple Leafs as well.
Brett Kulak (Age 28) – Edmonton traded second- and seventh-round picks, plus NHL player William Lagesson to Montreal in 2022.
Schultz is definitely a valuable depth defenseman with offensive prowess that a team making a playoff run will covet. A second-round pick is probably the highest pick the Kraken can get, but an additional lower-round pick (or two) could be thrown in. Targeting a trade like Kulak’s is conceivable. Looking a bit at Giordano’s trade, which is a package deal, could be something Francis would explore as well.
Tomas Tatar (Age 33) – Target: Trade for second-round pick
Tatar went from making $4.5M last season to signing a team-friendly deal with the Colorado Avalanche, only to get buried on the fourth line and eventually traded to the Kraken for a fifth-round pick.
Now playing on the Kraken’s top line at $1.5M, Tatar has been a steal. The Kraken could look to re-sign Tatar in the $2.5-$3.5M range on a short one-to-two-year contract. The big question is, will Tatar want to stay or go to a team favored to win the Stanley Cup?
Since joining the Kraken, the player affectionately known as “Tuna” has rejuvenated his offense. The comparable trades for Tatar are the same as the trades for Eberle. Tatar has averaged 45-50 points a season over his career and could return almost as much value as Eberle, since he is on a cheaper contract, helpful for teams that are cap constrained. A first-round pick is still out of the question, but a second is definitely feasible.
Being that the Kraken only traded a fifth-round pick to acquire Tatar, trading him could end up being a quick return on investment.
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare (Age 38) – Target: Trade for fourth-round pick
The veteran center signed with the Kraken for one year at the league minimum, $775K. Bellemare offers defense, including penalty-killing time, and above 50 percent in the face-off dot. There are only three players in the NHL that are 39 or over, so he is definitely reaching the end of his career, but Bellemare has played effectively this season.
With his current cap hit, we could see extending Bellemare’s deal for one more year. He is currently on injured reserve but is a depth center with NHL playoff experience when healthy.
We found one comparable trade (player name, age when traded):
Derick Brassard (Age 34) – Edmonton traded a fourth-round pick to Philadelphia in 2022.
A reasonable return could be a third- to fifth-round pick due to Bellemare’s penalty-killing expertise. He is also a possible thrown-in player added to a package deal that could upgrade a trade for the Kraken.
Overall
Trades are hard to predict, and we don’t see the Kraken pulling the trigger as long as they have a path to the playoffs. One aspect of trades we did not dig into much is package deals. Francis has experience with this type of trade, bundling Blackwell with Giordano to get an extra second-round pick in the inaugural season.
For any of the Kraken UFA’s, it would be a stretch to get a first-round pick as part of the return, but packaging up two players could be enough to push a first-round pick into the conversation.
A past package deal that is of interest:
Kyle Palmieri and Travis Zajac – These New Jersey Devils were traded as a package to the New York Islanders for first-, fourth-round picks, and two AHL prospects in 2021.
Please comment on what trades you feel are possible and if the team should re-sign or trade its pending UFAs. Part II can be found here.
With their forward lines in a blender, the Seattle Kraken again struggled to generate offense Sunday, and the result was a 3-1 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs, their fourth loss in a row.
The group is still battling through injuries, illnesses (although the bug that’s been working its way through the dressing room seems to be subsiding), and now even a suspension to Yanni Gourde. So the lineup got jumbled again, and a discombobulated offensive attack struggled to get much through a team not known for its defensive prowess.
Here are our Three Takeaways from a 3-1 Kraken loss to the Maple Leafs.
Takeaway #1: Not enough offense
Toronto goaltender Ilya Samsonov has struggled mightily this season, to the point that he was demoted to AHL Toronto Marlies for a stretch. He hadn’t won an NHL game since Dec. 9, and since that win, hadn’t gotten over a .870 save percentage in any of his five outings.
Samsonov deserves credit, because he made a handful of remarkable saves in this game, particularly the three in a row on Tomas Tatar in the second period and the sprawling save on Justin Schultz with 6:39 left in the third.
Wow. On just the 15th shot of the night for the #SeaKraken, Justin Schultz gets robbed by Ilya Samsonov.
Still, Seattle did not get nearly enough pucks through to Samsonov in this game, mustering a total of 17 shots on goal and taking only a 40-percent share of the shot quality, according to Natural Stat Trick.
“If you really break it down, they took advantage of one more scoring opportunity than we did,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “They’re going to be a challenge to play against because of the octane that they have and the way that they can get up ice.”
On the topic of “really breaking it down,” it’s never a good sign when you can think through a game in your head and easily remember all the scoring chances a team had, and that is doable when recalling this game.
The Kraken had a tipped shot that Samsonov kicked out to Jaden Schwartz in the first, and his rebound shot got blocked. They had a goal by Jordan Eberle and then a breakaway for Oliver Bjorkstrand on which he hit the crossbar, the three-save sequence on Tatar, and the robbery on Schultz. You could maybe mix in the four-on-one rush in the second period, but Seattle didn’t execute on that and ended up not getting a shot.
There were a few more where Kraken players had open looks and missed the net, but that’s really the extent of what Seattle was able to generate.
Takeaway #2: Line jumbling
Absences certainly contributed to the offensive struggles of the Kraken on Sunday. With centers Matty Beniers and Yanni Gourde both missing (plus top defenseman Vince Dunn), coach Dave Hakstol mixed things up both with his pre-game lineup and throughout the contest.
Oddly, at morning skate Sunday, the team did not do any line rushes, and with a handful of players missing from practice Monday, there wasn’t an opportunity for new line combos to get comfortable playing together. Maybe Hakstol figured line rushes didn’t matter, since he knew things were going to get constantly shuffled in this game anyway, with the team down two centers.
The only line that remained intact from previous games was Tatar, Jared McCann, and Eberle, the trio that scored the Kraken’s lone goal and should have gotten a second one.
Aside from that group, things were mixed up, as Hakstol matched up Alex Wennberg and Eeli Tolvanen against Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, played John Hayden and Devin Shore under six minutes each, and rotated through the rest of the forwards.
“It definitely puts up a challenge for us having guys out and different line combinations and guys who don’t play center that much, but I’m not going to use that as an excuse,” Bjorkstrand said. “We can still win games. And yeah, when guys are hurt, you’ve got to find a way.”
We don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Kraken looked disjointed at times in this game. With two of their top three centers and their best puck-moving defenseman out, Hakstol and his staff were doing what they could to get things on track. But in the end, nothing really worked.
Takeaway #3: Streaky Kraken
It’s easy to attribute the current four-game skid to all the health (and disciplinary) issues this team has endured of late, but there’s no denying that this group is officially streaky.
After losing eight in a row, the Kraken flipped a switch and took points in 13 straight, including a nine-game win streak. Since that ended, they’ve struggled offensively, scoring just five goals in four games, and the results have followed suit.
“We have to find a way to score, especially when the last few games, we’re fighting it a bit at 5-on-5,” Eberle said.
The good news is that the Kraken has a soft schedule coming up, with three terrible teams (the Blackhawks, Blue Jackets, and Sharks) and one mediocre team (the Blues) on the docket before heading into a nine-day All-Star break and bye week.
As Seattle continues to drift back out of the playoff picture, the time is nigh for the Kraken to flip the script and start streaking in the other direction once 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.
A big game and a big road trip ended Thursday with a big thud in Edmonton. The road-weary and still unwell Kraken are thankful to be back home after their longest journey of the season, but the second half of the trip left fans, players, and coaches alike feeling disappointed.
“As you get into these trips, obviously, [3-3-0] is not what we wanted,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “You get one of these last games, either in New York or tonight, and you walk away feeling like it’s a really successful, good road trip. But we weren’t able to do that, and that’s disappointing.”
Alas, after winning the first three games of the jaunt, Seattle got sick and hurt and went from a nine-game win streak to a three game losing streak.
Here are our Three Takeaways from a 4-2 Kraken loss to the Oilers.
Takeaway #1: Good start, but then…
We were convinced after the first period that Seattle was going to run away with that game and that the Oilers’ 11-game win streak would come to an end.
Seattle jumped out to an early 2-0 lead, taking advantage of poor transitional defense from Edmonton and converting with pretty goals by Eeli Tolvanen and Jared McCann.
The McCann goal, especially, was a quick-strike banger created by tic-tac-toe passing from Yanni Gourde to Jordan Eberle to McCann, who finished with a perfect shot into the very top corner of the net for the second consecutive game. While the team has floundered the last few games, Seattle’s top goal scorer is heating up.
There were also a couple missed opportunities, which we will discuss in Takeaway #2, but once the second period got underway, the game went sideways.
“The first 20 was good,” Hakstol said. “The first 10 minutes of the second period is what would cost us. We weren’t as sharp as we needed to be and gave up too much in that time, so we had to push back after that. But we weren’t able to capitalize on what was a good start.”
By the 8:00 mark of the second, Warren Foegele had scored twice, Leon Draisaitl had banked one in off Joey Daccord on the power play, and suddenly the Kraken had gone from being in the driver’s seat to chasing the game.
“We gave them too much,” McCann said. “We’ve just got to realize that sometimes you’ve just got to play D, and especially against a team like that. So, it’s a learning experience for us.”
Hakstol called a timeout to settle things down, but Seattle was never able to tilt the ice back in its favor, and high-flying Edmonton rolled to its 12th consecutive win.
Takeaway #2: Missed chances
There were two key plays at the offensive end of the ice that stand out as killers for the Kraken’s momentum in this game. The first came at the end of the opening period, when Brandon Tanev had a breakaway opportunity, Seattle’s third such rush of the frame. With a chance to send Seattle to the room with a 3-0 lead, Tanev flubbed the shot and missed wide, which kept the game within reach for Edmonton.
Then in the second period, with Seattle trailing 3-2, Daccord showed off his incredible puck-handling abilities for the umpteenth time and hit Alex Wennberg in stride at the far blue line with a perfect stretch pass, catching the Oilers in a line change.
Oh, that stinks. Joey Daccord makes an incredible stretch pass to Alex Wennberg, who scores, but Kailer Yamamoto was changing lines offside on the other side of the ice.
Wennberg glided in and scored, but a challenge showed Kailer Yamamoto—making a line change of his own and completely uninvolved in the play—had inadvertently drifted over the blue line ahead of the puck. Edmonton won the challenge and negated the tying goal.
It’s not in the spirit of the offside rule to negate a goal because a guy on the opposite side of the ice is not paying attention, but the rule is the rule, and Yamamoto made a bad mistake there. There’s no reason for him to cross the blue line to exit the ice; he just has to be more aware of his surroundings in that scenario.
Of course, there are no guarantees Seattle would have come away with a win had Tanev scored or Yamamoto stayed onside, but those were crushing mishaps in retrospect.
Takeaway #3: Tough way to end the trip
This game was always going to be an uphill battle for the Kraken, who we knew were still dealing with injuries and illnesses coming in to face the hottest team in the NHL. We also knew Seattle was closing out a dreadfully long two-week, six-game trip, with an odd stopover in Edmonton after spending 12 days on the East Coast, and the players were surely looking forward to getting home to their loved ones and their own beds.
But this was also a huge game against a divisional rival that the Kraken needed to win to come home feeling positively about the trip. Instead, they let an early two-goal lead evaporate in a matter of minutes, and they came home with an uninspiring 3-3-0 record.
Now, there are two pieces of good news for the Kraken. 1.) The team is getting marginally healthier. Andre Burakovsky returned and played 14:16, though he was -1 on the night and did not register a shot on goal. Our friend, Piper Shaw also reported that Vince Dunn skated separately from the team Thursday morning, so hopefully he too is on the mend. 2.) Seattle finally gets a day fully off and at home Friday to recuperate.
“We’ve got to get home,” Hakstol said. “We don’t have a lot of time, but we get a day off [Friday], and we’ll try to get some bodies healed up and feeling better. And then we have to get back at it at home.”
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.
Things *WERE* going swimmingly for the Seattle Kraken, but then they hit a big bump in the road with illnesses and injuries hitting all at once.
Fortunately, the Sound Of Hockey Podcast has a fantastic interview this week with long-time NHL goalie and TNT analyst, Brian Boucher. It’s a fantastic interview.
Also on this week’s episode, Weekly One-Timers, a new “Weekly Wager,” and much more.
It was better but still not good enough for the Kraken, who continued their battle with illnesses and injuries Tuesday. One day after lacking any kind of jump in Pittsburgh, Seattle came apart late in the second period, which led to its second loss in as many days, this one to the New York Rangers, 5-2.
The Kraken exited the first period trailing 2-1, then tilted the ice for the first 10 minutes of the second before the wheels came off the wagon.
Now, after their 13-game point streak ended Monday, the Kraken have suddenly lost two in a row, and things won’t get easier Thursday in Edmonton.
Here are our Three Takeaways from a 5-2 Kraken loss to the Rangers at Madison Square Garden.
Takeaway #1: Costly “bump-up” goal
The Kraken were a tad flat in the first period, but they were hanging in with the fresher Rangers for the most part. They conceded an unsurprising power-play goal to Vincent Trocheck after taking two consecutive penalties, but even so, we thought they might get things going in the right direction when Jordan Eberle tied it 1-1 on a beautiful tic-tac-toe passing play at 10:41.
Eberle scores a beauty of a power-play goal to tie it 1-1 for the #SeaKraken, but then Erik Gustafsson just answered 28 seconds later.
Instead, Erik Gustafsson used a moving screen to beat Chris Driedger from distance just 28 seconds later, and that sapped things for Seattle for the rest of the opening frame.
“We call those bump-up shifts after a goal,” Eberle said. “To try and continue with the momentum of a game, those always— on either side, if you score after they score, the momentum shifts pretty quickly. So, we need to be focused on those individual shifts, those lapses in the game. There’s always going to be momentum shifts, but you want to have it and keep it.”
Goals on the so-called “bump-up shift” were a big thing in the prior two seasons for the Kraken, but they’ve calmed down this season. When they happen in the wrong way, though, they still really crush the team’s momentum.
“It’s something we kind of pride ourselves on, having a great bump-up shift the next shift as well, right?” McCann said. “[We want to come] out with a high-energy line. And unfortunately they were able to get one there, but you know what? Sometimes it happens, and we’ve just got to regroup, refocus, and move forward.”
Takeaway #2: Second period spiral
Even after the slightly sluggish first period, the Kraken looked like they were going to tie the game again in the early stages of the second. They were buzzing, especially in the first few minutes of the frame, and hemmed New York into its zone for multiple shifts.
Seattle had some great looks in those first 10 minutes of the period, but Igor Shesterkin stood tall long enough for his mates to get another one by Driedger, who didn’t have a great night in his second start of the season.
The best chance came from Seattle’s fourth line, when Tye Kartye and Kailer Yamamoto had a clear-cut 2-on-1. Yamamoto elected to shoot, but Shesterkin rejected it with his blocker and got enough pace on the rebound to skip it over Kartye’s stick.
“We had great opportunities,” Hakstol said. “We didn’t execute on the 2-on-1; Shesterkin made the save on Yamo, and [on another] 3-on-1, we just didn’t execute. So really that’s the difference in the hockey game.”
Midway through the period, the Rangers got a good bounce when Blake Wheeler got a piece of a Jonny Brodzinski shot, and it then caromed off Driedger and in. Five minutes later, Kaapo Kakko scored off a 2-on-1, his first goal since he returned from a long-term injury Sunday.
That made it 4-1 heading to the third, and you knew the sick, tired, and hurt Kraken were not overcoming that deficit at MSG.
Takeaway #3: Going through it
While the Kraken are notoriously secretive when it comes to the health of their players, they have not been hiding the fact that the team is dealing with a lot right now. Adam Larsson was back in the lineup Tuesday after leaving Monday’s game with whatever bug is going through the team, but Seattle remained without Vince Dunn, Matty Beniers, and Andre Burakovsky Tuesday.
Hakstol again said all three of those players are day-to-day, but Beniers was placed on injured reserve Monday, and John Hayden was recalled from Coachella Valley.
Aside from those guys, we’re gathering that lots of players are under the weather. Hakstol mentioned Ryker Evans as one of the individuals playing at less than 100 percent, and Evans filled in for Dunn on the top defense pairing and ate up 25:04 of ice time. So, even the “healthy” guys Hakstol is leaning on right now to play extra minutes in the absences of others… Well, some of them are sick too.
“We’ve still got a lot of guys that are fighting through things,” Hakstol said. “That doesn’t just clear up in a day, unfortunately, and some of the effects on guys that had to play big minutes last night were– that wears on you a little bit tonight.”
As Eberle said, the timing of the illness—coupled with another recent rash of injuries—is tough for a team that just came off a massive streak and is now fighting to stay above water.
“The biggest thing is you see this ground that we’ve made up the last month, it can slip away pretty quickly if you start losing games,” Eberle said. “So I think the next game, obviously, is a must-win for us. We’ve got to find a way to… well, get healthy first off, but find some jump [and] some energy.”
This has been a strange road trip so far, with the Kraken winning the first three but then running face-first into a big wall of adversity. Now, to avoid fumbling all the good feelings built up at the start of the trip, Seattle will have to somehow beat an Edmonton Oilers team that has won 11 in a row.
The odds will be stacked very high against the Kraken in that one, but a 4-2-0 trip sounds a heckuva lot better than 3-3-0. It’s officially gut-check time.
All good things must end, and all signs were pointing toward the Seattle Kraken nine-game win streak and 13-game point streak ending Monday in Pittsburgh when they took on the Penguins at a strange early-afternoon start time. Sure enough, the shorthanded (and apparently sick) Kraken lacked their usual jump and fell 3-0 to Sidney Crosby and his mates.
Author’s Note: I have limited time to write this, so this will be a shorter Three Takeaways than usual, but here you go!
Here are our Three Takeaways from a 3-0 Kraken loss to the Penguins.
Takeaway #1: Injury/illness bug biting hard
Before the game, coach Dave Hakstol was even more cagey than usual about his lineup but indicated there would be personnel challenges Monday after Matty Beniers and Andre Burakovsky left early Saturday in Columbus.
So, we had a sense that those two wouldn’t go, but we didn’t expect Vince Dunn to also be missing from pre-game warmups. Once Adam Larsson left the game in the first period after just 4:01 of ice time, you knew the streaking club was facing a major uphill battle the rest of the way.
The Penguins came out looking fresher than Seattle in the second period and connected for two goals, one off a 2-on-1 rush between Bryan Rust and Drew O’Connor, and a second off a one-time snipe by Crosby.
Lacking their usual zest, the Kraken limped through the rest of the game, trying to muster up some offensive push. Although they hit the crossbar twice, they just couldn’t sustain enough pressure to overcome Pittsburgh and get pucks past Tristan Jarry, who made 22 saves in the shutout.
“We just didn’t have the same jump and energy,” Jaden Schwartz said. “When you’re missing key pieces of your team, it’s tough… We’ll be better tomorrow.”
After the game, Hakstol reiterated that several players were under the weather and that Larsson’s early exit was because of illness. We’re still unclear on if Beniers, Burakovsky, and Dunn missed the game because of illness or injury, but Hakstol said all three are day to day.
Takeaway #2: Crosby is still really good
This Penguins club, aging as it is, is still a strong group that is dangerous offensively. They’re unsurprisingly led by their veteran captain, Crosby, who is having a near-MVP-caliber season with a whopping 26 goals and 20 assists in 42 games at 36 years old.
Crosby’s goal (one of two on the afternoon) in the second period was another reminder of the unique skill he possesses to shoot from seemingly any angle accurately and with power. In this case, he received a pass from behind him, and in one fell swoop, dropped to a knee and rifled it against the grain behind Joey Daccord.
Uh oh. 2-0 Penguins after a snipe by Sidney Crosby.
Daccord was complaining about contact with Guentzel in front, but no challenge from the Kraken. pic.twitter.com/eXj1pAPVkD
Daccord thought he may have been interfered with by Jake Guentzel, but nothing doing there, and there was no challenge from Hakstol.
Takeaway #3: What a run
What a fun streak this was. The Kraken went from dead in the water and their fans and media thinking the season was over, to getting on the best streak in their three-year history and launching themselves right back into the playoff conversation.
Seattle turned things around with a stretch of elite, all-world goaltending from Daccord, good defensive structure, and timely, depth scoring.
Now, to get things back on the rails starting Tuesday in New York, the Kraken will likely need some reinforcements from Coachella Valley and some quick recoveries from the guys that are ailing.
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 first period of the 2024 Winter Classic wound down, Kraken fans everywhere were content–basking in rays of sunshine on a beautiful day for outdoor hockey and awash in the afterglow of Eeli Tolvanen’s go-ahead deflection goal that made it 1-0.
With two minutes left on the clock in the opening frame, Brian Dumoulin possessed the puck along the boards in the defensive zone on a low-leverage sequence. Then, in an instant, the game hung in the balance.
The Vegas forecheck pressured Dumoulin, and he attempted an ill-advised backhand centering pass that landed on the stick of Golden Knights forward Jack Eichel. Nothing but open ice separated the Vegas star player from Kraken goaltender Joey Daccord.
It seemed like Eichel had all day to set up his move, and Kraken fans everywhere held their breath. A late-period goal could shift the momentum in favor of the reigning Stanley Cup champs.
But Daccord met that moment, turning away Eichel’s shot. 47,000 fans in attendance roared with approval, and “Jo-ey! Jo-ey!” chants washed over T-Mobile Park. Daccord went on to deny all 35 Vegas shots that day en route to the first ever Winter Classic shutout.
The Seattle Kraken have points in 13 straight games since Dec. 12, and Daccord’s goaltending has been paramount during that run. Daccord has started 12 of 13 games in Seattle’s current point streak, posting a sterling .950 save percentage in that stretch. His 158-minute shutout streak around the Winter Classic is the longest in the league this season, per Scott Malone of ROOT Sports.
Overall, Daccord has a .923 save percentage, which is tied for fifth best in the league among goalies with more than 10 starts. Expected goals metrics rate Daccord somewhere between above average (MoneyPuck) and excellent (NaturalStatTrick, Evolving Hockey) at preventing opposing shots from becoming goals.
Either way, Daccord’s work between the pipes has been impressive of late. It is likely the single most important reason the Kraken are back in contention for a playoff spot.
But that’s not really what this article is about.
A Curious Discovery
In the first part of this two-post series, I outlined a curious discovery: In virtually every gameplay situation, the Seattle Kraken generate better shot quality offensively and significantly suppress opponent shot quality defensively when Daccord is on the ice relative to when another goalie is playing. Displayed visually, Seattle’s shot frequency charts with Daccord on the ice are uniformly stronger than when he is off the ice.
In my first post, I considered a number of potential explanations for this observation and landed on a working theory that Daccord’s active goaltending style may at least partially explain the observed shot quality disparity.
The Project: Tracking Daccord’s aggressive puck play
That said, I wasn’t convinced that goalie puck play could have such a significant impact on overall shot quality outcomes. So, I embarked on a project spanning the last month-plus, tracking Daccord’s activity outside the goal crease.
I manually tracked Daccord’s puck-moving play beginning with the Nov. 22 home game against San Jose and continuing through Daccord’s Jan. 4 start against Ottawa. (Unfortunately, I don’t have video going back to the beginning of this period to match up with my notes because ESPN+ has decided to remove this season’s games from its archives after about 30 days. This is frustrating, and consider this an official, bonus Festivus grievance.)
Based on my tracking, Daccord averaged more than four puck handling plays per game that resulted in a significant advantage at preventing opponent shots or promoting Kraken shots beyond what I would “expect” from a goalie. Generally speaking, these plays fell into one of three categories.
Breaking the forecheck
Most frequently in my sample (averaging three-plus instances per game), Daccord aggressively took control of opposing dump-in entries. Rather than stopping the puck behind the net or taking an easy pass to a support defender below the goal line, as Grubauer often does, Daccord would take possession and look for an active pass up ice. Sometimes he passed directly out of the defensive zone. On other occasions, he advanced it quickly within the zone away from the forechecking pressure. Either way, the quick puck movement consistently broke the forecheck before it could even start.
If opposing offenses recover and establish offensive-zone pressure almost 40 percent of uncontrolled entries, Daccord himself may be responsible for repelling one or more offensive-zone sequences each game more than “expected.” And even this may sell this value short because it does not give him credit for facilitating a controlled zone exit into transition offense (which we will discuss in a moment).
When asked about Vegas’s failure to establish a forecheck during the Winter Classic, Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy began his answer by calling out Daccord’s puck play. “[Daccord] handles pucks well, so that helps [Seattle] be more effective and efficient in [combatting the forecheck].” Cassidy said that puts pressure on the opposition to “put pucks into better areas,” referring to the corners where the goalie is not allowed to touch the puck.
“As far as breaking the pucks out, [Daccord’s activity] makes it a lot easier as a D-man sometimes, if you’re not able to do it as two people back there,” defenseman Vince Dunn said. “Having [Daccord] as a third option for us, it makes it a lot easier and quicker.”
Defenseman Justin Schultz was even more effusive to Kate Shefte of The Seattle Times:“[Daccord is] so talented back there with the puck. I don’t think I’ve ever had a goalie that plays the puck that well. It’s like a third defenseman back there. You just try to get open for him–you know he’s going to make a play.”
This work is most notable in 5-on-5 play but also shows up at key moments on the penalty kill, including this crucial sequence in the first period of the Dec. 29, home game against Philadelphia.
Then, there was an even more memorable backhanded play in the Jan. 4 game against Ottawa.
“As I was making that play, I was like, ‘I really hope this gets out, because if not, I’m going to be in trouble,’” Daccord said that night. “I’ve worked on my stick handling and puck skills a lot over the years, and backhand is definitely way harder than forehand, so happy I got enough wood on it to get it out.”
Added Kraken coach Dave Hakstol, “That was a heck of a play. There are certain plays that have some risk to them. That’s just great skill and the right play at the right time. That was a big clear at that time.”
Since breaking the zone is the most important thing a penalty killer can do, this active puck play may shed some light on the shot quality disparity with Daccord on the ice versus Philipp Grubauer or Chris Driedger observed in the penalty kill chart above. In the Philadelphia example, Daccord’s clear allowed Seattle to change and cost the Flyers more than 20 seconds off the clock before they re-established in the offensive zone.
Active stick and glove in the high-danger areas
Another skill Daccord brings to the table is extreme activity with his stick and glove in and around the blue paint. His mentality seems to be “attack first.” If he sees a loose or contested puck near the net he is quick cover it with his glove or swipe it away with the stick.
The data analysts at MoneyPuck have utilized shot data to generate an “expected freezes” model for goalies. A “freeze” is a stoppage of play caused by a player (usually a goalie) who stops and holds onto the puck. MoneyPuck‘s model tracks the “number of times you’d expect an average goalie to freeze the puck given the shots the goalie has faced.”
Daccord’s play style almost breaks the MoneyPuck model. Through 27 games, Daccord had 19 freezes above expected. The next closest goalie has just nine freezes above expected.
Based on my tracking, this is not because Daccord is hanging onto more shots than he should. On the contrary, I noted him aggressively avoiding freezes on certain shot types I would have expected another goalie to freeze. My theory is that this MoneyPuck data reflects Daccord seizing pucks in the high-danger areas that few other goaltenders would attempt to reach and freeze. (By way of comparison, Grubauer had -30.08 freezes above expected through his 17 games this season.)
In Daccord’s case, my observation is that he is more often using a “freeze” aggressively to mitigate a chaotic, high-danger sequence, which should be an advantage. If this is, in fact, an intentional strategy Daccord is deploying, he is following an approach described in detail by Daccord’s goalie coach father, Brian Daccord, to Fluto Shinzawa of the The Athletic:
What [Brian] Daccord discovered was that in large data sets, freeze rate was an even more accurate reflection of goalie performance than goal expectancy. But although services like Sportlogiq and Clear Sight Analytics track freeze rate, it is not a widely known or used metric.
. . .
A goalie with a high freeze rate, by comparison, is putting himself and his team in more advantageous positions. A faceoff is a 50-50 battle that allows a coach to change players and devise plays.
. . .
[Brian] Daccord anticipates a progression of top goalies steering rebounds to teammates as well as freezing them. For example, a goalie might identify a 3-on-2 rush and see an opportunity for a counterattack. That goalie may punch the puck aggressively beyond the first wave of attackers and onto a teammate’s stick.
“It’s like a chess player thinking three moves out,” Daccord said. “It’s, ‘OK, if I put this puck over to the top of the circle on the other side, we’re going the other way. If I leave this puck within five feet of me, I’ve got three guys on me. If I get the puck 15 feet away from me, we’re going the other way and get everybody trapped.’”
I don’t want to over-emphasize this “freeze rate” statistic because the stat is highly situation specific. There are strategically good and bad freezes, but the approach feels intentional and consistent with Brian Daccord’s philosophy. This will be interesting to track moving forward–even if, in my viewings, it is not as significant a driver of shot quality as Daccord’s puck-moving play described above.
Perhaps even more active than Daccord’s glove is his stick. He frequently uses a poke check to disrupt plays around the net and thwart one-on-one breakaways. This is not a “unique” skill, but he has been effective with it. I had him averaging one disruption of a potential high-danger chance per game with these attacking moves that I characterized as “unlikely” for Grubauer to attempt.
This work doesn’t count towards Daccord’s save percentage or goals saved above expected because he is preventing the shot entirely.
Offensive-minded passing
Finally, Daccord consistently brings an offensive mindset. He is constantly scanning the play so that when the puck hits his stick he knows whether he has an opportunity to create transition offense. Almost once per game, I noted Daccord as directly responsible for creating controlled transition and an offensive chance. Typically, this was by using a stretch pass to an available forward’s stick up ice.
Daccord is particularly aggressive in creating advantages when the Kraken are the on the power play. Daccord will, at times, quickly advance the puck when opposing penalty killers are changing and anticipating a conventional reset.
This work may shed some light on the seemingly counterintuitive finding that the Kraken are able to generate more offense on the power play when Daccord is on the ice reflected in the power play charts above. It is also consistent with the vision for modern goaltending described by Brian Daccord to The Athletic.
Mistake goals will inevitably follow aggressive play
Daccord plays on his toes. He meets every rush at the top of (or above) the blue paint. And he is always calculating if he can take the puck away from the forecheck. This seems to create some shot quality advantages, as laid out above.
That said, playing aggressively comes with risks–and these risks were notable on tape. If Daccord misreads the forechecking pressure, mishandles the puck for a split second, miscommunicates with one of his teammates, or ices the puck when a simpler play was available, his aggressive play can hurt the team.
Adam Larsson laid out both sides of the equation to The Seattle Times. “He’s one of the best I’ve seen [handling the puck], and I think once we move forward and get the connection better with the ‘D,’ the timing better, it’s going to be even more helpful.” That said, “[S]ometimes when you’re too active out of the net, it can cost you a goal.”
That showed up on tape too, with a few notable examples that Kraken fans no doubt recall.
In re-watching all 60 goals Daccord has allowed this season, I noted five goals where Daccord was left incapable of saving the shot due to a mistake that would not have happened but for Daccord’s aggressive play.
This may be a partial explanation for Daccord’s struggles at saving what game logs record as “high-danger chances.” NHL Edge has Daccord among the worst in the league in high-danger save percentage at .760.
These five goals against are important to keep in mind as the “cost” of Daccord’s play style (even if a few of them were not entirely his fault). Comparing this “cost” against the observed play-driving advantages, Daccord’s aggressiveness still seems like a beneficial trade-off for the team right now.
HockeyViz has the Kraken’s all situations shot quality at +9.9 expected goals better with Daccord on the ice relative to the other goaltenders. That said, if the shot quality benefits start to diminish, our final judgment on Daccord’s play style may need to change.
Takeaways on Daccord and the “active goaltender”
After roster cuts, we talked on The Sound of Hockey Podcast about how Daccord’s active play style contrasted with Grubauer’s stay-at-home approach. We debated whether the team would strive to harmonize the approach of the two goalies–for the benefit of the defensive scheme and structure–or allow each to play to their strengths. As we near the midway point of the season, it has become clear that, within certain limits, the Kraken have encouraged the goaltenders to “play their game” even if that means the defensemen need to be mindful of which goalie is in the net.
This has been the right call. Again, I don’t want to over-promise on the working theory I’ve laid out in these two posts. But, based on the data available so far, it appears that Daccord’s aggressive play style comes with a significant strategic advantage in terms of suppressing opponent shot quality and creating additional Kraken shots.
It is possible some or most of the observed shot disparity could be attributed to other factors. It is also possible that it is mostly “noise” in the data. But for the reasons described in my first post, I have reasonable confidence that Daccord’s contributions to shot quality outcomes have not yet been properly measured in public sources.
The Kraken are on a 13-game point streak at the moment. The most important factor in that stretch has been Daccord’s play in net, clearly.
Is it possible that Daccord’s puck play venturing outside the blue paint is the second most important ingredient in the team’s recent success? We need to continue to watch it and collect necessary data. But, right now, I’d say yes.
There’s one important caveat: even if we assume Daccord’s play-driving impact is real, it may not be fully sustainable moving forward. The league may adjust to mitigate Daccord’s strengths by (1) decreasing reliance on dump-in entries, and (2) favoring soft lob entries into the corners when a dump-in is necessary. Cassidy referred to this after the Winter Classic. This chess game is worth watching.
For now, the numbers suggest to me that the Kraken may have a subtle but important strategic asset in Joey Daccord, the play-driving goalie.
Curtis Isacke
Curtis is a Sound Of Hockey contributor and member of the Kraken press corps. Curtis is an attorney by day, and he has read the NHL collective bargaining agreement and bylaws so you don’t have to. He can be found analyzing the Kraken, NHL Draft, and other hockey topics on Twitter and Bluesky @deepseahockey.
