SAINT PAUL, Minnesota — Kraken center Shane Wright finally got some playing time Thursday, taking a regular third line shift and second line power play turn after winger Jared McCann was sidelined with a lower body injury.
The Kraken scratched McCann, who is listed as day-to-day, before their 4-0 win against the Minnesota Wild and inserted Wright on a line between Yanni Gourde and Brandon Tanev. Wright played a season high 13:45 — with just under two minutes of that spent with the second power play unit — after missing the past four games as a healthy scratch.
“I thought Shane’s confidence grew throughout the game,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said afterwards. “It was the first time he’s had an opportunity on the power play and he had a couple of little plays there. There are lots of things we can look at and improve on but overall their line played with good energy tonight.”
Wright getting back in a game comes in the midst of some increasingly productive performances by the team’s fourth liners that have made it difficult for the Kraken to find room for him.
Fellow centerman Morgan Geekie had goals in three of those four games and added another Thursday to open the scoring against the Wild. Daniel Sprong had two goals and three assists over that same four-game span and added two more assists on Thursday.
“At the end of the day, everybody in our lineup has to contribute to helping us win hockey games,” Hakstol had said earlier in the day after his team’s morning skate about deciding who plays any given night. “So, it’s a pretty simple evaluation.”
Asked about the need to “reward” players that do contribute by keeping them in the lineup, he replied: “It depends on what type of contributions you’re talking about. … But if they’re going good, like any line, any line that’s going good you want to get them out there more and to give them more opportunity. Because like I said, it’s about contributing to a good win.”
Wright, 18, drafted No. 4 overall in July, didn’t register a shot in the game and went 2-for-4 in faceoff attempts.
The Kraken have come under increased fire in hockey circles for their limited usage of Wright, who’d appeared in only five of 11 games entering Thursday while averaging fewer than seven minutes per contest. But the Kraken also entered Thursday above .500 for the first time in franchise history, sporting a 5-4-2 record overall and a 4-1-1 mark against playoff teams from last season.
Kraken general manager Ron Francis said earlier in the week that he and Hakstol want to play Wright more but circumstances haven’t allowed for it.
On Wednesday, during the second intermission of the Toronto-Philadelphia game being broadcast on Sportsnet in Canada, the Kraken faced heavy criticism by a panel that included Sam Cosentino — known as the “Mel Kiper Jr. of Hockey” for his prospects analysis — and Jason Bukala, a former Nashville Predators scout and current hockey consultant.
“I think it’s absolutely incorrect what the Seattle Kraken are doing with Shane Wright at this point in time,” Bukala told the Canadian national TV audience, adding: “The kid needs a chance to play and to continue to develop.”
Cosentino suggested the Kraken are playing better than most expected and that “the honeymoon is over” for the team in Seattle and Hakstol might be trying to win to keep his job. But he added that for the “long-term sustainability of the franchise” the Kraken must “be able to develop prospects” and are “stunting” Wright’s growth and should send him back to the junior level Ontario Hockey League if they can’t get him 15 minutes a game in the NHL.
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Kraken defenseman Will Borgen, who drew a third period assist when his point shot was deflected by Alex Wennberg, has memories of the Xcel Energy Center arena growing up in Minnesota, though none of them as a fan of the Wild.
“I didn’t really watch much pro hockey when I was younger,” Borgen admitted Thursday, as the Kraken prepared to face the Wild in the second leg of a three-city road trip. “Where I’m from, we’re right next to North Dakota, so it was a lot of college and high school hockey we were focused on.”
Borgen hails from Moorhead, Minnesota, a town of 45,000 in the northwestern part of the state only about two miles from Fargo, North Dakota. He also recently built an offseason house in Moorhead, which, though small in population, is teaming with hockey players, meaning Borgen never had to look far for elite competition.
“We have to drive down to the cities quite a bit to play, but it’s good,” he said. “We have a real good program in Moorhead hockey, a real good culture there that makes a lot of people want to play there.”
He played for Moorhead High School, which is equally renowned for its hockey and arts programs — producing nearly a dozen Broadway actors, directors and animators, alongside a half dozen NHL players. Later, Borgen starred with Saint Cloud State University for three seasons from 2015-2018 ahead of joining the Buffalo Sabres organization that had previously drafted him in the fourth round, 92nd overall.
Used only sparingly by the Kraken last season, Borgen did play his first professional game at this arena for them last April. But he’s since morphed into an everyday NHL player alongside Carson Soucy — the duo allowing the fewest expected goals against per 60 minutes of any of the Kraken’s three main pairings.
Alberta-born Soucy also has deep Minnesota ties, having spent four seasons with the University of Minnesota-Duluth and then parts of three seasons with the Wild.
“I know him really well and we drive together to the rink every day,” Borgen said. “He’s a reliable player — a good player — so it makes it very easy to play with him.”
And for Borgen, the added playing time is also paying dividends.
“The more you’re out there, the more confident you are in your abilities,” Borgen said. “Compared to last year, in and out of the lineup every once in a while, when I was just trying to play more safe. Now, I feel a lot more comfortable out on the ice.”
And though he never cheered for the Wild as a young fan, he did play at Xcel Energy Center in 2016 when St. Cloud State suffered an upset loss to Ferris State in the NCAA Regional Tournament. When the Kraken visited in April, his mother, Lori, had 43 people in the club level of one corner of the rink, while his dad, Bill, had three dozen people in a different suite.
Borgen wasn’t certain how many folks would be on-hand to see him this time.
“It’s always fun being back home, knowing there are people in the stands that are here to watch you.”
Martin Jones was back in goal for the Kraken on Thursday after skipping Tuesday’s game in Calgary to attend to a personal matter in Seattle. The Kraken reassigned goalie Christopher Gibson to the AHL’s Coachella Valley Firebirds while Joey Daccord — who stopped 36 of 40 shots in Tuesday’s win over Calgary — served as the backup to Jones.