After the quickest cup of coffee — more like a shot of espresso — in Southern California, John Hayden turned right back around for Seattle. The Kraken are fighting their first wave of injury concerns as they seek their first win against a Canucks franchise in flux.
Hayden played 8:27 in the Kraken’s last game against the Colorado Avalanche, then was reassigned to the Coachella Valley Firebirds of the American Hockey League on Sunday. He was recalled again Tuesday.
“We’ll need him available tomorrow,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “He’s here for a purpose today for practice and going into the games this week.”
Next up is a game against Vancouver on Wednesday at Climate Pledge Arena. Before his firing was announced Sunday, NHL fans got to witness head coach Bruce Boudreau’s rumored and emotional exit in slow motion, a little over a year after he was hired. Canucks fans knew it was coming and showed support for the 68-year-old with chants of “Bruce, there it is!” during the games leading up to the all-but-decided decision. Boudreau left with a winning record in 103 games with the Canucks.
But Vancouver had lost 10 of 12 games and generally underperformed this season, sitting 12th of 16 teams in the Western Conference and 16 points out of the second wild-card spot on Tuesday.
Rick Tocchet took over and Wednesday’s game will mark his second at the helm. The Kraken took a point from a shootout loss to the Canucks in late December, but haven’t yet beaten them in a season and a half of play, going 0-5-1 against their closest neighbors.
Tocchet was a TNT studio analyst the past several seasons. His previous head-coaching gigs were in Tampa Bay and Arizona. There was more organizational shifting as assistant coach Trent Cull was let go, Adam Foote was brought in and Sergei Gonchar was hired as a defensive development coach.
“I’m sure they’ll tweak and change some things coming into tomorrow night, but I wouldn’t expect a wholesale change,” Hakstol said. “What I expect is a great effort out of their team tomorrow night with whatever structure they’re moving toward.”
The Kraken are dealing with issues of their own, as a regular-season streak of injury luck is faltering. The Kraken have 123 man games lost due to injury, and the majority of those come from goaltender Chris Driedger and winger Joonas Donskoi, neither of whom have played through 46 games. The daily wear and tear has been manageable so far.
Defenseman Justin Schultz, who has missed two games, got a different designation from the rest, as Hakstol said he’s week-to-week instead of day-to-day. Winger Jaden Schwartz is due to miss his sixth straight game Wednesday.
Yanni Gourde is the latest to join the list of questionable players. He played 18:14, the fourth-highest ice time total among Seattle forwards, against the Avalanche but did not go out with the main group Tuesday.
Alex Wennberg’s availability was shaky, but he did play against Colorado. Andre Burakovsky, who leads the team in points with 38 (13 goals, 25 assists), took part in warmups across the ice from the Avalanche but did not play. Gourde, Wennberg and Burakovsky will be game-time decisions Wednesday, according to Hakstol.
The fact that the team’s leading point producer — barely, but he’s been in that spot most of the season — was missing last game didn’t set off alarm bells speaks to the team’s much-discussed depth.
“Some of the guys that had new opportunity, let’s be honest, have to do a little better in some of those elevated positions,” Hakstol said. “But that’s part of the opportunity, is building off a previous performance.
“We’ve got to be a little bit better than we were the other night.”
If any of those three game-time forwards can’t go against the Canucks, that opens up a space for Hayden, 27. The journeyman has played with five different NHL organizations in the past five seasons and was equipped for the Firebirds’ inaugural season, where they played their first 22 games away from their new home arena.
He thought he had “a good chance” of making the Kraken out of training camp after 55 games in Buffalo last season. He was among Seattle’s final cuts. And with the lack of injury call-ups, he was left waiting for another NHL chance until January.
“Of course I would like to be in the NHL full time, but the experience I’ve had so far in Coachella has been great, from a development standpoint,” Hayden said.
Hakstol called Hayden “a character guy” after his first NHL appearance of the season Saturday against the Avalanche.
“He barely got onto the ice in the first period with the number of special teams (stretches) there were and the flow of the period,” the coach said. “His first few shifts in the second period were momentum shifts, him and his linemates. So he did a nice job for us and that’s a credit to him.”
Hayden made it back to California but did not play in the Firebirds’ 4-2 win Sunday.
He’s already turned in a memorable preseason performance against the Canucks. Hayden scored the tying goal and got into two fights in Vancouver in September. If more of that breaks out Wednesday during an already emotional time for the visitors, Seattle is prepared.