Inside the NHL
A three-game homestand for the Kraken this week will involve more than battling the Buffalo Sabres, Vancouver Canucks and Pittsburgh Penguins.
The trio of Climate Pledge Arena matchups presents an opportunity for the Kraken in their bigger, ongoing battle to define for local fans what type of team they’ll be. Establishing a stronger on-ice identity would be a step toward greater relevance in a market where their season debut was overshadowed by the playoff Mariners. They’ll also compete for attention in coming months with the surprising first-place Seahawks.
Through seven games entering Tuesday’s matchup against Buffalo, the Kraken showed signs of escaping their placement among the NHL’s bottom rungs. And that would be critical to making them a hotter ticket and filling some of the ample empty seats at an officially “sold out” home arena, where the Kraken failed to win their first three games.
But wanting it and actually going out and getting it done are different things.
This team is fast becoming a case study for glass-half-full, glass-half-empty factions. Optimists point to wins at Los Angeles and Colorado amid a .500 performance in five consecutive games against expected playoff squads as proof that the Kraken can contend all season.
And that ability to hang around, lending importance to games not just now but down the road in March and perhaps April, will be the true measuring stick for Kraken success. Expansion team or not, nobody running the Kraken expected them to perform as poorly as they did last season, and there is zero appetite within the fledgling organization for another campaign filled with struggles to build value in the product they’re trying to sell.
On the other hand, pessimists will note that the Kraken won road games in Florida and Pittsburgh last season, then home contests facing Carolina and Washington. Those were all playoff teams as well, and yet the Kraken still finished with the NHL’s third-worst record.
Indeed, sitting at 2-3-2 entering Tuesday with losses to Chicago and Anaheim squads expected to finish near the league’s basement won’t dispel pessimists claiming the Kraken belong in the cellar alongside them.
Those are teams the Kraken must consistently defeat if they are to separate themselves.
So it’s on the Kraken to write the narrative. And from this vantage point, on the players more than coach Dave Hakstol.
It wasn’t the coach who coughed up the puck on power plays and yielded key short-handed goals the past two games. Wasn’t him that took his “foot off the gas” — according to winger Jared McCann — with multi-goal leads in Anaheim and Chicago.
Hakstol isn’t tending goal and allowing stoppable pucks get by him. He isn’t suddenly forgetting about opposing forwards in the slot at critical junctures.
The fact is, Hakstol had the Kraken well-positioned to win all but two of the first seven games. And if the players don’t flat-out blow the Anaheim and Chicago contests, you’re at worst looking at a 4-2-1 team that’s the talk of the NHL.
Sure, there’ve been occasional slower starts — and the home opener with Vegas was a disaster — falling under the coaching staff’s responsibility. But those have been addressed. They weren’t a factor in Friday’s victory at Colorado, nor the defeat to the Blackhawks on Sunday.
Hakstol’s debut stint in Philadelphia from 2015-19 — and believe me, the Kraken would gladly take his .560 winning percentage there that included playoff appearances in two of three full seasons — has little bearing on what has happened in October 2022.
Yes, he has used rookie center Shane Wright fewer than seven minutes per game even though he’d like to get him 10 or more. But a team locked in tight third-period struggles nightly isn’t likely to give more late ice time to a raw 18-year-old straight out of junior hockey.
It’s as simple as that.
Even solid rookie Matty Beniers, with more experience than Wright playing against older, professional-type opponents, lost 14 of 15 faceoffs in Chicago. There’s a whole lot of learning already taking place by young players during Kraken games, and only so much of it an NHL team can afford at once.
The NHL isn’t an instructional league. Hakstol and his players are paid to win above all else. Especially considering they’ve yet to lock down their home market and need to provide local fans a reason to show up or tune in.
Starting this week, the Kraken can help themselves on that front by winning some home games. The Sabres, off to a strong start, are still nobody’s pick to win a Stanley Cup, and the Canucks have been inept.
Sure, both could easily beat the Kraken any given night. And yeah, the Kraken won’t have injured starting goaltender Philipp Grubauer until at least the weekend.
Still, they need to start getting it done. They have a tough road trip next week, and any more home failures could guarantee a losing record for some time. We heard a bunch of excuses last season — some more valid than others — for why the team floundered on and off the ice.
But the Kraken aren’t new anymore. They’re no longer going through COVID-19 outbreaks and protocols. They’ve had off-ice team-bonding opportunities. The front office provided a needed offensive infusion. The coaching staff was fortified with the addition of assistant Dave Lowry.
Now the players need to finish the job during games and help put and keep butts in seats. Pandemic vaccination and masking restrictions at Climate Pledge ended in March. The only real excuse left for empty seats at games is a lack of fan interest.
The Kraken need to change that by demonstrating they’ve taken a step forward.
Even a .500 team would be a huge improvement, and doesn’t appear far off. But up to now, the Kraken have had all the inconsistent highs and lows of a typical .500 team without quite the accompanying record.
They can start changing that dynamic by winning some home games they’re theoretically supposed to win. Get that part done this week, and their immediate outlook on and off the ice could suddenly become a whole lot brighter.