Inside the NHL
Right after another in a string of record-setting Kraken road victories last week, a Montreal-based reporter asked the inevitable “accountability” question to a wincing coach Dave Hakstol.
Montreal is as die-hard of a hockey town you’ll find, where the media has spent decades holding the local team accountable. Back when I was growing up there, any Canadiens coach who dared lose three games in a row was instantly on thin ice. So they simply didn’t lose.
Things have changed in the modern, parity-seeking NHL, in which Canadian-based teams haven’t won a title in 30 years and standards for job insecurity have been adjusted accordingly. But even so, last year the Canadiens fired general manager Marc Bergevin and coach Dominique Ducharme — with the Montreal media essentially demanding their demise for months — barely a half-season after guiding their team to the Stanley Cup Final.
So, yeah, they have short memories and still love them some accountability in Montreal.
Anyhow, after the Kraken hammered the Canadiens 4-0, said Montreal media member asked Hakstol whether “the accountability of the group” was his team’s biggest differentiating factor in an instant turnaround from draft lottery contender to playoff contender. Implying, of course, that last season’s team had no accountability — either to results, or each other as teammates.
Hakstol wasn’t biting.
“No, I wouldn’t say that,” Hakstol replied. “Our accountability, if you look at the finish of our year last year, our effort and our will last year, it was pretty good. A lot of that has carried over with the returning players.
“Our roster is significantly different,” Hakstol added. “But the guys that were part of it last year carry a lot of pride. We went through some pretty hard stretches last year, but to a certain degree it really fueled guys coming back in. So that sticks with you. And when you start day one of training camp with a really competitive group, that has an opportunity then to build into the group that we have now.”
And that group is now a 26-14-4 team that — even after back-to-back losses to Tampa Bay on Monday and in Edmonton on Tuesday — remained just two points out of the Pacific Division lead entering Wednesday.
It’s worth remembering that when the Kraken previously visited Montreal last March, they were in a dead heat with the Canadiens and Arizona Coyotes for last place overall. There were calls for the Kraken to “tank” their remaining schedule to finish as low as possible and have a better lottery shot at presumed No. 1 overall pick Shane Wright.
Well, they did one better. They kept trying to play competitive hockey the rest of the way, finished well ahead of Montreal and Arizona and still wound up with Wright.
Fast forward 10 months, and the Coyotes and Canadiens — unlike the Kraken — are again plummeting toward the league’s basement. And they face stiff competition for cellar-dweller status from horrible-looking Chicago, Anaheim and Columbus squads.
Once you make losing a habit, it’s tough to break. Ask any of those teams.
The guy who replaced Ducharme as coach last February, former Tampa Bay Lightning captain Martin St. Louis, has since preached accountability and remaining competitive. But his rebuilding team, already used to losing, is taking time shaking those ingrained ways.
Not so with the Kraken. There were the predictable cracks about the Kraken being doomed to “mushy middle” status once they began playing .500 hockey for second-half stretches last season, but they certainly did not accept losing.
Hakstol wouldn’t let them. And the team’s leaders, primarily Yanni Gourde and Jordan Eberle, were vocal about there being no place for guys who tolerated defeat.
To recycle an overused cliché: The Kraken learned how to win.
Not just by outscoring opponents. Every player from Learn to Play ranks on up knows that’s how you win on the scoreboard. No, they learned other stuff about winning. When scoring leader Jared McCann was thrown defenselessly into the sideboards during a March game in Los Angeles and Kraken players mostly stood around pretending it hadn’t happened, Hakstol let them hear about it.
The next game, if anybody so much as breathed on a Kraken goalie or looked sideways at a skill player, they had a bunch of guys in their face — sometimes pummeling it with their fists. Vince Dunn, beyond blossoming into a serious offensive threat this season, has also become especially more physical in going after guys taking liberties with his teammates.
And that’s part of “accountability” as well. Standing up for teammates and not letting them down.
The Kraken, rather than abandoning that and “tanking” their season, got better at the little things it takes to win. And they still lost enough where it stung badly, namely because they were trying so hard to prevail.
It wasn’t surprising to see McCann show class Saturday by declining to overtly celebrate his hat-trick-clinching goal in Chicago — clearly remembering what it felt like to be humiliated. So that was also part of last season’s graduation: Acting like you’ve been there, done that.
McCann clearly has, on both ends of the equation.
It’s helped the Kraken that, unlike the Blackhawks, Coyotes or Canadiens, they weren’t in the process of being dismantled talent-wise by their front offices. Indeed, one of the issues with last season’s Kraken team is they were probably more of a true .500 club in terms of talent than one with the NHL’s third-worst record.
And they underperformed. Whether it was due to COVID-19 restrictions, unfamiliarity with Hakstol’s system, some guys not wanting to be there, or just not playing up to personal abilities, they spent too much of last season’s first half not getting things done.
Accepting that part and vowing to do better is also part of accountability.
Sure, newcomers such as Matty Beniers, Andre Burakovsky, Justin Schultz and Oliver Bjorkstrand have helped. But the talent infusion of those players alone wasn’t that massive, or impactful, to explain a jump from near-last overall to possible Stanley Cup contender in one summer.
The reality is the Kraken last season were always better than they showed. But they took accountability for the miss before the season ended, spending the final months trying to play as expected to all along.
And when summer reinforcements arrived, they’d already gotten the hard part out of the way. The part that all those prior “tanking” teams are still working on.