Kraken goaltender Chris Driedger is out of action, but he is generously helping out potential replacements.
His big-picture replacements.
“I have some spare time on my hands over the next few months,” Driedger said.
The Kraken announced June 7 that Driedger, 28, had successful knee surgery after suffering a torn right ACL on May 29. His estimated recovery timeline was seven to nine months.
He found a rehab assignment — launching his first charitable organization. Driedger’s Keepers offered quick-change goalie pads to young players at the Grassroots Goalie Clinic last weekend at Kraken Community Iceplex. Designed for beginners, the gear goes over skater equipment and can be donned on the ice.
Driedger said many children who want to try the position never do. One reason is their parents are concerned about the significant cost of goalie pads and how quickly they’ll be outgrown. Children’s goalie pads can range from $500 to well over $1,000.
Driedger said he was lucky there were programs similar to the one he’s starting in Seattle in his hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba, where his community center hooked him up. He was loaned pads out of their inventory for years.
“I know minor hockey is just getting going in Seattle, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to step in and do something similar,” he said.
His parents were able to feel relief, not fear, when he announced at 7 years old that he was going to be a goalie.
“I was just no good at being a player,” Driedger said, adding that he scored one goal in his first year and he seemed to recall it being an accident.
“I was just not much of a contributor out there. My skating wasn’t great. But somehow, when I got in net, I was somewhat capable of at least contributing to the team.”
Picking out new, temporary equipment as he grew gave way to one of his favorite parts of the job — designing his helmets and pads. Eventually he progressed out of hand-me-downs and called the shots on his first custom set. They had some gold in them, in honor of former Edmonton Oilers goalie Dwayne Roloson, who often wore gold on his pads.
An expansion draft pick from the Florida Panthers, Driedger made a career-high 27 appearances for the Kraken last season with a 2.96 goals-against average, an .899 save percentage and a shutout April 29.
He suffered a knee injury during the third period of Team Canada’s gold-medal game against Finland at the IIHF World Championships. Driedger took part in the tournament after the Kraken season ended.
“Driedger’s injury at the world championships left us a little precarious, with only two goalies in the system,” Seattle general manager Ron Francis said this summer.
Joey Daccord was the only other goaltender under contract besides starter Philipp Grubauer. Daccord spent most of the 2021-22 season in the American Hockey League.
Seattle signed veteran Martin Jones to back up Grubauer for the foreseeable future. Magnus Hellberg was also signed to a one-year deal in July, but he was claimed off waivers Monday by the Ottawa Senators when the Kraken went to assign him to the Coachella Valley Firebirds (AHL). The Senators had a need after it was announced Cam Talbot would be out of the lineup five to seven weeks because of an upper-body injury.
So the Kraken are thinner at the position than perhaps they’d hoped, but fine.
As for Seattle’s future netminders, if they enjoy the pressure, want to firmly control the outcome of the game, have quick reflexes or just aren’t very good at skating, Driedger wants to help.
“I just want to open up the position as much as I can, and we’ll kind of see what happens,” he said.