ELMONT, New York — Newest Kraken defender Jaycob Megna wasted no time hitting the shopping malls once he joined the team here following his trade.
Megna, who debuted for the Kraken on Tuesday night against the New York Islanders with 17 minutes, 25 seconds of ice time in a defensive pairing with Carson Soucy, had been with the San Jose Sharks in Tampa Bay, Florida, preparing for a series against the Lightning when dealt Sunday for a conditional fourth-round draft pick. His suitcase contained nothing but “T-shirts and bathing suits and shorts,” so he immediately headed out for some replacement wear upon arrival.
“I went to the store yesterday and bought a winter coat for Winnipeg — I think I saw it’s the last stop on this trip,” Megna said following the team’s Tuesday morning skate. “I’m still going to be cold but hopefully I can manage it. And then, luckily, we go back to San Jose in a couple of weeks. I’ll be able to pick up some more stuff and go from there.”
Megna has some unusual tidbits attached to his background, including having been born in Plantation, Florida — not exactly a hockey hotbed — before his parents moved him and his future NHL-playing brother, Jayson, to Northbrook, Illinois, near Chicago when they were toddlers. The Northbrook house they lived in there later became the subject of a rumor that it was the same one actor Matthew Broderick’s character lived in for the 1986 movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.”
“I have no idea,” Megna said with a laugh. “I think it had something to do with my brother when he was in Vancouver. But it (the movie house) was like 15 or 20 minutes away.
“I don’t exactly know where it is. The only thing I knew is that our high school was in the (movie) credits. I don’t know where the house thing came from.”
Megna’s brother, now with the Anaheim Ducks in a 186-game NHL career dating back to 2013, played for the Vancouver Canucks for parts of two seasons starting in 2016-17. It turns out that right before being promoted to Vancouver from the AHL, he gave an interview with the official website for his Utica Comets team in which he mentioned his high school being in a scene from the movie and added: “Remember the house where Ferris and Cameron have the car running in reverse? That house is where I grew up.”
A few years later, when the house story became somewhat of an urban legend, he backtracked and said he’d lived about 15 minutes away. It is true a scene from the movie was filmed outside of Glenbrook North High School, which the brothers attended.
Another interesting factoid involving Megna’s brother: He’s married to the daughter of onetime star Team USA goaltender Jim Craig from the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” gold medalist squad at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics.
“I see him here and there at weddings and family events,” Megna said. “Obviously, he’s an iconic figure in USA hockey. So, it’s nice to have a little repertoire with that. He’s been good. But my brother obviously spends a lot more time with him than I do.”
The Kraken are counting on the 6-foot-6, 220-pound Megna for additional left-handed depth as they gear for a playoff push. In fact, they opted to sit right-handed defender Cale Fleury on Tuesday — eschewing the left-right combinations they’ve typically favored in their pairings — to get an immediate look at Megna alongside the left-handed Soucy.
Will Borgen, playing in his 100th career game against the Islanders, moved up to the second pairing alongside Jamie Oleksiak as the injured Justin Schultz continued to sit.
Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said after the morning skate that the team is looking for Megna to get comfortable quickly in his new surroundings.
“We know who he is, and we know the type of player he is,” Hakstol said. “We just want him to come in and add to the group. He’s a good two-way defenseman — he defends well, he moves the puck well. He makes that first pass and he’s willing to get up and support the play.”
Hakstol said it’s “important to have a little bit of depth — we have a lot of hockey to play coming up and we’re going to need everybody that we have on this roster.”
McCann gets engaged, with help from Donato
Kraken forward Jared McCann has drawn his share of assists from Ryan Donato, but none bigger than he got from the forward and his fiancée Bradley over the All-Star break. McCann and his girlfriend, Valerie, had gone to Maui and were staying at a resort with Donato and Bradley.
But McCann was bringing something else with him: A rather hefty-sized, Marquise cut diamond engagement ring. Problem is, he wasn’t planning to pop the question for three days.
He’d gotten the ring sent to him about three months ago and had been hiding it around his Seattle-area home. “My girlfriend likes to kind of wander sometimes, you know what I mean?” he said with a chuckle. “So, I kept moving it every month and it worked out.”
Upon arriving in Hawaii, he had to come up with a hiding place once inside his room. “My girlfriend, she likes to go around everywhere and look at stuff,” he said.
Fortunately, Donato and his future wife agreed to let him hide the box in a nightstand drawer in their bedroom. It was a tense few days, but McCann finally got the ring just before the couples headed out for a beachside set of engagement photos for Donato and Bradley.
McCann had stuffed the ring box down the front of his swimming trunks to hide it at the beach. “She would have seen it in my pocket, so I had to put it down my (trunks),” he said. “And the photographer wanted us to do some running motions and stuff, so I was like, ‘Um.’”
But they made it through the shoot with Valerie none the wiser.
“We just kind of piggybacked off them — waited for them to get their photos done,” McCann said.
McCann finally reached down his trunks, got down on one knee and a whole new set of photos began.
-The Kraken took just one penalty, in the third period, killed it off and have now gone eight consecutive games without allowing a power-play goal — the third NHL team to do that this season. They’ve killed off 18 consecutive penalties and have yet to allow a power-play goal by the Islanders in four lifetime meetings.