PITTSBURGH — Penalty killing has greatly improved for the Kraken during their recent winning stretch and that trend continued Saturday night as the team’s units gain familiarity with a more aggressive style this season.
They’d entered Saturday’s game ranked a lowly 28th out of 32 teams with just a 71.8% success rate at fending off opposing power plays, but had gone 8 for 8 in kills since beating the Penguins last week at Climate Pledge Arena. They promptly killed off two additional penalties in the opening period Saturday and another in the middle frame.
It marked the fourth straight game in which the Kraken have not allowed a power-play goal, the third time in franchise history they’ve done that.
“It’s a game of inches and we did a great job on special teams and the penalty kill,” Kraken forward Brandon Tanev, who helped kill off 3:13 of the six short-handed minutes, said after the game.
Kraken defenseman Carson Soucy, on the ice for just more than two short-handed minutes in this one, had said during the team’s morning skate that the penalty kill units are starting to adapt to the more aggressive diamond formation they’ve been using this season. That system uses one man high on the forecheck, one low and two in the middle as opposed to the more traditional box setup of two defenders up top and two down low.
Soucy also said the team has also started to be even more aggressive out of that setup in recent games.
“The four guys out there have been working hard blocking shots,” Soucy said during the team’s morning skate. “And I think that’s a big thing. We’ve done a lot of things lately that we weren’t. I don’t know if we were just missing early in the season but the dedication’s there right now and it’s paying off.”
Consistent defense
The Kraken entered Saturday as the only NHL team to have gone with the same six defenseman this season. Their pairings of Adam Larsson and Vince Dunn, Jamie Oleksiak and Justin Schultz and Soucy and Will Borgen have remained mostly intact since the opener, with some minor tweaking at times to try to better match up with certain opponents.
“We’ve found a pretty good rhythm there,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said before Saturday’s game. “So, that’s been a nice benefit to have — pairs being able to build chemistry and really find your spots in games in terms of your role and knowing how you’re going to be used in situations where you’ll be called upon.”
Cale Fleury is the team’s seventh defenseman but has not yet dressed for a game.
Larsson began playing with Dunn on the team’s top pairing in the second half of last season. He said that start between them has paid off this season.
“I think anytime you can start building a connection it can be very beneficial,” Larsson said. “And now we’ve started where we left off last year so it’s good to have that trust and stuff going into the season. So, it’s been good.”
Larsson’s more defense-first tendencies provide a backstop for the offensively inclined Dunn, who scored a tying second-period goal Saturday with a slap shot from atop the left faceoff circle.
No birthday present
Matty Beniers celebrated his 20th birthday on Saturday and nearly came away with an early goal. The Kraken were pressuring the Penguins in the final minute of the opening period when Jordan Eberle fed a wide open Beniers standing all alone in the slot.
But Beniers, as he rarely does, fanned on the one-timed shot attempt. Beniers later inadvertently deflected a tying goal by Pittsburgh winger Jake Guentzel past goalie Martin Jones midway through the third period before Tanev overcame that by scoring the winner late.
First penalty for Wright
Shane Wright got another NHL first Saturday, though not in the way he’d hoped. Wright got called for his first NHL penalty, a hooking infraction, fewer than two minutes into the game.
The Kraken managed to kill it off. Wright played a total of 8:42 in starting for the second straight game on a line between Yanni Gourde and Brandon Tanev. He saw 1:16 of power-play time on the second unit as well, but played only three third-period shifts in a game up for grabs until the closing minutes.
Wright did not manage a shot on goal, had two shots blocked and went 0 for 2 on faceoff attempts.