Just the Facts:
- The Time: 7pm PDT
- The Place: Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle, WA (the home opener!)
- Place to Watch: ESPN, ESPN+, Sportsnet+
- Place to Listen: KJR 93.3-FM
- An Opposing Viewpoint: Puck Yeti
ESPN is doing the game, so instead of the ROOT crew, the ESPN crew is
Play-By-Play: Mike Monaco
Analyst: Ray Ferraro
Reporter: Leah Hextall
Know Your Enemy
The last time we saw these two teams, the Seattle Kraken pulled off the upset to win the opening-round playoff series, defeating the Stanley Cup Champion Avalanche in seven games.
This offseason, the Avalanche have retooled and have acquired more depth, so we won’t be able to rely on their bottom two lines getting smothered by the Kraken’s depth advantage. Ryan Johansen, Ross Colton, Tomas Tatar, and Miles Wood are new faces and all seem like upgrades over the players they were replacing. Valeri Nichushkin is back after leaving the team during the middle of the playoff series under bizarre circumstances.
But this section is titled “know your enemy” and there is no bigger enemy to the Kraken fans than all-world defenseman Cale Makar after his hit on Jared McCann in last year’s playoffs.
Game Preview
The Kraken are in a pretty bad shooting slump right now. They are doing fine with shot volume and shot quality, but the hockey gods and puck luck are not smiling favorably on Seattle these first three games. Remember that the Kraken started out slowly as well last year, but they put it together and made a decent playoff run of it when it was all told.
What has been great for the Kraken so far, despite the 0-2-1 record, is the goaltending. Both Grubauer and Daccord have been excellent so far, and the Kraken have a team save percentage of .941 at 5-on-5.
A game like this really illustrates the difference between early regular-season and playoffs. By the time the playoffs rolled around last year, both of these teams knew their identities, which buttons to push when, and who was capable of what with a good understanding of molding the team strategy around their personnel.
Early regular season? It’s like hitting the reset button in a lot of ways, and teams are still trying to figure things out. Even lines that played together often need some time to re-establish the flow and timing.
This won’t be the chippy, physical contest the playoff game was most likely. But spiritually it’s the same idea: Colorado is going to try to generate mostly off their big three, use the pieces around those three to complement them while Seattle uses their depth to gain an advantage.
One depth note is Brandon Tanev will miss 4-6 weeks after sustaining a lower-body injury on opening night after a dirty hit by Vegas’s Brett Howden.
I expect Philipp Grubauer to start against his former team tonight.
Honestly, it is a bummer dropping games to Nashville and St. Louis, as Colorado is a considerably harder opponent and Seattle’s schedule is pretty tough to start out the season. Seattle’s scored 2 goals in 3 games this season, and all I really want to see is them to put the puck in the back of the net a few times.
So far this season:
- Kraken -> Vegas home opener, home team wins.
- Kraken -> St. Louis home opener, home team wins.
- Nashville home opener, home team wins.
- Colorado -> Seattle home opener, ???
Here’s hoping for another home opener win, this time by the good guys.
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