Just the Facts
The Time: 5:15 pm PT / 8:15 pm ET
The Place: Little Caesar’s Arena, Detroit, MI
Where to Watch: ROOT Sports NW, Bally Sports Detroit, ESPN+ and Sportsnet+ for out-of-market viewers
Where to Listen: KJR 33.3 FM
An Opposing Viewpoint: Winging It in Motown
Know Your Enemy
Don’t look now, but the Detroit Red Wings might actually be good this season. For the past few seasons, the Red Wings have been a team mired in mediocrity. Part of this is by design. General Manager Steve Yzerman has been steering the ship through a rebuild for this Original Six team, and no team can go through a rebuild without having some down years in the process.
So far, this year feels like it could potentially be a breakthrough one in the team’s process. The Red Wings have jumped out ahead to a 5-1-0 record to start the season. Now, October is always a weird month to begin generating predictions in the NHL. For the more football-minded among us, a good comparison to consider is that 5 games in an 82-game season is around the equivalent to a single game in a 17-game season. It’s still too early to determine if this is a fluke start or not, but hope and optimism are brewing among the Red Wings faithful.
A key player to note going into this game is Alex DeBrincat. After being traded to Detroit from Ottawa, DeBrincat has jumped out to score 8 goals in 6 games. His performance so far could become a case study on how favorable life conditions can translate into better on-ice performance. DeBrincat has admitted that he feels much more at ease playing closer to his family and in his hometown. From October 16 to October 22, his 8 total points—including a hat trick against the Calgary Flames on Sunday night—propelled him to being named the NHL’s First Star of the Week on Monday. The Kraken are certainly not the benefactors of good scheduling luck to have to face him when he’s on a roll like this.
Another player to keep an eye on is former Kraken Daniel Sprong. He has 2 goals and 2 assists to start the season, and a revenge game certainly isn’t out of the cards. Sprong was allowed to enter unrestricted free agency this offseason after not receiving a qualifying offer from the Kraken. On July 1, he signed a 1-year, $2,000 deal with the Red Wings. Kraken fans should be no stranger to his ability to snipe the puck and making the most of any ice time he’s given. If there’s a former player with the pure raw capability to score a revenge goal, it might just be Sprong.
Game Preview
If the Red Wings are jumping out to a surprisingly strong start, the Kraken have been doing the opposite. They head into tonight’s game with a 1-4-1 record, which isn’t the start anyone envisioned for this team. A major culprit in this record is a general lack of scoring. In all 5 losses, the Kraken only scored 4 goals. The sole win they pulled off, however, saw the Kraken jump out to 7 goals, all scored by 7 individual players. While one win doesn’t make the best sample size to determine what the best formula for improvement is, I don’t think it would hurt the Kraken to try the strategy of scoring more goals.
The Kraken have also been bit by the injury bug to start the season. Brandon Tanev hasn’t played a game since the first match against Vegas. From the time of the announcement, Tanev’s recovery timeline was 4-6 weeks, so he’s not expected back anytime soon. Now, André Burakovsky is expected to be out for the next 6-8 weeks with an upper body injury sustained by Jacob Trouba in Saturday’s loss against the New York Rangers. While I wouldn’t say that either loss alone is enough to break the team, having two players go down so early in the season is an additional hurdle that the Kraken do not need.
It’s a clash between a team on the rise and one starting the season out slowly. It’s not impossible for the Kraken to pull out a win, but the sooner that they can begin getting back into the groove of their winning ways, the more smooth sailing it should hopefully be for the rest of the season.
As for a random pre-game prediction to toss out there, I would say to look for Jordan Eberle to score his first of the season. Consulting Hockey Reference, in 29 games against the Red Wings, Eberle has scored 15 goals against them. There are other teams he’s scored more total goals against, but scoring in 52% of his games against the Red Wings is the highest rate against any team he’s faced. Eberle just seems to do well against Detroit.
Beyond that, I want to reiterate that this is not a normal start time for an NHL game. The league is testing staggered start times as all 32 teams play in one night in an event called Frozen Frenzy. It might be a strategy worth keeping, or it might be a headache! We’ll all find out together.
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