Game 6 Preview: Stars @ Kraken

The Need to Knows

• The Time: 4:00 pm PT / 7:00 pm ET
• The Place: Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle, Washington
• Place to Watch: ESPN, TVAS, SN
• Place to Listen: KJR 93.3fm
• Opposing Viewpoint: Defending Big D
• What Happened Last Time: Game 5 recap

Game Preview

Welp. For the second time this post-season, the Seattle Kraken are facing elimination.

Their series versus the Dallas Stars sits at 2-3 and there is no more room for error. That’s the bad news. The good news, as it has been ever since Game 1 versus the Colorado Avalanche, is that this is house money. The Atlanta Thrashers joined the National Hockey League in the 1999/2000 season as the league’s 28th franchise. They made their first, and only, playoff appearance in 2006/07, and were swept by the New York Rangers. The franchise relocated to Winnipeg a few seasons later, and so its permanent post-season scoring leaders are Pascal Dupuis and Keith Tkachuk, who each managed 3 points in their Round 1 loss.

So yeah, things could be so much worse.

The Kraken aren’t out of it, and they’re going to play Game 6 in front of the electric Climate Pledge Arena home crowd. This is far from a sure thing for the Dallas Stars, and if Seattle manages a win on Saturday evening, a Game 7 can go either way, as the defending Stanley Cup champions learned last round. Enjoy the ride and get loud Seattle!

Game Plan

The things that have went wrong for the Kraken in their losses thus far are fairly straightforward and, mostly, fixable. Game 2 saw a shot slip by post-season MVP Philipp Grubauer early and then later on the team got into penalty trouble. The two goal lead the Stars brought into the third period turned out to be insurmountable. In Game 4, two powerplay goals ultimately kept things out of reach once again. Last game, it was a carbon copy of the Game 2 start. In the game’s 4th minute, Wyatt Johnson scored the opening goal and the Kraken were trailing the rest of the evening.

What the team did right against the Avalanche hasn’t happened to the same extent versus the Stars. Score first, stay out of the penalty box (or kill all the penalties), and don’t let off the gas. Seattle has its 40-goal man back in Jared McCann, and Tye Kartye hasn’t looked out of place. Grubauer is due to steal a game, and let’s face it, the series was always riding on his performance. Execute in the way the Kraken have shown us time and again that they can, and the series goes back to even.

If we get there, I am sensing a Game 7 overtime finale.