Kraken @ Canucks: A Battle in Cascadia renews

The Need to Knows

• The Time: 7pm PT
• The Place: Rogers Arena, Vancouver, British Columbia
• Place to Watch: ROOT Northwest, ESPN+/SportsNet+
• Place to Listen: KJR 93.3 FM
• An Opposing Viewpoint: Nucks Misconduct/Nucks on Goal

Know Your Enemy

• Tonight’s opponent is the Vancouver Canucks, who are 2nd in the Pacific Division with a record of 12-4-1.
• While they’ve otherwise been an absolute wagon over the first month of the season, the Canucks were handed their 4th loss of the season on Wednesday night against their hated rivals; the Flames, to the tune of 5-2.
• The Canucks are beneficiaries of some truly incredible luck; by all metrics they should probably be down with the Kraken in the frustrating hell of being “almost good enough”, but are riding a league leading PDO to some of the most fortunate bounces in the entire league…which also means they’re one of the most dangerous teams in the league right now, with very little sign that it’s crashing to earth yet.
• THREE players lead Vancouver in scoring, all with 27 points in 17 games; JT Miller, Elias Petterson, and Quinn Hughes.
• Vancouver’s leading goalscorer however is Brock Boeser, who is having a hell of a comeback season after quite a few prognosticators assumed his time as a major top six contributor was coming to an end. Boeser has 13 goals in 17 games.
• Thatcher Demko once again has taken the lion’s share of starts this year, and he has a .932 SV% through 11 starts.

Game Preview

The Canucks are the pride of Canada right now.

Unlike pretty much every other squad above the border, the Canucks started good, stayed good, and are climbing right up into the Pacific Division’s upper echelon. Is it sustainable? Maybe not? Do they or their fans care? Absolutely not. They’ve been through so much since 2011 that they’ve earned a little time to be happy before the crushing jaws of reality come straight down on them once their puck luck finally swings the other way. It is the way of things in Vancouver.

One can only hope meanwhile, that such luck comes for the Kraken, because they’ve been having the worst time trying to get a complete effort together, something they’re gonna need against a Canucks team firing on all cylinders. They were able to get some power play excellence going against the Isles, but they’re gonna need more than just man-advantage goals to beat the Canucks; they shoot a lot, and they score even more. Forcing that attack to go back in transition will be huge towards getting them off their game.

Should make for an interesting game!

LET’S GO KRAKEN!