Roll the highlight reel!
Game notes
- Shane Wright was the story of the game with two goals and a primary assist. It looked for a moment that Wright had a hat trick on his third goal, but the puck went off Matty Beniers’s skate. This was Matty’s 100th career point. Wright also had a great sliding block and he was just feeling it offensively.
“(I’m) just playing with confidence. Playing with a little bit of swagger,” Wright said. “I get some pretty good passes from my linemates. …it’s nice to help the team win and nice to get a couple (of goals) as well.”
The Wright/Schwartz/Eberle line dominated the game, winning 78% of the shot quality battle (Natural Stat Trick).
This game does carry a tiny bit of downside: Wright played more than six games last season and tonight was his sixth game of this season. This means he is no longer eligible for the Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie, the award that Matty Beniers won last year. But I don’t think anyone is going to care that much if he keeps playing this way.
Wright was the best player of the game and it’s not particularly close.
- Adam Larsson missed the game for personal reasons, the first game in franchise history he has not played. But these are the good kind of personal reasons: he and his partner are expecting a baby!
- Vince Dunn missed the game with injury. Cale Fleury, who has been bouncing back and forth for it seems like months between Seattle and Coachella Valley, got to play finally.
- Matty Beniers’s goal gives him 16 points in 8 games against the Anaheim Ducks. That team basically turns him into a supercharged version of Connor McDavid.
- Philipp Grubauer didn’t face a lot of work, facing only 17 shots and stopping 16 of them for a .933 save percentage. The times he was tested, however, Anaheim did get some really good looks and Grubauer had to be sharp. I’m surprised he wasn’t named third star of the game.
Three stars of the game
⭐ Shane Wright (2G, 1A)
⭐⭐ Leo Carlsson (1G)
⭐⭐⭐ Oliver Bjorkstrand (2A)
The Natural Stat Trick heat map!
Woof. That was a ranching. Seattle housed them real good.
The Kraken get three full days off and return for a two-game homestand, the final two home games of the season, starting with the Coyotes on Tuesday.
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