The Need to Knows
- The Time: 3pm PT
- The Place: Amerant Bank Arena, Sunrise, Florida
- Place to Watch: KONG, KHN, SCRIPPS (in Florida), Amazon Prime (locally)
- Place to Listen: Kraken Audio Network via KJR 93.3-FM
- An Opposing Viewpoint: Litter Box Cats
Know Your Enemy
- The Panthers have a 34-20-3 record, which is good for 71 points in the standings. They are 1st in the Atlantic Division, and 2nd overall in the Eastern Conference.
- Sam Reinhart is the premiere Florida man in Sunrise; as he has 62 points, split evenly between 31 goals (a team high) and 31 assists, in 57 games played.
- Matthew Tkachuk is very unlikely to play tonight, as he sustained some sort of injury during the USA-Canada game.
- The Panthers’ possession game is one of the best in the league, with NaturalStatTrick.com having them set as 2nd overall in the league in shot attempts-% and 3rd overall in Expected Goals-%.
- The Kraken actually tend to be pretty good against Florida, as they have a 4-2-1 record all-time against the Panthers.
- Sergei Bobrovsky and Spencer Knight have been just good enough to allow the Cats to remain in every game they’re in. Bobrovsky has more starts with 37 and a .902 SV%, and Spencer Knight has sliiightly better peformance, with a .906 SV% in 20 starts.
Game Preview
With the Four Nations Faceoff over with, we can all finally come together as people, good people, and realize that for all our differences, for all the flags we ascribe ourselves to, we can all come together and hate the Tkachuks again for being punks. That’s a beautiful thing.
A mere 25 games separate us from the regular season’s end, and a two weeks separates us from the NHL Trade Deadline. Given that there’s plenty of rumor about Seattle being an active participant of the Deadline, the Kraken will likely be showcasing their talent as best they can to entice any takers that might want to do business. Given that they have a number of decent individual players who could entice a great many playoff teams, it behooves the Kraken to put their best foot forward and make them look as impressive as possible.
Florida and Seattle in their last meeting played a very, very tight game; ending in the shootout, but they can’t let that go to their heads; even without a Tkachuk, the Panthers are a damn fine hockey club who love controlling play and also controlling the physicality of any given game they’re in. They will happily attempt to sucker you into any sort of nonsense they want, and the easiest way to overcome that is to skate straight through it. Other than that, they need to make Florida’s goaltending work for just about everything they’ve got; the Panthers are dangerous not just from their possession game but from a team-wide commitment to hopping on mistakes. If the Kraken can limit the mistakes and keep their discipline, they should be able to keep the Panthers at bay.
After all, they did it before, whose to say they can’t do it again?
LET’S GO KRAKEN, LET’S GO SQUIDS