The magic of the waiver wire. The beauty of free money. The majesty of the Finnish Goalscoring phenom.
This game had it all.
But first, those Highlights!:
Game Notes:
- Your TOI Leader for this preseason game was Ryker Evans, with 22:21 logged tonight. He was quite well activated and an infuriating presence for the Kraken defense. Great to see.
- As opposed to a low-event dust up or a The Kraken mostly just ran the Canucks’ show. That’s good; there’s more than enough NHL regulars here that Seattle probably should’ve done that, but it was an encouraging result to see these guys activated and ready to rock and roll from shift one. There was a lull in the early second period sure…but this was mostly akin to watching an anaconda strangle a deer; the Canucks just couldn’t handle what was coming at them, with the sole exception of Thatcher Demko.
- The Kraken and Canucks seem to be warming up a little towards being rivals, but still there’s something missing here. A hit nobody likes or agrees with. A goal that shouldn’t have counted that did. What I’m seeing here is two teams smiling at each other as they carefully lay dynamite all around each other like the before-violence panel of Spy vs. Spy. I fear we may see it finally come to a head in the regular season. But for now, some scrums after the whistle, some extra hits here and there…but no matches lit. Yet.
- We’ll talk more about him once we get to the plaudits section, but it drives me crazy just how good Eeli Tolvanen has been ever since he came to Seattle. This guy got passed up by far too many teams to be
- Goaltending was otherwise perfectly fine! Grubauer had a .900 SV% on 10 shots, and Joey Daccord had a clean sheet once again. Given that Grubauer’s sole goal-against was the end-result of a catastrophic play meltdown, I’m willing to give him a pass for tonight in order to say that, at least in my personal opinion, the backup job belongs to Joey Daccord until proven otherwise.
- AEW Superstars Darby Allin, Nick Evans, and Aberdeen native Daniel Bryan were in attendance tonight. They must’ve lit the fuse, and brought the boom.
- Only three games of preseason left. After that, a mass-cutting of players, and then it’s off to Vegas. We are so close.
Let’s Give a Hand To…:
- Ryker Evans!: Led the team in TOI for the second time and was engaged as all get out throughout.
- Shane Wright!: I know Jacob Melanson was the second star, but his goal never happens without some incredible quick thinking and spatial awareness by Wright; who manages to get him a wide open cage off of a shot, grab the rebound, and then send it back to him. Couldn’t have asked for a better way to show he’s still well on-track to being a quality NHLer.
- Joey Daccord!: Daccord joined the game late, but showed some very encouraging poise in net; keeping the Canucks at bay; especially in the late third when they tried everything possible to get it past him.
- And of course, Eeli Tolvanen!: This guy. Lemme tell ya. Tolvanen’s move on the power play sent a poor Canucks AHLer to a dark place, and he was the beneficiary of a marvelous right-to-left-to-right passing play that Demko couldn’t have a prayer on. First star of the game and well deserved. He may very well end up Ron Francis’ best signing as GM.
Let’s re-live this whuppin’ with some charts by NaturalStatTrick.com!
As the charts clearly show…It wasn’t close. As it should be.
The Kraken get a couple of days off before the preseason continues on against the Edmonton Oilers, with what will likely be one of the more NHL ready squads as we get into the final week of camp. That game drops the puck Monday night at 7pm PST. It ought to be a great one.
So until then, thank you for reading, please try to share this and DJLR where you can, and always remember…
Keep Calm, and Post Zoidberg When We Win.
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