Kraken @ Wild PREVIEW: The Last One

The Need to Knows

• Time: 4:00pm PT
• Place: Xcel Energy Center, Saint Paul, Minnesota
• Where to Watch: ESPN
• Where to Listen: KJR 93.3 FM

Game Notes

• Seattle is locked into either the 8th or 9th slot in draft lottery odds. A regulation loss against Minnesota clinches the 8 slot. A win by Calgary over the San Jose Sharks also gives Seattle #8.
• Jordan Eberle has 299 career goals. One more goal would make him the second player from his draft class to score 300 goals, after Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos.
• Vince Dunn, as has been the case for the last 6 games, will not play this game with an upper-body injury.
• For Minnesota, Marcus Foligno and Jared “like a” Spurgeon are the injured players, both after undergoing season-ending surgery.
• Beloved goalie Marc-André Fleury is expected to start in net for Minnesota. He will be honored before the game as the recipient of the Tom Kurvers Humanitarian Award, as voted on by his teammates.
• Wild defenseman Brock Faber is probably not going to win the Calder Trophy as rookie of the year because it’s going to go to Connor Bedard, and Minnesota fans are upset about this.
• Seattle statistically has the edge in goals against per game, save percentage, shots allowed, and penalty kill. The Wild have the better power play, shooting percentage, shots per game, and goals per game. Basically, if it’s an offensive metric, the Wild are pretty advantaged. If it’s a defensive metric, the Kraken are advantaged.

Game Preview

“Do this: Go to your bedroom. Your nice, safe, warm bedroom that is not a glass coffin behind a morgue door. Lie down on your bed not made of ice. Stick your fingers in your ears. Do you hear that? The pulse of life from your heart, the slow in-and-out from your lungs? Even when you are silent, even when you block out all noise, your body is still a cacophony of life. Mine is not. It is the silence that drives me mad. The silence that drives the nightmares to me. Because what if I am dead? How can someone without a beating heart, without breathing lungs live like I do? I must be dead. And this is my greatest fear: After 301 years, when they pull my glass coffin from this morgue, and they let my body thaw like chicken meat on the kitchen counter, I will be just like I am now. I will spend all of eternity trapped in my dead body. There is nothing beyond this. I will be locked within myself forever. And I want to scream. I want to throw open my eyes, wake up, and not be alone with myself anymore, but I can’t. I can’t.”

-Beth Revis, Across the Universe

It’s the last game of the season and it’s not even on ROOT, so we don’t know if we will ever see John Forslund do a Kraken game again and likely won’t know for months? No, you are being melodramatic.

This game means very little. There was at least some intrigue in the last few games as the Kraken were jockeying for better draft position (mission accomplished!), but a lot of that intrigue has gone away. If the Flames beat the lowly Sharks tonight, then this Kraken game against Minnesota will truly be completely meaningless. I suppose since the Flames play two hours after the Kraken game starts, there’s a little suspense if Seattle wins? I’m grasping at straws here. Or I’m just assuming a Flames win, but who loses to the Sharks at home ha ha that would be crazy

But if you have been begrudgingly wanting Seattle to lose because it’s what’s best for them long-term, you know what? I say just assume the Flames beat the Sharks and enjoy this last game if Seattle wins. As a treat. (And if someone wants the Kraken to win knowing it hurts draft position but also winning feels good, I see nothing wrong with that either. People like to want what they want out of sports.)

Three players are unrestricted free agents and I would be surprised if any of them came back, so this is likely the last time in a Kraken sweater for:

• Tomáš Tatar
• Pierre-Édouard Bellemare
• Justin Schultz

I don’t think it’s likely that Dave Hakstol will get fired this offseason, but it’s certainly possible. But there is a nonzero chance that this is the last time we will see Hakstol behind the bench for the Kraken.

So uh…is there any good news?

• The youths! Coachella Valley is about to start their playoff run, having lost in overtime game 7 in the Finals (the most excruciating sports scenario) last season. They are loaded this season, led by Shane Wright who has reached his (minor league) final form. He looked very NHL-ready during his callup.

• The other youths! The Kraken have been killing it in the draft, and will have a top 10 pick (there is a very very small chance they could pick 11th if a series of improbable things all happened, but my back-of-the-napkin math estimates that probability at around one quarter of one percent*). Higher draft pick means Namita Nandakumar and the rest of the scouting department get a chance at a better player.

*how I deduced this:

Seattle has to win and Calgary has to lose to the Sharks. Looking at the Moneypuck odds, they give Seattle a 44.4% chance to win, and the Sharks a 30.9% chance to win. If that happens, Seattle falls to 9th in the lottery order. The scenario where the 9th team in the lottery order gets pushed down to 11th has a probability of 1.7%.

.444 * .309 * .017 = 0.0023, or 0.23%

• The other other youths! Jagger Firkus, Jani Nyman, Carson Rekhopf, Lukas Dragicevic, and David Goyette are very interesting players to watch next season. Lordy that’s a lot of offensive talent, which is what this team needs. Help is coming.

• The olds! (relatively) It’s still the Kraken, and it’s our last chance to see them play for five months. This season didn’t go the way we wanted, but there’s a lot of reason for optimism. The defense is good. The offense isn’t, but that seems to be primarily a talent issue, and that issue is being addressed through the draft (see above). Good times are the sweetest after bad times. But ultimately, they’re the Kraken. There were many years living in Seattle where there were no Kraken or any other local NHL games to watch. I’m always going to watch every game, taking joy in the little things, and I cherish every opportunity to do so.

“However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.”

– Henry David Thoreau, Walden