Preview: Kraken vs. Canucks

Just the Facts:

The Time: 7:00 pm PT

The Place: Abbotsford Centre, Abbotsford, British Columbia

Place to Watch: SeattleKraken.com Site Stream (just a guess, it’s hard to find pre-season games sometimes)

Place to Listen: KJR 93.3FM

Know Your Enemy:

Will this be the year that the Seattle Kraken and Vancouver Canucks finally get a heated rivalry going? Not according to the pre-season standings. Not that those are the ultimate factor, after all these rosters are far from the ones we’ll see on opening night. But the Canucks are showing some defensive gaps, with their minus 10 goal differential tied for the league’s worst. The Kraken have shown better in the small sample size, but not a lot better as of yet. They’re precisely even in scoring, allowing just as many as they’ve scored.

Vancouver was a lottery team last season. They have a couple offensive talents, and a decent netminder, but the defence leaked goals against, and none of the offseason moves they made suggest to me they’re going to be battling against the likes of Vegas and Edmonton for tops in the Pacific. Kraken alumnus Carson Soucy found his way there, along with a number of other new faces. But while Vancouver may still struggle preventing goals against, the team will be able to score. Elias Pettersson broke the 100 point barrier last season and he’s got some help. The incoming Ilya Mikheyev won’t be on the ice in the pre-season, but brings some depth to the team that was missing last year.

Game Plan

Pre-season records mean nothing, and everybody is undefeated as of Game One of the 2023-24 season. Kraken youngsters are looking to make a roster than overachieved last year, saw the departure of a key piece or two, but also some interesting additions. As Sky noted in the most recent recap, the two prospects not named Shane Wright that are likely to cement roster spots are Tye Kartye up front, and Ryker Evans on defence. As the Kraken’s first crop of prospects start to ripen, it’ll be interesting to see if the team’s dedicated analytical approach is as much of an advantage with prospect scouting as it has been with pro scouting.

Vancouver is still a work in progress, and ultimately beatable, but any streaming the game should expect to see more of the Canucks’ A lineup given that the game is on home ice.