Kraken Round One GAME ONE PREVIEW

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The Need To Knows:

• The Time: 7pm PT
• The Place: Ball Arena
• Place to Watch: ROOT Northwest, ESPN, ESPN+, TVAS, Hulu, Sportsnet 360
• Place to Listen: KJR 93.3fm
• An Opposing Viewpoint: Mile High Hockey

Know Your Enemy:

• The Avs’ leading scorer in the regular season is Mikko Rantanen, who is one of six players this year who finished the season with 50+ goals.
• The Avs leading point-getter is Nathan Mackinnon, who had 111 points in 72 games played.
• Darren Helm, Andrew Cogliano, and Denis Malgin are expected to be out for Game one…while Cale Makar and Josh Manson are expected to be in. Oh boy.
• The Avs are expected to start Alex Georgiev in net, as they have both of their goaltenders back. Georgiev has a .919 SV% in 62 starts.

Game Preview:

So apparently our friends over in Denver neglected to say until just before the series started that the Avs were going to in fact have guys like Cale Makar and Josh Manson for Game One, making that big ol’ tale of the tape thing I did on saturday night foolish. THANKS, AVS.

Anyway…this is what we’ve all been waiting for; the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The beginning of the great climb. There will be some incredible hockey played, goals scored, and saves made. It’s time for everything the Kraken have learned and practiced over the past few months to become playoff contenders. They’ve done the work, and now Seattle has one of the toughest challenges they have ever faced as a team in front of them; the defending Stanley Cup Champions looking to keep their title.

The Kraken got an even bigger worry handed down on them by the revelation that the Avalanche were going to be much healthier than expected, making an uphill fight against Colorado even harder, at least on paper. But that’s what the Kraken were expecting, at least if you take the experts at their word. This was never going to be easy, even the regular season had no expectation of the surprising run they went on throughout this season. They’ve surprised at nearly every turn this year. There’s surely time enough for them to surprise again. It all starts by splitting the series here in Denver. If they can do it tonight or on Thursday, this series will take on a whole new complexion.

So as far as we’re concerned, PLAYOFF HOCKEY BEGINS NOW. HEAVEN OR HELL, LET’S ROCK.

LET’S GO KRAKEN!