The good, the bad, and the ugly: Notes from Kraken at Blues, October 14th, 2023
By Charles Hamaker
St. Louis, MO – The Seattle Kraken have earned their first standing point of the 2023-24 season, but they are going to return home wishing that more than that had come of their season opening road trip. The Kraken once again showed their ability to generate offensive chances and certainly created enough to win, but as the early season story has been, Seattle couldn’t score enough and ultimately had to go to a shootout, an area where they have struggled since the 2022-23 season began. It’s a lot of the same from the Kraken through these first few games in regard to what’s going wrong and what has worked, but it needs to be stated again that if these issues persist further into the season, there is real cause for concern.
The good: Joey Daccord, the penalty kill, and generation of chances
There seems to be a trend, at least three games into the season if you can call that enough time for a trend, taking place right now for the Kraken. Despite what those who don’t watch the team’s games or largely don’t know what they're talking about have said, Seattle’s goaltenders are showing out early on and that now includes backup netminder Joey Daccord. Carrying over from what Philipp Grubauer did in the team’s first two games, Daccord was rock solid for the Kraken in tonight’s contest and kept them in the game against the Blues as he made timely saves when called upon and was able to use his puck playing ability to help his defenseman out a bit. If Seattle is able to get this sort of play or something similar to it, while properly managing their two goaltenders, the Kraken will have a strong tandem all season long.
The penalty kill has been incredible for Seattle to begin the season, and they really have picked up right where they left off starting back on January 1st of this year. Notable players on the kill for the Kraken this year include Jamie Oleksiak, Adam Larsson, and offseason signing Pierre-Edouard Bellemare. The killers for Seattle have shown the willingness to block shots and have been able to prevent their opponents from actually getting many shots off during the respective power play. Suppressing opponents' shots has been a big thing that the Kraken have done in during their franchise’s existence, but it’s obviously the importance of it is heightened when on the penalty kill. As mentioned after the Nashville game, if Seattle is able to maintain any semblance of this performance on the kill throughout the season, it keeps their playoff potential high.
The Kraken have been able to generate chances, there’s no denying that. It’s positive to see that generation, and while we’ll talk about the frustration of not getting them to go into the net, it’s much better that they’re creating these opportunities than not. Players like Andre Burakovsky and Oliver Bjorkstrand have been inches off at times, including hitting the pipes of the goal a few times through these first three games of the season. One of the biggest instances of coming just a few inches away from a score was Adam Larsson hitting the left leg pad of Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington in the dying seconds of the overtime period. While it is alarming to see the Kraken only score two goals over the course of their first three games, I don’t believe that Seattle is far off from having a breakout performance and getting their offensive attack to a place that has them recording wins.
The bad: Failing to capitalize on their chances
This is in bad and not ugly considering just how Seattle has been able to generate numerous chances to score on offense, they just aren’t getting them to go in quite yet. There have been numerous instances for the Kraken where they’ve truly gotten unlucky, whether it be a shot hitting a teammate, hitting the pipe of the goal, or being just inches away from going in. Seattle has been generating the necessary volume and generally the quality of shots that they need in order to be winning these games, they’ve just been a hair off in many instances and aren’t really getting much puck luck to go there way at the current moment. Nashville’s game could’ve been better in terms of shot quality, but even still the point remains that the Kraken are doing a large amount of the part when it comes to scoring, they just can’t put the finish on yet. If this issue persists, Seattle will be in trouble.
The ugly: Shootout struggles
In the inaugural year of the Seattle Kraken, the team went a strong 3-1 over the course of the four games that they played that had to be decided in a shootout. While that first year in franchise history was bad record was, the shootout success was oddly there. Since then, in the sophomore season last year that saw the Kraken come just minutes away from the Western Conference Final and in their first shootout of this third season, Seattle has struggled heavily in that same situation in which they were so good. While much of the conversation as the Kraken went 0-4 in shootouts last season was that different players needed to be deployed, that didn’t matter in tonight’s contest. At least as we’ve seen in practice, Seattle often practices situations similar to shootouts, so it’s hard to pinpoint what they need to do differently there. Like the games itself this season, the puck just isn’t bouncing in their favor at the moment.
What’s next?
Following a rough three-game road trip to open the 2023-24 season, the Seattle Kraken will get a few days before their next game, which is their home opener. Seattle returns home for a practice on Monday before their home opener on Tuesday, October 17th against the Colorado Avalanche with a puck drop of 7PM PST. The two teams that battled hard in their first round Stanley Cup playoffs matchup last year that saw the Kraken prevail will do battle for the first time since then, as Seattle still is seeking their first win on the season while Colorado looks to win their third straight game to open their year. This game will not be on the local Root sports broadcast, and rather will be on ESPN.
