Kraken come alive again in second period, shutout Flames 3-0
By Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA – In similar fashion to their last game, the Seattle Kraken used a second period surge and solid goaltender play to beat the Calgary Flames. A slow and sloppy first period by the second half of the Kraken roster (the first half playing yesterday) shows that this still is the preseason. The power play continues to search for its identity, but the offense found more ways to get on the board. The bright spots displayed in the first two games of the preseason, early or not, continue to give Seattle hope that the Kraken will have a competitive 2022-2023 campaign.
Jaden Schwartz brings the puck up the ice (Photo by Liv Lyons)
Play in net continues to be stellar
Yesterday, it was Martin Jones and Joey Daccord in net that shutout the Edmonton Oilers. Today, it was Philipp Grubauer and Magnus Hellberg that continued Seattle’s now back-to-back nights of scoreless hockey. Grubauer, aiming to have a much better year than his career low in 2021-2022, looked sharp and active. Perhaps Seattle bringing in new goaltender coach Steve Briere has helped not only Grubauer, but the rest of the position group. Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol discussed the goaltender play postgame.
“Both nights we got good, solid performances. Couple good saves at the right time along the way. I thought Grubi had a real good, solid night. A little more chaotic night in front of him, but ultimately, he did a good job of finding pucks,” Hakstol reflected.
Magnus Hellberg looked solid: play wise, and gear wise (Photo by Liv Lyons)
Daniel Sprong makes his case
Forward Daniel Sprong found some success with Seattle late last season, after being acquired in exchange for some draft picks from the Washington Capitals. Nicknamed “the Flying Dutchman,” Sprong has a heavy shot and can score at a quick pace, shown in his 16 games with the Kraken. While his case for a return might have been solid at the end of last season, things got crowded in Seattle’s forward room of the course of this offseason. Sprong now has to work his way into a roster spot, and that began tonight.
Sprong used his heavy shot with a little under eight minutes left in period two. Creeping up from the center circle, Sprong one-timed a clean pass from Vince Dunn behind the net. The shot was aided by a screen in front of Calgary goalie, and Seattle was on the board. The easiest way to catch a coach's eye is scoring, and Daniel Sprong can certainly do that. How often he needs to do it, may be the decider between making or missing the cut.
Andrew Poturalski’s screen in front of net helped Daniel Sprong’s shot find the back of the net (Photo by Liv Lyons)
Similar recipe to begin year two
A few promising factors have stuck out in this back-to-back to open the Seattle preseason. A strong penalty kill, forward depth, creative offense, and sparks of potential on the power play. The word chemistry has been thrown around a lot, considering the mixture of veterans and young players that have participated in the two games. While normally teams don’t play as many veterans as Seattle, the Kraken are making sure they get their roster to gels when regular season begins. Head coach Dave Hakstol discussed how he has viewed these past two games.
“We’ve got an awfully long ways to go in terms of building the complete package, that’s for sure... I really liked the pace that we played with in the first period, better than what we saw at the same time last night... there’s portions of the game where you can see a lot of solid play, and there’s other times when things got broken down and looked sloppy. We’ll take advantage of two good practices here coming up, take advantage of that and keep building,” Hakstol said.
Jaden Schwartz took a tick-tack-toe pass from Jared McCann for an easy tap-in goal (Photo by Liv Lyons)
What’s next?
Seattle will get a day off before traveling up north to visit the Vancouver Canucks. The Kraken will battle their geographical rivals to the north at Rogers Arena with a puck drop time of 6:30PM PST, as more critical periods go by with many players working to earn spots. Many decisions will need to be made by Seattle, whether it is who makes the cut with the NHL squad, the AHL squad in Coachella Valley, or getting cut.