It took until nearly the All-Star break, but it appears the expansion Seattle Kraken finally have found an identity.
The Kraken went 2-2-0 on a four-game trip to Pittsburgh, Boston and New York, playing both the Rangers and Islanders, heading into last weekend’s All-Star Game.
They will return from the break Wednesday night when they play host to the Arizona Coyotes.
The Kraken’s trip culminated with a 3-0 victory against the Islanders, the first shutout in franchise history.
The Kraken also defeated the Penguins in overtime and took one-goal losses against the Rangers and Bruins. The defeat at Madison Square Garden came on a Rangers goal with 34 seconds remaining. Seattle also rallied from a two-goal deficit in the third period in Boston before the Bruins’ David Pastrnak netted the winner on a power play.
“For the guys, that’s a good reward,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said of the shutout. “It’s really rewarding to be able to finish off this road trip 2-2. We probably feel like we deserved a little bit better those two games in between, but throw all that aside and we had a good opportunity (against the Islanders) to get a good win, and we went out and got it done.”
Hakstol held a mini training camp as games were postponed due to coronavirus concerns around the Christmas break. It seems to have paid off, as the Kraken are 5-4-0 since snapping a nine-game losing streak.
“We’ve seen some results here over the last couple of weeks,” Hakstol said. “We’re still not where we want to be at. But are we playing hard? Consistently playing together? Absolutely. And we just want to keep doing that.
“Games have just been more complete. We’ve managed the puck better. We’re more consistent in our play without the puck. We haven’t scored as much; but, really, when you get to this time of the year, that gets harder, or things are tighter and you have to be ready and prepared to play in one-goal games.”
Philipp Grubauer made 19 saves to blank the Islanders and put himself in the Kraken record book. Jared McCann and Mason Appleton each had a goal and an assist.
“I thought at the end they were going to shoot something in off a skate somewhere. Like, it hits somebody and bounces in,” Grubauer said of potentially losing the shutout. “That’s the way I feel like it’s been going for us this year. But, yeah, it feels good to get that one.”
The Coyotes returned from the break Tuesday, taking a 5-1 loss at Vancouver, their seventh defeat in eight games. Lawson Crouse got the lone goal for Arizona, which allowed the Canucks to break a scoreless tie with three scores in a span of 2:22 early in the second period.
Vancouver’s Conor Garland and Oliver Ekman-Larsson, acquired in an offseason blockbuster from Arizona, shined in their first games against their former team. Garland scored the first goal and Ekman-Larsson had three assists.
“I was happy with most of the game, to be honest,” Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said. “We had a bad stretch in the second period for three to four minutes where we didn’t play very well; but, at the same time, we played against a good NHL team. You won’t have the momentum for all 60 minutes.
“You need to expect the other team to have good (zone) time, and we could not stop the bleeding. I don’t mind the way we fought.”
Coyotes All-Star Clayton Keller had a six-game point streak (three goals, five assists) snapped in the loss.
–Field Level Media
