Kraken Success
After a day off while enjoying a five-game winning streak, the longest in team history, the Seattle Kraken will be back on the ice for practice Thursday morning in preparation for Friday night’s home game against the Minnesota Wild. It’s game two of a six game Kraken homestand.
“Our team has played hard, pretty well defensively throughout the entire year,” Seattle Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol said after the win Tuesday. “That’s been a trademark of our group, playing hard as a five-man unit, and when you add in the good goaltending, we’ve had that. If you look at the recent road trip that was a big part of our success, playing hard defensively and getting that big save at the right time.”
We brought up the Martin Jones factor earlier in the week, thinking that if he continues to perform as he has, he could legitimately start every game on the homestand since it’s spread out over sixteen days. Obviously it always comes down to performance game to game, but Jones has a goals against average of 1.00 over five of his last six starts.
“He’s a calm goaltender in there,” Hakstol added. “He made a couple of saves where his movement is quiet, a lot of good saves. Pucks when they’re coming from the outside through traffic, he was in good spots, and because of that he was in good spots for some of the in-tight battles.”
Jones and the Kraken shut-out the Wild 4-0 at the Climate Pledge Arena last Thursday. While we await the Kraken’s next puck drop …
Let’s Skate !
Updating the Evander Kane skate blade injury from Tuesday night, the Edmonton Oilers forward will miss three to four months as his left wrist mends itself. Pat Maroon of the Tampa Bay Lightning accidentally skated over Kane’s wrist after he’d fallen to the ice along the right wing boards in the offensive zone during the second period of the Oilers 3-2 win.
Kane released a statement on Wednesday:
“Thank you all for the kind wishes and prayers from over the past several hours,” Kane wrote. “Obviously last night was an extremely scary moment for me and I’m still in a little bit of shock. I would like to thank the entire training staff of the Edmonton Oilers and Tampa Bay Lightning, along with all the doctors and paramedics who rushed to help treat and repair my injury. Without all of you, I know things would’ve been much worse and I’m sincerely grateful. I won’t be back next game, but I will be back and I look forward to being back on the ice playing the game I love alongside my teammates in front of our great fans.”
Eye for an Eye?
That concept is often brought up when you see one player get injured and miss a dozen or two games due to a cheap hit while the perpetrator gets off with a two or three-game suspension. The eye-for-an-eye punitive concept dates back to an Egyptian king in ancient times.
Why not make the guilty party sit out for as long as the injured player is missing?
Because it’s not realistic, every player is different in terms of how, and even if, they would have been injured, and it opens the door to tampering. The injured player’s recovery time would determine the fate of the perpetrators absence, and that would get a little dicey if the club decided to have the player take his time coming back for whatever reason they decided.
We bring the concept up because Juraj Slafkovski of the Montreal Canadiens was given a two-game suspension for his Tuesday night boarding penalty on Matt Luff of the Detroit Red Wings, who will have wrist surgery on Thursday and miss ten to twelve weeks due to injury.
Slafkovski was the first-overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft.
Enjoy the Kraken Hockey Action !!
