Kraken Streak
The Seattle Kraken find themselves with a nifty little two-game winning streak after Tuesday night’s 5-2 victory over the visiting St. Louis Blues. The Kraken were confident and clearly the more energetic club against a St. Louis team that had won the night before in Vancouver and was playing its third set of back-to-back games in the past eight days.
“The first two periods we were pretty good, we did what we had to do in terms of overall pace of play, energy,” Kraken Head Coach Dave Hakstol said postgame.
“We had a lot of good opportunities in the second period, but also hidden in there is some opportunities that we gave up inside, where ‘Jonesy’ (goalie Martin Jones) was good for us. Especially at a key time of the game at two-nothing he made a couple of real good saves on the inside for us. So it’s a great win, there’s a lot of pieces that we like out of this hockey game. There’s also going to be some things that we have to clean up as we go into Vancouver in two nights.”
In the past three days the Kraken have beaten the Winnipeg Jets and St. Louis Blues for the first time in franchise history. They’ll try to do the same thing against their regional rival on Thursday night. The Seattle Kraken are 0-and-5 all-time against Vancouver.
Let’s Skate!
NHL history has no shortage of great and bizarre goaltending stories.
One from the not-so-distant past involves Andrew Hammond, known affectionately as the ‘Hamburglar’. He absolutely came out of nowhere and stole the NHL show during the second half of the 2014-’15 season for the Ottawa Senators.
The Sen’s were trailing in the Eastern Conference playoff hunt by almost ten points when number-one goalie Craig Anderson suffered injury in February. Hammond took over and went on a run for the ages.
The Hamburglar, a nickname he picked up in college at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, ran up a record of 20-1-2 with a 1.79 goals-against average and a .941 save percentage in 24 games. Three of the victories were shut-outs.
Not long after that Hammond, Anderson and the Senators ran out of gas; beaten in the first round four games to two by the Montreal Canadiens.
After a decade as a pro in a number of leagues and a grand total of 67 regular season NHL games, Hammond retired from hockey on Tuesday, saying he wouldn’t be able to recover from his most recent ankle injury suffered last season while playing for the Canadiens.
A small chapter of hockey lore closes.
Gigantic Ouches
— San Jose Sharks forward Luke Kunin will miss the rest of the season after having surgery Tuesday to repair a torn ACL, an injury he suffered in the first period of a game against the Arizona Coyotes on December 13th.
It was six years ago about this time that Kunin earned a great deal of notoriety, captaining Team USA to a Gold Medal at the 2017 World Junior Championship that began on December 26th, 2016.
— Forward Cam Atkinson of the Philadelphia Flyers will have neck surgery on Wednesday and miss the rest of the season. He suffered his most recent injury in late September during the preseason.
— Atkinson’s former teammate in Columbus, the Blue Jackets captain Boone Jenner had surgery for a broken thumb on Tuesday and is expected to miss four weeks.
Enough of that …
Enjoy the Hockey Action !!
