Seattle Kraken fans will want to have the multi-screens working this evening with their NHL club playing against the Toronto Maple Leafs starting a little after 4 pm pacific and Kraken forward Shane Wright playing for Team Canada in the World Junior Championship Gold Medal Game around 4:30 pm.
Team Canada will take on Czechia, also known as the Czech Republic, for the title. The Czechs beat the Canadians 5-2 in the opening game of the preliminary round back on December 26th.
Wright has three goals and three assists over six games played. Should Canada win, as captain, Wright will be presented the trophy.
Earlier on Thursday Team USA beat Team Sweden 8-7 in overtime to win the Bronze Medal. Cutter Gauthier tallied a hat trick for the Americans.
Kraken and Able
Wednesday, Seattle Hockey Insider talked about the strengths of the Toronto Maple Leafs, particularly the skilled forward group in the top-6.
“You see real good players night in and night out in this league,” Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol said after the morning skate, “In particular tonight, a group of forwards, and this team as a whole is very, very good. They’ve been together a long time, they have some maturity together. Again, we’ve got to kind of flip that around and just worry about doing what we do.
“You always have to be very aware of when elite players are on the ice and some of the special abilities that they have, and the things that they can do, and have to have an awareness, but also, our strength is checking as a team. When we get away from that we’re not difficult to play against, but when we’re checking as a group shift after shift, we become a hard team to play against and we have an ability to create offense off of our checking ability.”
Martin Jones gets the start in net for the Kraken. He’s won four of this last five starts include his last two against the New York Islanders and Edmonton Oilers. Matt Murray starts in net for the Maple Leafs.
