Kraken Killing It
Four wins and three losses would have been a solid road trip for the Seattle Kraken. Five and two a significant bonus. But a crack at, or maybe it’s a Kraken at, 7 and 0?!
That would be truly remarkable.
The Seattle Kraken moved to 6-and-0 on their franchise-record-long roadie by beating the Boston Bruins on Thursday night 3-0, becoming the first NHL road team to win in regulation this season at TD Garden.
“This is a tough place to play obviously, no one’s been able to do that here this year, so for our guys they should be proud of that,” Seattle Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol said after the win. “We did all the little things that you have to do to win, scored a couple of timely goals, had really good goaltending. For real long stretches of the game we managed the puck really well, and for a night we got beat up pretty good in the face-off dot, we checked really well all night long.”
The Seattle Kraken are 15-4-and-2 away from Climate Pledge Arena.
The struggling Chicago Blackhawks will be the last hurdle for Seattle to finish a perfect road trip on Saturday. The ‘Hawks are tied with the Columbus Blue Jackets with the lowest point total in the league, 26, and may be without veteran superstar forward Patrick Kane, out for three games with a lower body injury. Chicago should know of his final status for the game on Friday.
Jonesy‘s Wall
Seattle Kraken goalie Martin Jones picked up shut-outs in consecutive starts, a first for a Seattle netminder. Jones shut-out the Bruins just three nights after blanking the Canadiens 4-0 in Montreal.
In between those two performances, Philipp Grubauer picked up the start and the 4-3 win in Buffalo on Tuesday night.
“They all feel pretty good,” Jones said with a smile referring to his 27 saves in Boston. “Couple big saves, but I thought we did a really great job in front of the net, I thought the high, high danger chances were pretty limited tonight.”
“The (David) Pastrnak save, that’s an obvious one on the breakaway, but there were some saves on some scramble plays around the crease that he was really strong and solid on,” Hakstol said, referring to a stretch of play late in the second period. “In that time period it was really important. By the time we ended up getting to the end of that period we scored a timely goal, Tolvanen’s goal at the end of the period. Jonesy helped us get to that point to stretch it (the lead) to two.”
“Our goaltender played incredible,” Seattle Kraken forward Brandon Tanev said postgame. “Jonesy was awesome for us tonight, and I think some great, big blocks for us tonight down the stretch and everyone committing to playing the right way.”
“I thought that was our most complete game of the season, to come in and play the way we did and come away with the win in this building, that’s a big step forward for us,” Jones said.
