The Kraken’s top farm team, the Coachella Valley Firebirds, and the Hershey Bears get an extra day off before resuming the Calder Cup Final on Tuesday night with Game-3 in Pennsylvania. The ‘Birds lead the best-of-seven series 2-0.
The same can be said for the Stanley Cup Final as it crosses the country once again for Game-5 in Nevada on Tuesday evening. The Vegas Golden Knights took a 3-1 series lead with their 4-3 victory over the Florida Panthers on Saturday night. The Cup will be in the building for a potential presentation.
Puck drop for the Calder Cup game will be a little after 4 pm pacific with the Stanley Cup game starting about an hour later.
Kraken Draft Picks
This is the link to the NHL.com article on the entire NHL mock draft for the 1st round by our pals Adam Kimelman and Mike Moreale. Here’s who the two think the Kraken will be selecting at 20th-overall.
Kimelman — Axel Sandin Pellikka: The Kraken have done well adding young forwards in the draft, topped by Matty Beniers (2021, No. 2) and Shane Wright (2022, No. 4). Now they can start building prospect depth at defenseman with Sandin Pellikka, a right-handed shot considered the top offensive-minded defenseman available.
Morreale — Colby Barlow: Barlow can beat defenders with his great speed or strength in shielding them off 1-on-1 in tight quarters. He can play physical along the boards and could be a top-nine forward at the NHL level. He also won the Bobby Smith Trophy, awarded to the Ontario Hockey League’s scholastic player of the year.
Uh oh, Seattle Hockey Insider needs to avoid getting cocky, but we had Barlow as one of our three forward possibilities in our own speculative article on May 27th and we had Sandin Pellikka as one of our three D-men in our May 26th write-up. (I think we may have just gotten lucky doing some Draft math, but we’ll take it, and would use a smile emoji here if we could)
The NHL Awards show is June 26th, Round-1 of the NHL Draft is Wednesday, June 28th with the subsequent rounds all unfolding on June 29th. All of these events will take place in Nashville, Tennessee.
Around The NHL
Remember those guys who eliminated the Kraken, barely. Yeah, the Dallas Stars. They don’t get a ton of off-season coverage, but there was some great news for a guy who took a whole lot of flack when their playoff run ended: goalie Jake Oettinger. The netminder is getting hitched, a socialite story with a lot of hockey info as well, courtesy of the Dallas Morning News.
With all of the network hockey coverage in Canada, the apple never really falls too far from the Toronto Maple Leafs. (Yeah I know, that’s two different kinds of trees). We know for a fact that brand new general manager Brad Treliving is very busy. A few days back he brought recently former NHL player Shane Doan on board as a special advisor. Doan and “Tree” are close from their days working together in Arizona when “Doaner” was a player and Treliving was the assistant GM. Luke Fox at Sportsnet tells us more.
Remember those guys the Kraken eliminated in the first round in seven games? Yeah, the Colorado Avalanche. And remember the incident with an apparent drunken woman at the hotel in Seattle that led to Avalanche forward Valeri Nichushkin leaving the team after Game-2? In case you missed it, the NHL reviewed it and will not be investigating, according to the Denver Post last week.
Recent Kraken Stories of Interest:
— Kraken Might Consider Trading Up In The Draft
