Kraken Game Facts
Tonight: Seattle Kraken at St. Louis Blues
Where: Enterprise Center
When: 5 pm pacific, with actual puck drop 10 to 15 minutes later because of another home-opener pregame.
TV/Radio: ROOT Sports NW / FM 93.3
Key Factors:
Starting goaltenders: Joey Daccord for Seattle, Jordan Binnington for St. Louis.
Thursday night, Seattle struggled to score against the Nashville Predators. They were shut-out 3-0 after losing Tuesday night 4-1 in Vegas against the Golden Knights. Again, as we came to expect last season, Seattle’s even strength game was often in sync while their power play sputtered.
The Kraken are now 0-for-6 on the man advantage with a shorthanded goal against.
On the flip side the Kraken penalty kill was flawless for the second straight game. Seattle is a perfect 7-for-7 on the PK.
Even with the addition of noted draw-man Pierre-Edoaurd Bellemare, the Kraken won just 40.8% of their face-offs in the opener and 43.8% in Nashville. The veteran only played 7:30 in the 1st game after blocking a shot with his hand in the 2nd period in Vegas. Either way, the Kraken are struggling to gain initial puck possession.
Brandon Tanev remains out after taking a hit to the head in the 3rd period against the Golden Knights, an infraction that earned Vegas’s Brett Howden a two game suspension.
The Blues are injury free.
It’ll be interesting to see if Seattle head coach Dave Hakstol sticks with this line-up to start, and if so, how long until he starts juggling things if the scoring drought continues.
Jared McCann – Matty Beniers – Jordan Eberle
Jaden Schwartz – Alex Wennberg – Andre Burakovsky
Eeli Tolvanen – Yanni Gourde – Oliver Bjorkstrand
Tye Kartye – Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – Kailer Yamamoto
Vince Dunn – Adam Larsson
Brian Dumoulin – Justin Schultz
Jamie Oleksiak – Will Borgen
Joey Daccord
Philipp Grubauer
The group will once again get a bit of extra time in the dressing room before the game as it’s yet another opening night.
Special Teams
The Blues went 0-for-3 on the man advantage against the Stars two nights ago while also shutting down a Dallas power play that went 0-for-4.
Last season St. Louis was 22nd out of 32 NHL teams on the power play with a 19.3% success rate, and even worse on the penalty kill, 30th in the league at 72.4%. Add to that the fact they traded their best PKer Ryan O’Reilly in February to the Toronto Maple Leafs. As Kraken fans would have noticed Thursday, O’Reilly has since moved on to Nashville.
The Blues are 14-for-14 on the penalty kill all-time against Seattle and own a winning record of 4-and-2 head-to-head, despite the Kraken going 2-and-1 against the Blues last season.
Coming In:
Kraken: 0-and-2, coming off a 3-0 loss at Nashville on Thursday night.
Blues: 0-0-and-1, with a 2-1 shoot-out loss in Dallas on Thursday night.
Historically, St. Louis has been very good in home openers and have gone 3-0-and-1 in their last four.
Recent Kraken:
— Kraken Morning After; Offense Sputters, Blues Await
— Grubauer Does All He Can In Kraken’s 3-0 Loss In Nashville
