The top story from Monday’s Seattle Kraken practice concerned who wasn’t in attendance at Kraken Community Iceplex: winger Brandon Tanev. The team announced that Tanev will be sidelined 4-6 weeks with what was described as a “lower body” injury.Â
The player nicknamed “Turbo” actually appeared to suffer two injuries in Seattle’s season-opening 4-1 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights. Brett Howden dropped Tanev to the ice with an illegal check to the head, for which he was ejected and given a two-game suspension. As Tanev was falling, he appeared to awkwardly twist a leg.
With Tanev out, both Kailer Yamamoto and Tye Kartye will again dress for Tuesday’s home opener against the Colorado Avalanche. Â
“(Tanev) competes so hard for us every night,” Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol said to the media after practice. “He brings pace and energy, he’s been a big part of our penalty kill, all of those elements.”Â
Hakstol also took the opportunity to praise the 4th line of Yamamato, Kartye, and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare.
“‘Karts’ and ‘Yamo’ have done a really nice job with ‘Belle’,” Hakstol said. “They’ve been a consistent line, reliable defensively, haven’t scored yet, but have generated some opportunities.”Â
The Kraken are likely to bring up a reserve forward from the Coachella Valley Firebirds of the American Hockey League, but Hakstol said that move hasn’t been made yet.Â
Hakstol Says Kraken Must Have “Short Term Memory” About 0-2-1 Start
As to the “haven’t scored yet,” the Kraken’s moribund offensive output through three games (two total goals) has been as dreary, chilly, and bereft of sunshine as Monday’s Seattle weather.Â
“We have to be real honest with ourselves,” Hakstol told me. “We went into Vegas; you could make arguments that if we get a bounce or two, we have a chance to win that game.
“We fell off of it in Nashville. We didn’t play well enough. For the last 30 minutes of that game, we didn’t do the things we needed to do. We felt like we were better in St. Louis, and could have deserved a better fate (in a 2-1 shootout loss).”
Hakstol says the key is to now put all of that in the rear view mirror. Â
“It’s a pretty short term memory. Good day off yesterday, really good day of practice today, and we know the challenge ahead of us,” he concluded.Â
In an effort to jumpstart the offense, Hakstol experimented in practice with moving two of his right wings to diffferent lines. Oliver Bjorkstrand skated with Jaden Schwartz and Alex Wennberg. Their usual right wing, Andre Burakovsky, skated in Bjorkstrand’s spot alongside Eeli Tolvanen and Yanni Gourde.
After the Tuesday tilt with the Avalanche (ESPN telecast), the Kraken’s mini-home stand continues Thursday night against the Carolina Hurricanes and Saturday against the New York Rangers. All of the games are listed as 7 pm pacific starts. Seattle then begins a four-game road trip.
Recent Offerings:
— Kraken NHL Monday; Now What? Surprises, Injuries
— Simmer’s Sunday 9; Barry Melrose, ‘The Kid’, Babs, McCann’s Record
I remember liking how violent hockey was in the eighties and nineties. The goons were fun to cheer for, because they were the protectors. They would ensure that guys who pulled the kind of dirty crap that got other players seriously hurt would be spitting chicklets on the bench shortly.
Of course, now we know that the goons were doing plenty of long-term damage both to themselves and to their opponents. That made folks, rightly, want to do away with goonery. Our athletes shouldn’t be punching one another in the face and getting themselves hurt doing a job that the officials should be doing.
Unfortunately, now that the goons are gone, the officials never stepped in to fill that enforcement void. Neither has the Department of Player Safety stepped in to make dirty crap not worth doing. Fighting still gets done, but now it is for no better reason than trying to establish momentum after good, fair checks. There is no incentive to not injure other players, so now what we have is cheap-shot artists and vindictive punks taking out the good players who we care about and cheer for just for a competitive advantage. I hate that, and I want it out of the game.
Either the officials need to hand out more match penalties like they rightly did to Brett Howden and the Department of Player Safety needs to start making the suspensions really hurt or teams need to bring back the Bob Proberts and Tie Domis of yesteryear, because the current way of handling dirty play is not working.
Right you are. Can’t have it both ways or it will just turn into figure skating with sticks.