Kraken Game Facts
This Evening: Seattle Kraken at Colorado Avalanche
Where: Ball Arena in Denver
When: 6 pm pacific
TV/Radio: ROOT Sports NW / FM 93.3
The Avalanche got a slight bit of revenge for their first round playoff ouster at the hands of the Kraken by winning 4-1 in Seattle on October 17th. The Kraken will now try to get some revenge of their own for letting Colorado ruin that home opener.
These teams should have a pretty strong dislike for one another at this point.
It’s the reoccurring battle between two of the four NHL teams without an ‘s’ on the end of their name.
Key Factors:
Expect Philipp Grubauer back in net for the Kraken. It’s very possible Ivan Prosvetov gets a start for the Avalanche considering Alexandar Georgiev has started ten of their eleven games. A little break would make sense.
These were the adjusted lines for Seattle’s game at Arizona on Tuesday. The line-up dramatically outshot, out-chanced, and out-hit the Coyotes in a game that went to a shoot-out.
The new ripple is the call-up of forwards Shane Wright and Ryan Winterton from Coachella Valley on Wednesday afternoon. That maxes out the NHL roster. Both are usually centers, but it sounds like Wright will fill in for Jordan Eberle, who suffered a skate cut to his leg at practice on Wednesday. Winterton will bump someone else out of the line-up.
Jared McCann – Matty Beniers – Kailer Yamamoto
Jaden Schwartz – Alex Wennberg – Jordan Eberle
Eeli Tolvanen – Yanni Gourde – Oliver Bjorkstrand
Devin Shore – Pierre-Edouard Bellemare – Tye Kartye
Vince Dunn – Adam Larsson
Jamie Oleksiak – Will Borgen
Brian Dumoulin – Justin Schultz
Missed games are adding up for the injured Kraken. Winger Brandon Tanev has been skating again with the team. He’s been out for twelve matches since being injured in the season opener. Winger Andre Burakovky is still week-to-week and has missed seven games.
Who’s Hot? And Not …
Jaden Schwartz pushed his point streak to seven games with a goal in Tempe. That ties a streak he had in 2016 with the St. Louis Blues. A point Thursday night and he’ll tie his career record with an eight game streak.
Defenseman Justin Schultz has five points over his last four games.
We’ve been talking about Matty Beniers being cold with no goals on the season, but maybe Tuesday’s two assist game will light an overall spark.
Former Norris Trophy winner Cale Makar is healthy and off to a hot start this season with 14 points in 11 games from the blueline for Colorado. In his career he has seven points in six regular season games against the Kraken.
Special Teams
By going 1-for-3 on the man advantage on Tuesday night, the Kraken improved to 26.3% for the season, still 8th best in the NHL. Seattle gave up two goals on four Arizona power play chances as their overall penalty kill slipped to a 73.3% success rate, or 27th best in the NHL.
The Avalanche power play is surprising in its ineptness, succeeding just 18.6% of the time. Their penalty kill is excellent, getting the job done 89.1% of the time. That’s fourth best in the league.
Coming In:
Kraken: 4-6-and-3, coming off the 4-3 shoot-out loss on the road against the Coyotes on Tuesday.
Avalanche: 8-and-3, on top of the Central Division with 16 points. At home, they beat the New Jersey Devils 6-3 on Tuesday evening.
The Kraken have won their last two regular season visits to Ball Arena. They also beat the Avalanche in Denver in Game-7 of last season’s opening playoff round.
Recent Kraken:
— Simmer’s Kraken Sunday 9: Goalie Secrets, Scoring Slump, Bobble John
I hear that Jordan Eberle will be out tonight after a scary accident during practice. Hopefully it isn’t too serious. Hakstol said he “dodged a bullet,” so it sounds like Eberle should be alright. As far as the team is concerned, it is a bad time to lose one of their alternate captains with Burakovsky and Tanev still out, not that there is ever a good time to lose an A. As lucky as the team was with injuries last year, it seems that luck is regressing to the mean this year.