The Seattle Kraken have scored 22 goals over their last four games, all wins, and in the last one, an 8-4 victory over the Ottawa Senators, they featured eight different goal scorers, the first time an NHL team has done that this season.
“It’s not different than all year,” Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol said in regards to balanced scoring. “That’s been the M.O. (modus operandi – methodology) of our group and it continued tonight.”
“All four lines can score, even our D, our D showed up tonight and ‘Dunner’ (Vince Dunn) had a bomb there from the point,” Kraken forward Jared McCann said after the win in Ottawa. “I feel we’re more consistent. We don’t take any team lightly ever. We were the team that was taken too lightly last year, so we’ve been great this year on the road and we’re going to keep going.”
A little more than a week into the new year and the Kraken have already surpassed last season’s win total away from Climate Pledge Arena. With the three-game win streak to start their seven-game road trip, the Kraken’s away record is now 12-4-and-1.
In their inaugural season they finished 11-27-and-3 for the entire campaign.
It’s simply a better hockey club.
“That encompasses everything, from what we look like on paper to how we play and perform every night,” Hakstol said. “We’ve worked hard to be successful on the road. That’s not an easy thing to do, but we’ve found different ways to win games.”
Kraken Combo Platter
With the back-to-back games against the Montreal Canadiens and Buffalo Sabres on Monday and Tuesday night, fans will get a chance to see both Kraken netminders and to find out how Philipp Grubauer has handled his recent struggles and his present role as back-up to Martin Jones.
Grubauer is the big ticket item in the crease, in the midst of a deal that pays him $5.9-million per season for four more after this one. He’s presently not living up to it. In his last outing against the Edmonton Oilers in Seattle he got yanked after giving up three goals on five shots in the first few minutes of the first period. Of course, his team wasn’t much help.
That tough night for Seattle actually came off an excellent performance for “Grooby” two nights earlier against the Calgary Flames. Although the Kraken lost 3-2, their goaltender made 41 saves. His last victory came in the game on December 18th against the Winnipeg Jets.
Based on those efforts and his season save percentage of .915, Grubauer isn’t necessarily that far off.
We’ll see in the next 48 hours if the Kraken are indeed back to having a very reliable, two-headed goalie monster.
