The end of the Seattle Kraken’s 4-1 defeat to the Calgary Flames was punctuated by a standing ovation among the sellout crowd at the home of the WHL’s Seattle Thunderbirds, accesso ShoWare Center.
No, there wasn’t a strong contingent of fans dressed in red and white jerseys with the flaming “C.” Instead, with many dressed in blue, it was the completion of live hockey for over two hours featuring two NHL teams, an outreach effort to connect with a loyal and passionate following in Kent, where hockey’s future has lived here or near here for over 40 years.
Loyalty and passion signified extreme anticipation, with the NHL regular season awaiting the Kraken’s historic inaugural campaign just ten days away.
So of course, the fans rose to their feet for a night in pre-season play that will have a score perhaps soon to be forgotten, but a memory to signal a strong tomorrow that will live forever.
The Kraken wrapped up their pre-season “Three Rink Rush” tour 2-1, and overall with a 3-2 record and opportunity to close the pre-season schedule with four wins in six games Tuesday at Vancouver. Between now and then, lie two days, including a day off Sunday, to recalibrate and analyze a pre-season defeat, under the hood with a 22-13 shots advantage (including 8-1 to begin the game), 1-of-6 on the power play with plenty of offensive zone time, and the finale of four games in five days.
Notes:
- Vince Dunn scored his first pre-season goal, a one-timer on a second period power play that broke up three unanswered goals by the Flames
- Dunn led the Kraken with four shots on net
- Ryan Donato nearly led the Kraken back to a tie game early in the second period, hitting the post on a two-on-one rush to the blocker side of Dan Vladar (as fortune has it in hockey sometimes, the Flames came back and scored next trip down the ice, on Byron Froese’s second of two goals in the game – a deflection at the net).
- Alexandre True, a Thunderbird alumnus, made his first appearance on his old home ice since a boisterous crowd of over 6,000 witnessed a Game 5 win for the T-Birds in the 2017 WHL Championship Series over Regina. True registered a shot on net, with his first touch of the puck generating the chant, “Truuuuuuuuue” ….
- Joonas Donskoi returned to the lineup to register an assist on Dunn’s power play goal and has a pair of assists in three games.
- Nathan Bastian might as well be ready for a nap: he is the lone member of the Kraken to appear in all five pre-season games.
FROM THE PODIUM, WITH DAVE HAKSTOL:
Hakstol on his takeaways from the game:
“Takeaway is a lot of real good things out of the night. We started well, we don't we did a lot of really good things in terms of, especially on the power play, we generated some offensive opportunities. One thing we didn't do there is (Vladar) was on it, he was seeing pucks and make them first saves and we didn't get inside for any seconds. So that's one thing that I think we have to do a little bit better on a night like this. Those are some of my takeaways.”
Hakstol on the fast start, eventually leading to the final score:
“We didn't start on time last night, we did tonight. And we didn't carry momentum all the way through, had a couple of soft patches, and that that cost us a second goal. The second goal against we started a little bit slow on the second. But overall when I'm really evaluating things, I'm evaluating the smaller pieces and I said it after wins and I've said it after losses in preseason, and evaluating different things that we did well and did not do well. And really, you know, especially through the first half of this hockey game - we had a lot of guys that that executed well and did a lot of good things for us.”
Hakstol on his messaging to goaltender Chris Driedger after two deflections at the net go in:
“Go to work. Go to work. Now I mean, it's a tough night in terms of the amount of work that was coming his way. There's a couple seeing eye shots, there's one that's a tip. The first the power play goal is a tip play. The third one, second one, I think, goes off of one of their players legs at net front. Those are all things you got to fight to find those pucks and that's one of the things that Chris does really, really well. Tonight, they found the back of the net. So he’ll just go back to work, clear the deck, day off tomorrow and we'll go back to work on Monday.”
Hakstol on how time is well spent for the off day:
“The players need a day off. Now we’ve had a busy stretch, it's been a challenging stretch for them. So, tomorrow's a player's day off. For us, we'll be able to get away from the rink a little bit. But tomorrow we'll spend a lot of time. We can do a lot of work individually to start taking a look at, you know, not only individual performances but, the overall team performance as well. Then we'll come back together. We'll spend a little bit of time tomorrow as a staff and then we'll come back together, full go on Monday morning.”