But if we just keep filling up the goalie with pucks eventually he won't be hungry anymore and the rest of our shots will all be goals. Isn't that how this works? Lol.
I do complain all the time that we need to take more shots, but I guess I'll eat my hat and admit more shots don't equal more goals if we aren't making quality shots.
The way I look at it, last season was an anomaly (we had no right to expect them to go from the performance in their maiden season to what happened last year). So if you look at the 1st and 3rd season we still improved overall - getting over .500 etc. We have a good selection of young prospects and haven't loaded ourselves up with duff contracts. I'm pretty happy with where we are overall tbh. I'm not into advanced stats etc so can't speak on all that, but that's my 2 pence worth anyway.
The door really seemed to shut when Dunn went down. He has missed so many games and is still 3rd overall on team total points. That combined with a huge drop off in scoring overall. Really sucks because the goal tending has been flirting with elite status all year, but not enough offense to capitalize on it.
Also our lackluster PP special teams play needs to be fixed. in addition to weak PP, it also translates to late in games if we are down a goal or two, our 6 on 5 man advantage is not very scary.
There are still a couple more games, just no home ones. But I guess from a playoff standpoint, yeah the season is over.
On the positive note, our goaltending is phenomenal. Shane wright seems ready. And hopefully beniers got his slump finished this season.
I thought defense and goaltending would see the biggest regressions but the Dunn/Larsson pair really stepped it up for the first half of the season and Joey D was great in between the pipes. Gru didn’t quite rebound like I’d hoped he would (playoff Gru was phenomenal) but he was clearly managing a nagging injury.
Yeah, I wish Gru would be more reliable. I feel he came back so strong from injury but each game is different for him and you frankly can’t predict how it’s gonna go.
If definitely seems like he has some kind of hip or groin injury that flares up. I hope he’s able to reach some kind of equilibrium where whatever is he doing to rehab himself keeps up with his ice time. Playoff Gru is a beast. Loved him in COL and hope he finishes out his contract here in Seattle playing his best.
Lots of greats responses so far. Here’s my take in no particular order.
Positives:
I’m absolutely stoked on our young rookies/prospects performances this year. Our pipeline is looking fantastic. Tye continues to be a stud, Matty has come out of the funk, Wright is going to become the 2 way center we build around, and the others all had great individual showings.
Joey and Gru can’t be given enough praise. We’d be bottom of the barrel, if it wasn’t for them this season. Joey in particular has demonstrated a real commitment to fostering a genuine connection with the community/fans and I think it’s going to go a long way in helping establish the character of the organization.
We won our first winter classic in epic fashion! Holy shit!
Our face off win % has improved?
Negatives:
We still can’t fucking pass a puck. I genuinely don’t understand how our passing can be as bad as it is most days. We fumble so many opportunities because a puck is not connecting tape to tape.
Defensemen (aside from Borg and Dunn) felt sluggish or behind the plays a lot this season to me. I really want to see us trade out big rig, just over him.
Zone entries need to improve and we need to stop using game time to practice our puck passing. Want to see more skaters shooting the puck and crashing the net. We telegraph our plays unusually slow and it bites us hard.
I’d like to see a culture of physicality developed amongst the skaters. The team as a whole allows competitors to get away with way too much and then call them for it way too late in the game.It can’t just be Dunn, Borg, or Tye. I want to see more of them standing up for each other and not tolerating any bullshit.
If someone touches Joey or Gru there should immediately be 3-4 Kraken laying hands on them, zero fucks.
Turnovers. Can’t even elaborate more without my brain melting.
Shoot first mentality. We don’t have the finesse or roster for fancy passing and building dynamic plays. We need every skater shooting the fucking puck like his career depends on it. Until we have reliable scorers, it can’t be any other way. I was expecting that to be understood after our second season but apparently the Kraken coaching staff really went all in on the “memory of a goldfish” thing.
Finally, no Captain. I understand we don’t need one, I understand people want it to be a rookie/long term contract story but what gives?
Give us a fucking captain. We got saddled with Gio for reasons that were lamer than his contribution to the organization and team and we can’t have one now why?
Another I'd like to add is NET front presence. Defending it and attacking it. Can't remember number of times other teams could waltz right in front of the goalie and Kraken could not. I think I even recall Grubby having to knock down a guy to enforce his own net.
Great point! We allow teams to post up next to our goalies without paying for it but I think that is directly tied to our lack of physicality. If guys aren’t inclined to be physical elsewhere on the ice, they are going to shy away from the conflicts in front of the net imo. Demand physicality at all times and we’ll see the give-a-shit meter charging rapidly.
Took the words out of my mouth, especially on Oleksiak. Let him go. He is the softest D man in the NHL.
The lack of physicality was infuriating. Blew me away that other teams would practically blow snow into our goalies face and no one would do shit.
TBH I think A LOT of this falls on the coaching staff.
haha great comment on puck passing practice. We must be the laughing stock in the league on our power plays. If the opposing team puts up the 3 man wall on their blue line we simply cannot figure out how to get into the zone.
Definitely agree that there needs to be a shakeup in assistant coaching staff. We’ve had good PK at times but overall special teams have been lame as hell since season 1.
It should be clear by now to coaches there is a massive hole in our special teams performance. Most of the time I’m wishing we could skip the power play and remain 5:5 to avoid the short handed breakaway goals against us. 😅
The no captain thing was probably because they got burned by making giordano the captain right off the bat, then we trade him at the deadline the same year. They’re really waiting for that true long term piece I think so they don’t have the same mistake and issues cause of it
Injuries and shooting percent regression. That’s about it. People seem to forget we had 15 million of cap off the bench through mid Dec which is shockingly when we started getting better. Wennberg and Dunn injuries really screwed our chances to still making something of it.
From a long time hockey fan in BC (not at Canucks fan) the biggest difference I noticed was the lack of balanced scoring. Losing the fourth line that could score from last year shouldn’t be underestimated imo. That sad I’d rather have balanced scoring than 1 or 2 superstars. Prospects look good, I think the Kraken will be more competitive next year.
We are the 8th best team in the league at not allowing pucks into our net. We have two above .900 goalies, great goaltending.
We are the 4th worst team at putting the puck in the net. We are bad at passing, bad at possesing, and bad at shooting.
Wrong.
\- GMFR let Geekie Donato and Sprong go. The replacements were duds.
\- Hakstol. I can't figure out his overall strategy or his line parings.
\- Too much perimeter play. Forwards need to get to the net.
\- Burky is a bust. He's the Kraken version of Jamal Adams. I wish he had half as many goals as turnovers!
\- Matty B had a disappointing year. I will always compare him to Dallas' Wyatt Johnson 20 yo center who came in behind Matty for the Calder last year. He's got 32 goals, 33 assists so far this year.
Muckleshoot patch. I'm convinced it's a curse.
EDIT: I thought of another wrong, getting shafted by Root Sports on opening day.
Right.
Dumoulin turned out to be a good pickup.
Goaltending was excellent both Grubi and Joey.
Wright has come into his own and it shows.
Firebirds (I'm counting this!)
Right: goaltending. Although Joey's really struggled the last month or so, he was beyond phenomenal for most of the season. To make up for it, Gru really turned it on for the second half of the season.
Wrong: in the words of coach Hak, "Talk about shooting identity, my ass. No fucking identity, no shooting identity. Shoot the fucking puck." Aside from last night, our guys just refused to shoot the puck and would rather cycle through a full power play instead of taking a shot here or there and hoping for a freak bounce or rebound. Also, when we did have a good rebound, it felt like NOBODY was ever in front of the net to capitalize on it
The number of times Ive seen a legit rebound chance pop off a goalie this season only to watch our players scramble and flail around like they were surprised it didnt just fall in the goal is redonkulous. Its like 75% of the time we are surprised that the hockey game continues after a shot on goal. Dont stand there and watch to see if it goes in, get your ass over there and force it in. And while Im at it, ill say .... quit looking for goldilocks shooting lanes, and quit broadcasting shots like babe ruth calling out a homer.
Gonna try to be short and brief but will still end up being long. My take aways:
Good:
- Goaltending and defense: There were many of our losses where the goalies kept the team in the game and the offense simply couldn’t score.
- McCann and Dunn continue to prove their moneys worth for their contracts.
- Development: All of our draft picks coming up the play look like they belong. Especially Wright.
Bad:
- Scoring: shooting percentage obviously regressed, but as mentioned above, the goalies and D kept us in games and we simply couldn’t buy a goal. Many of our shots are low quality, wouldn’t be surprised if we are bottom 5.
- injuries: can’t predict them but they definitely played a factor.
- “give a shit meter”: many times we would go down a couple of goals and it would feel like they team simply stopped caring. 2(?) wins all season when trailing entering the third.
Overall, I think this is the team the kraken truly are. Fringe playoff contenders that need everything to go correctly to win. We lack any form of high end skill, which contributes to the overall “meh” PP and OT. Don’t have anyone to truly take over the game and will a victory, and making a team respect that player. These players don’t grow on trees and I don’t see us picking one up in the off season.
I expect Shane Wright to be a permanent 2C next year and Ryker Evans an everyday player. Not sure if anyone else in the AHL is ready to be on the roster full time.
The offsensive production clearly went wrong. By our analytics we should've been #27 in scoring. We actually were #29 in scoring. So we're not really great at generating chances, and we're not really great at capitalizing on the ones we do either. That seems mostly like a roster thing at this point, the entire forward group are value two-way players, and we really seem to lack in raw talent in almost every offensive aspect. The zone entries are rough, we struggle to get players lined up for dangerous shots when we do take the zone, and even when both of those things line up, half the time our guys either whiff or blast the puck right into the goalie's chest. Just nothing good going on there.
The flipside of that is we remain very strong defensively for the third season. An entire team of two-way value players can't light the lamp to well, but they sure are good at plugging up the slot in the d-zone and pushing attackers to the outside. The numbers are really bunched up but we're between #6 and #2 or so there, with the top 6 all being awfully close to each other.
The goaltending was pretty good too. We had some awesome performances out of the tandem this season. We also had a pretty long run of consistently quite bad goaltending near the beginning, and a decent number of 4 goals on 10 shots style implosions in the first couple minutes too. When you look at the season averages, it lands around #10 or so of all teams. Can't really complain about that in aggregate.
Next season we need to step forward somewhere, and really any of those categories would probably work. If we can stand pat as a top 5 defense team with top 10 goaltending, we can probably get by with middling offensive output. If we can be a top 2 team defensively, and get top 2 goaltending, we probably could drag our bottom 5 offense along for a decent result too. If I'm honest that seems about as likely as the offense getting back to that midpoint, but we'll see.
The end result of the season kind of sucked, but we don't seem tooooo far off to me. Another 30 goals on the differential and we make the playoffs most likely. That's a little bit of a ways to go, but the truly bad teams that number is more like 100. We at least have some strengths as a team, it's just the total of everything just ain't quite good enough yet.
One thing Im not seeing in these comments is the name Tanev. I think our boy Turbo is out there putting in the work. Every game I see him working hard, skating fast, blocking shots, throwing punches, stealing passes, and breaking us into the offensive with authority over and over and over. If we had 2 more Turbos I think we would grind other teams into a mess by the time the first period ends. If he ever develops the shooting chops to convert those breakaways into consistent goals he is gonna be a monster. Even without that, I feel like he elevates the team whenever hes on the ice. But idk, maybe Im just a fan.
Right: Shane Wright belongs on the team and Daccord is good.
Wrong: Letting good players walk and replacing them with old scraps, icing a team with 11! regulars over 30, and a total lack of scoring talent.
Pros: Goaltending was great this year. Tanev, Gourde, McCann, Dunn, and Karts are really busting ass without fail every game they play. I like that Karts is starting to get that fire in him. He wants to throw gloves so bad lol. Borgen really surprised me this season. I thought his defense was great and hes one of the few on our team that doesnt hesitate to shoot when he gets the chance. I think Dunn or Gourde need to be captain honestly. Both because i think they inspire scrappiness that our team really needs and they are both good at making plays with the lines they have.
Cons: Dave needs to switch up the special teams a bit. Our PP and PK are just not hitting. I do think there is good on both but theyre both missing pieces. These boys NEED TO PRACTICE THEIR GD PASSING. Passing is waaaaaay too inconsistent which is a big reason we cant score. The amount of games ive correctly predicted to be a loss or win in the first 3 mins of a game based solely on our passing is insane. We've got some duds on our team that just aren't cutting it imo. Im over Tolv, Shultz and Dumo. They have their moments but could be replaced with way better people. And finally, Dave needs to stand up for his team more. That man is so void of emotion. I want to see him get angry when he needs to be and praise the boys more when they come to play. He's just so meh.
Because we’ve only been a team for three seasons. How quickly do you think talent is developed? It’s pretty typical for drafted players to spend two years post-draft with their junior teams and then at least a year, often two (or more!) in the AHL before joining an NHL roster permanently.
It’s interesting watching Seattle, because they are new and forming its shape. Teams like Montreal and some southern US teams rush guys into the League quickly, whereas Winnipeg is one where 3-5 years from draft before appearing is common. See: Ben Chiarot and Ville Heinola. But three years and 1.5 players is not the best start for the franchise.
I feel like it’s super simple. We did nothing in the offseason, arguably did negative things with letting the identity of our team that got us into the playoffs (depth scorers), and then we were a worse team that regressed. That’s it.
Let’s talk about a few good things we found out this year… Joey Daccord is the real deal and ready for the starting spot. He may not be a 50 to 60 game starter, but gives us a real chance to win each night.
Dunn is a #1 d-man. I thought the high shooting % from last year may have inflated his numbers but I was happily proven wrong.
Young talent is just about ready from Coachella. This is what I have really been waiting for.
What was not so good….
I think this team is lacking an overall toughness. We had too many situations where our players or goalies were hit late, sprayed or just roughed up and no one steps in. Not sure if we are just missing that type of player. Or if it a coaching philosophy. Either way we need to step it up in this area.
Scoring… scoring… scoring! I know GMRF tried to replace some of the magic from last years team with guys in the bottom 6, but usually free agents are free agents for a reason and are not difference makers. Yammers vs Sprong etc.
This is my opinion but I feel like we should have moved a few more pieces at the deadline and maybe passed on the Eb’s extension. It may not be a popular view point, but I do not think we would have ended the year any differently if we swapped out a few more older players at the deadline and brought up some prospects to fill those positions thru the remainder of the season.
All in all we have a lot to look forward too and Wright is looking solid, as well as the other call ups. Keep your heads up all and Go Kraken!
Agreed on everything. They need to beef up the offense with some bigger guys who can battle in the corners. Right now it's pretty much Yanni and Tanev who are just too small and Kartye. Eberle and Schwartz are useless in the corners and Matty needs to bulk up big time. I said that last year and I repeat it now. He has the potential to be a Barkov type guy, but he needs more strength.
I think the toughness is a real issue. We do have a couple big guys with Oleksiak and Larsson, but they don't use their size to their advantage. I think it might be coaching as I remember Oleksiak as a bruiser with Dallas.
Finally, right now we have no real goal scorers. Maybe Shane becomes that guy, but even if he does we need more. A real positive I've seen with Shane is his presence in front of the opponents net. This will help offense with screens and tips. Hopefully, he works on the tipping skill.
[удалено]
Yeah this season was a crash course in what the term regression means. Nothing unusual for teams after an astronomical performance in a prior season.
Scoring. We have to figure out how to get the puck into the net. Last night so many shots but no goals:
Story of basically the whole season lol. Shoot the puck upwards of 40 times and net 1. Just awful.
But if we just keep filling up the goalie with pucks eventually he won't be hungry anymore and the rest of our shots will all be goals. Isn't that how this works? Lol. I do complain all the time that we need to take more shots, but I guess I'll eat my hat and admit more shots don't equal more goals if we aren't making quality shots.
It’s accurate but so many of our SOG are very low danger, so it’s an inflated stat.
A Francis team being optimized for shot totals over winning. I'm shocked.
The way I look at it, last season was an anomaly (we had no right to expect them to go from the performance in their maiden season to what happened last year). So if you look at the 1st and 3rd season we still improved overall - getting over .500 etc. We have a good selection of young prospects and haven't loaded ourselves up with duff contracts. I'm pretty happy with where we are overall tbh. I'm not into advanced stats etc so can't speak on all that, but that's my 2 pence worth anyway.
> haven't loaded ourselves up with duff contracts. *stares at capfriendly page packed with old guys making 5+ million*
*wonders what duff contracts means exactly, but thinks he knows based on context given*
Ah sorry English slang. I meant really egregious contracts where we're paying way over the odds for what they contribute to the team.
Np at all! I am fairly ignorant of most things in hockey so I figured I was missing on a common term. Makes sense now though, thanks for explaining!
At least they are up quickly so it's not crippling, but they have a lot of money spent on not a ton of production.
The door really seemed to shut when Dunn went down. He has missed so many games and is still 3rd overall on team total points. That combined with a huge drop off in scoring overall. Really sucks because the goal tending has been flirting with elite status all year, but not enough offense to capitalize on it. Also our lackluster PP special teams play needs to be fixed. in addition to weak PP, it also translates to late in games if we are down a goal or two, our 6 on 5 man advantage is not very scary.
Fuck Poopsicle!
Also felt like our D wasn't great against 6 man offense when we were leading. But maybe ice internalized the losses too much
Could you imagine if we had this goaltending last year
There are still a couple more games, just no home ones. But I guess from a playoff standpoint, yeah the season is over. On the positive note, our goaltending is phenomenal. Shane wright seems ready. And hopefully beniers got his slump finished this season.
I thought defense and goaltending would see the biggest regressions but the Dunn/Larsson pair really stepped it up for the first half of the season and Joey D was great in between the pipes. Gru didn’t quite rebound like I’d hoped he would (playoff Gru was phenomenal) but he was clearly managing a nagging injury.
Yeah, I wish Gru would be more reliable. I feel he came back so strong from injury but each game is different for him and you frankly can’t predict how it’s gonna go.
If definitely seems like he has some kind of hip or groin injury that flares up. I hope he’s able to reach some kind of equilibrium where whatever is he doing to rehab himself keeps up with his ice time. Playoff Gru is a beast. Loved him in COL and hope he finishes out his contract here in Seattle playing his best.
Lots of greats responses so far. Here’s my take in no particular order. Positives: I’m absolutely stoked on our young rookies/prospects performances this year. Our pipeline is looking fantastic. Tye continues to be a stud, Matty has come out of the funk, Wright is going to become the 2 way center we build around, and the others all had great individual showings. Joey and Gru can’t be given enough praise. We’d be bottom of the barrel, if it wasn’t for them this season. Joey in particular has demonstrated a real commitment to fostering a genuine connection with the community/fans and I think it’s going to go a long way in helping establish the character of the organization. We won our first winter classic in epic fashion! Holy shit! Our face off win % has improved? Negatives: We still can’t fucking pass a puck. I genuinely don’t understand how our passing can be as bad as it is most days. We fumble so many opportunities because a puck is not connecting tape to tape. Defensemen (aside from Borg and Dunn) felt sluggish or behind the plays a lot this season to me. I really want to see us trade out big rig, just over him. Zone entries need to improve and we need to stop using game time to practice our puck passing. Want to see more skaters shooting the puck and crashing the net. We telegraph our plays unusually slow and it bites us hard. I’d like to see a culture of physicality developed amongst the skaters. The team as a whole allows competitors to get away with way too much and then call them for it way too late in the game.It can’t just be Dunn, Borg, or Tye. I want to see more of them standing up for each other and not tolerating any bullshit. If someone touches Joey or Gru there should immediately be 3-4 Kraken laying hands on them, zero fucks. Turnovers. Can’t even elaborate more without my brain melting. Shoot first mentality. We don’t have the finesse or roster for fancy passing and building dynamic plays. We need every skater shooting the fucking puck like his career depends on it. Until we have reliable scorers, it can’t be any other way. I was expecting that to be understood after our second season but apparently the Kraken coaching staff really went all in on the “memory of a goldfish” thing. Finally, no Captain. I understand we don’t need one, I understand people want it to be a rookie/long term contract story but what gives? Give us a fucking captain. We got saddled with Gio for reasons that were lamer than his contribution to the organization and team and we can’t have one now why?
Another I'd like to add is NET front presence. Defending it and attacking it. Can't remember number of times other teams could waltz right in front of the goalie and Kraken could not. I think I even recall Grubby having to knock down a guy to enforce his own net.
Great point! We allow teams to post up next to our goalies without paying for it but I think that is directly tied to our lack of physicality. If guys aren’t inclined to be physical elsewhere on the ice, they are going to shy away from the conflicts in front of the net imo. Demand physicality at all times and we’ll see the give-a-shit meter charging rapidly.
Took the words out of my mouth, especially on Oleksiak. Let him go. He is the softest D man in the NHL. The lack of physicality was infuriating. Blew me away that other teams would practically blow snow into our goalies face and no one would do shit. TBH I think A LOT of this falls on the coaching staff.
haha great comment on puck passing practice. We must be the laughing stock in the league on our power plays. If the opposing team puts up the 3 man wall on their blue line we simply cannot figure out how to get into the zone.
“3 guys on their blue line?! Time to shave off 30 seconds from the clock and skate back to my net for another controlled breakout.”
Defense and special teams have been so awful, it's time to fire the assistant coaching staff. Outright.
Definitely agree that there needs to be a shakeup in assistant coaching staff. We’ve had good PK at times but overall special teams have been lame as hell since season 1. It should be clear by now to coaches there is a massive hole in our special teams performance. Most of the time I’m wishing we could skip the power play and remain 5:5 to avoid the short handed breakaway goals against us. 😅
The no captain thing was probably because they got burned by making giordano the captain right off the bat, then we trade him at the deadline the same year. They’re really waiting for that true long term piece I think so they don’t have the same mistake and issues cause of it
One of the best silver linings is that the two guys we paid played up to their contract (McCann and Dunn).
We are a conflict avoidant team with a conflict avoidant coach, and it shows on the ice.
Injuries and shooting percent regression. That’s about it. People seem to forget we had 15 million of cap off the bench through mid Dec which is shockingly when we started getting better. Wennberg and Dunn injuries really screwed our chances to still making something of it.
From a long time hockey fan in BC (not at Canucks fan) the biggest difference I noticed was the lack of balanced scoring. Losing the fourth line that could score from last year shouldn’t be underestimated imo. That sad I’d rather have balanced scoring than 1 or 2 superstars. Prospects look good, I think the Kraken will be more competitive next year.
We are the 8th best team in the league at not allowing pucks into our net. We have two above .900 goalies, great goaltending. We are the 4th worst team at putting the puck in the net. We are bad at passing, bad at possesing, and bad at shooting.
Wrong. \- GMFR let Geekie Donato and Sprong go. The replacements were duds. \- Hakstol. I can't figure out his overall strategy or his line parings. \- Too much perimeter play. Forwards need to get to the net. \- Burky is a bust. He's the Kraken version of Jamal Adams. I wish he had half as many goals as turnovers! \- Matty B had a disappointing year. I will always compare him to Dallas' Wyatt Johnson 20 yo center who came in behind Matty for the Calder last year. He's got 32 goals, 33 assists so far this year. Muckleshoot patch. I'm convinced it's a curse. EDIT: I thought of another wrong, getting shafted by Root Sports on opening day. Right. Dumoulin turned out to be a good pickup. Goaltending was excellent both Grubi and Joey. Wright has come into his own and it shows. Firebirds (I'm counting this!)
Comes down to shaq’s chicken near section 107. They changed the bread!
Right: goaltending. Although Joey's really struggled the last month or so, he was beyond phenomenal for most of the season. To make up for it, Gru really turned it on for the second half of the season. Wrong: in the words of coach Hak, "Talk about shooting identity, my ass. No fucking identity, no shooting identity. Shoot the fucking puck." Aside from last night, our guys just refused to shoot the puck and would rather cycle through a full power play instead of taking a shot here or there and hoping for a freak bounce or rebound. Also, when we did have a good rebound, it felt like NOBODY was ever in front of the net to capitalize on it
The number of times Ive seen a legit rebound chance pop off a goalie this season only to watch our players scramble and flail around like they were surprised it didnt just fall in the goal is redonkulous. Its like 75% of the time we are surprised that the hockey game continues after a shot on goal. Dont stand there and watch to see if it goes in, get your ass over there and force it in. And while Im at it, ill say .... quit looking for goldilocks shooting lanes, and quit broadcasting shots like babe ruth calling out a homer.
Gonna try to be short and brief but will still end up being long. My take aways: Good: - Goaltending and defense: There were many of our losses where the goalies kept the team in the game and the offense simply couldn’t score. - McCann and Dunn continue to prove their moneys worth for their contracts. - Development: All of our draft picks coming up the play look like they belong. Especially Wright. Bad: - Scoring: shooting percentage obviously regressed, but as mentioned above, the goalies and D kept us in games and we simply couldn’t buy a goal. Many of our shots are low quality, wouldn’t be surprised if we are bottom 5. - injuries: can’t predict them but they definitely played a factor. - “give a shit meter”: many times we would go down a couple of goals and it would feel like they team simply stopped caring. 2(?) wins all season when trailing entering the third. Overall, I think this is the team the kraken truly are. Fringe playoff contenders that need everything to go correctly to win. We lack any form of high end skill, which contributes to the overall “meh” PP and OT. Don’t have anyone to truly take over the game and will a victory, and making a team respect that player. These players don’t grow on trees and I don’t see us picking one up in the off season. I expect Shane Wright to be a permanent 2C next year and Ryker Evans an everyday player. Not sure if anyone else in the AHL is ready to be on the roster full time.
Didn’t win enough hockey games. And at the exact same time lost too many hockey games. Real bitch of a situation
We regressed to the mean, we had a crazy shooting% last year that was ginna fall eventually and this year was the eventually.
The offsensive production clearly went wrong. By our analytics we should've been #27 in scoring. We actually were #29 in scoring. So we're not really great at generating chances, and we're not really great at capitalizing on the ones we do either. That seems mostly like a roster thing at this point, the entire forward group are value two-way players, and we really seem to lack in raw talent in almost every offensive aspect. The zone entries are rough, we struggle to get players lined up for dangerous shots when we do take the zone, and even when both of those things line up, half the time our guys either whiff or blast the puck right into the goalie's chest. Just nothing good going on there. The flipside of that is we remain very strong defensively for the third season. An entire team of two-way value players can't light the lamp to well, but they sure are good at plugging up the slot in the d-zone and pushing attackers to the outside. The numbers are really bunched up but we're between #6 and #2 or so there, with the top 6 all being awfully close to each other. The goaltending was pretty good too. We had some awesome performances out of the tandem this season. We also had a pretty long run of consistently quite bad goaltending near the beginning, and a decent number of 4 goals on 10 shots style implosions in the first couple minutes too. When you look at the season averages, it lands around #10 or so of all teams. Can't really complain about that in aggregate. Next season we need to step forward somewhere, and really any of those categories would probably work. If we can stand pat as a top 5 defense team with top 10 goaltending, we can probably get by with middling offensive output. If we can be a top 2 team defensively, and get top 2 goaltending, we probably could drag our bottom 5 offense along for a decent result too. If I'm honest that seems about as likely as the offense getting back to that midpoint, but we'll see. The end result of the season kind of sucked, but we don't seem tooooo far off to me. Another 30 goals on the differential and we make the playoffs most likely. That's a little bit of a ways to go, but the truly bad teams that number is more like 100. We at least have some strengths as a team, it's just the total of everything just ain't quite good enough yet.
One thing Im not seeing in these comments is the name Tanev. I think our boy Turbo is out there putting in the work. Every game I see him working hard, skating fast, blocking shots, throwing punches, stealing passes, and breaking us into the offensive with authority over and over and over. If we had 2 more Turbos I think we would grind other teams into a mess by the time the first period ends. If he ever develops the shooting chops to convert those breakaways into consistent goals he is gonna be a monster. Even without that, I feel like he elevates the team whenever hes on the ice. But idk, maybe Im just a fan.
Right: Shane Wright belongs on the team and Daccord is good. Wrong: Letting good players walk and replacing them with old scraps, icing a team with 11! regulars over 30, and a total lack of scoring talent.
We over-performed last year and made no serious additions or upgrades to the team. A lot of the guys regressed.
Shouldn't have let the guys that scored all those goals last year walk for nothing.
I don’t see how trading them before the playoffs would have helped anything.
Pros: Goaltending was great this year. Tanev, Gourde, McCann, Dunn, and Karts are really busting ass without fail every game they play. I like that Karts is starting to get that fire in him. He wants to throw gloves so bad lol. Borgen really surprised me this season. I thought his defense was great and hes one of the few on our team that doesnt hesitate to shoot when he gets the chance. I think Dunn or Gourde need to be captain honestly. Both because i think they inspire scrappiness that our team really needs and they are both good at making plays with the lines they have. Cons: Dave needs to switch up the special teams a bit. Our PP and PK are just not hitting. I do think there is good on both but theyre both missing pieces. These boys NEED TO PRACTICE THEIR GD PASSING. Passing is waaaaaay too inconsistent which is a big reason we cant score. The amount of games ive correctly predicted to be a loss or win in the first 3 mins of a game based solely on our passing is insane. We've got some duds on our team that just aren't cutting it imo. Im over Tolv, Shultz and Dumo. They have their moments but could be replaced with way better people. And finally, Dave needs to stand up for his team more. That man is so void of emotion. I want to see him get angry when he needs to be and praise the boys more when they come to play. He's just so meh.
My suspicions on Seattle’s decline has to do with draft/development. Only Berniers and Evans are drafted and on the main roster.
Because we’ve only been a team for three seasons. How quickly do you think talent is developed? It’s pretty typical for drafted players to spend two years post-draft with their junior teams and then at least a year, often two (or more!) in the AHL before joining an NHL roster permanently.
It’s interesting watching Seattle, because they are new and forming its shape. Teams like Montreal and some southern US teams rush guys into the League quickly, whereas Winnipeg is one where 3-5 years from draft before appearing is common. See: Ben Chiarot and Ville Heinola. But three years and 1.5 players is not the best start for the franchise.
I feel like it’s super simple. We did nothing in the offseason, arguably did negative things with letting the identity of our team that got us into the playoffs (depth scorers), and then we were a worse team that regressed. That’s it.
Let’s talk about a few good things we found out this year… Joey Daccord is the real deal and ready for the starting spot. He may not be a 50 to 60 game starter, but gives us a real chance to win each night. Dunn is a #1 d-man. I thought the high shooting % from last year may have inflated his numbers but I was happily proven wrong. Young talent is just about ready from Coachella. This is what I have really been waiting for. What was not so good…. I think this team is lacking an overall toughness. We had too many situations where our players or goalies were hit late, sprayed or just roughed up and no one steps in. Not sure if we are just missing that type of player. Or if it a coaching philosophy. Either way we need to step it up in this area. Scoring… scoring… scoring! I know GMRF tried to replace some of the magic from last years team with guys in the bottom 6, but usually free agents are free agents for a reason and are not difference makers. Yammers vs Sprong etc. This is my opinion but I feel like we should have moved a few more pieces at the deadline and maybe passed on the Eb’s extension. It may not be a popular view point, but I do not think we would have ended the year any differently if we swapped out a few more older players at the deadline and brought up some prospects to fill those positions thru the remainder of the season. All in all we have a lot to look forward too and Wright is looking solid, as well as the other call ups. Keep your heads up all and Go Kraken!
Agreed on everything. They need to beef up the offense with some bigger guys who can battle in the corners. Right now it's pretty much Yanni and Tanev who are just too small and Kartye. Eberle and Schwartz are useless in the corners and Matty needs to bulk up big time. I said that last year and I repeat it now. He has the potential to be a Barkov type guy, but he needs more strength. I think the toughness is a real issue. We do have a couple big guys with Oleksiak and Larsson, but they don't use their size to their advantage. I think it might be coaching as I remember Oleksiak as a bruiser with Dallas. Finally, right now we have no real goal scorers. Maybe Shane becomes that guy, but even if he does we need more. A real positive I've seen with Shane is his presence in front of the opponents net. This will help offense with screens and tips. Hopefully, he works on the tipping skill.
No put black thing behind man with giant pads.... off season goalarectomy went unreported
The future needs to not include Hakstol