The Detroit Red Wings now stand at 11-9-and-3 after their 2-1 win over the Boston Bruins on Tuesday, and the Wings turn right around and battle the 8-13-and-1 Seattle Kraken (7:30 PM Wednesday on Bally Sports Detroit/ROOT Sports Northwest/97.1 FM)…
And the Kraken’s record belies the fact that they’ve won 2 straight and 4 of their past 5 games. Seattle just wrapped up a stretch of 3 games in 4 nights, including their 7-4 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Monday, so the team didn’t practice on Tuesday.
As such, our brief game preview will look back at Seattle’s win over Buffalo as our, “Getting to know the Kraken” narrative.
We begin with NHL.com’s Heather Engel’s recap of Monday’s Kraken win…
Jared McCann and Mason Appleton each scored two goals for the Seattle Kraken in a 7-4 win against the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center on Monday.
Brandon Tanev had a goal and two assists, and Morgan Geekie and Yanni Gourde each had two assists for the Kraken (8-13-1), who have won four of their past five games. Chris Driedger made 32 saves.
“The more you win, the more you trust the system,” Appleton said. “Whether that is how your line plays, how the team plays, whatever that is, a win gives you belief in many different ways. I thought we did a good job for most of tonight’s game. We hit a couple walls here and there. But at the end of the night, we got the points. And that’s what matters in this league.”
Jeff Skinner scored twice, Brett Murray had a goal and an assist, and Kyle Okposo had two assists for the Sabres (8-11-3). Dustin Tokarski made 25 saves.
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Tanev scored a second shorthanded goal when he poked the puck away from Dahlin at the Seattle blue line and held him off to score on the rebound of his own shot to make it 2-0 at 14:40.
“That’s just good, hard work,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “Good instincts on the first one, ‘Gourdie’ gets up ice and creates a turnover. He could kind of sense that, and he got up and got on top of it, and the second one is just great individual effort.”
The Associated Press’s recap continues the narrative…
Jared McCann and Mason Appleton each scored two goals, and the Seattle Kraken beat the Buffalo Sabres 7-4 on Monday night.
Brandon Tanev had a goal and two assists, and Carson Soucy and Jaden Schwartz also scored for the expansion Kraken, who had their season-high scoring total. Yanni Gourde and Morgan Geekie each had two assists.
”It’s a big vote of confidence for a lot of guys, and it shows our depth of scoring,” said Appleton, who scored his first goals of the season after he missed the first 11 game with a lower-body injury. ”We’ve got 12 guys who can put the puck in the back of the net on any given night.”
Chris Driedger made 32 saves as Seattle won for the fourth time in five games and second straight on the road for the first time.
”The commitment level and opportunistic mindset of our team tonight was great,” Tanev said. ”They gave us a late push, and a couple of late goals. But at the end of the day, we got a great win here for our group.”
The Kraken did lose Jordan Eberle to an “upper-body injury” during the Sabres game, and there’s been no update on his status. Former Wing Calle Jarnkrok is also injured.
NHL.com provides stat sheets from the game in the form of a Game Summary, Event Summary, and Rosters, and Sportsnet provides our highlight clip:
It’s too early in the night at 1:45 for game previews, but SeattleKraken.com’s Bob Condor offers a set of “3 Game Essentials” as Seattle aims for both its 3rd straight win and 3rd straight road win ever:
There are certain Kraken players who ‘go hard on pucks’ pretty much every second of every shift. Or so it seems.
Two examples from Monday’s win in Buffalo: Yanni Gourde chasing a Sabres defenseman behind the net during a penalty kill, getting his stick on the puck, then skating away with the puck when the D-men stumbled. Gourde patiently waited for Kraken teammates to get to the offensive zone, dishing a perfect pass to Carson Soucy for the first shorthanded goal in franchise history.
Eight-plus game minutes later, Brandon Tanev hounded the Sabres power play unit that was looking to tie up the game. He knocked a puck loose from standout defenseman Rasmus Dahlin, then shielded said puck from Dahlin, who was draped over Tanev from the Kraken blue line to net front.
Buffalo goalie Dustin Tokarski made the initial save. But Tanev continued going hard on the puck, blading the rebound into the net. Dahlin fished the puck from the net and angrily fired it into a corner.
Going hard on pucks in all three zones is a mindset as much as a strategy. More of that mindset will help compete against a Detroit team with more upside than many experts expected this season.
“I think we have that mindset as a group,” Tanev said post-game Monday night. “It’s (about) committing to the little details and being physical when you can. Not letting (opponents) have easy opportunities to get out of the zone. That’s the mindset the group needs to have.”
This team sounds a lot like the Red Wings–albeit older–and the Wings won’t hold a morning skate as they got into town late, so we’ll find out more about the Kraken’s lineup in the morning, but after that…Detroit doesn’t do great at the start of back-to-back games, so Thomas Greiss will have to be on his “A Game” for the Wings to win.
