Update: Goaltender Dustin Wolf has been recalled from the Stockton Heat on an emergency basis. He will serve as backup to Jacob Markstrom tonight as Daniel Vladar has been listed as Non-Roster for tonight’s game.
The 20 year old has a 14-0-2 record this year while posting a .940 save percentage and 1.84 goals against average.
With 19 days off to get players and staff cleared from COVID protocol, the Calgary Flames are set to get back to it with a road game against the 10-17-4 Seattle Kraken.
This will be the first in-season look at Mark Giordano for many Flames fans and, to the disappointment of most parties, won’t be taking place in Calgary where Mark would receive much adoration from the crowd, his former organization and his former team.
The date of Mark’s return to the Saddledome will be decided in the near future as it was originally planned for December 23rd, but was of course postponed due to the Flames losing effectively their entire roster to COVID protocol.
Seattle is in a bad way The Seattle Kraken have been struggling lately. They got 11 days off amidst game postponements from December 18-29th. They went into their break 1-3-1 in their last five. Upon returning to play last night— they lost 3-2 in overtime to the now 13-12-5 Philadelphia Flyers.
Whether you are a proponent of a statistical approach or the eye test or even both, if you watched the game you would probably agree that Seattle should have won last night. While their season is already going down in Flames, tonight will be a huge measurement of character for the team in its first season of NHL play. Three factors to that.
A backbreaking loss Putting the hustle in to put work the opponent as drastically as they did last night and still lose is hard on momentum.
36-22 in shots, 61%CF, 7-1 in high danger chances, and a shot map that looks like this:
Courtesy of naturalstattrick.com
The Kraken have little encouragement in the form of results after the game and have to get on the ice against a top ten team within 24 hours. The results of any given NHL regular season game can largely be affected by momentum. Last night was a back breaker.
The team wants to play well for Gio It’s no secret that Gio joined the Kraken in awkward terms. Being given up to the expansion draft is a shot to the ego. After serving as Captain for the Flames for eight seasons, being made expendable is surely insulting. The Kraken have faced a lot of adversity already this season. Bringing a big game for their captain at the tail end of a back-to-back would be a big moment for the young franchise.
Brandon Tanev It was announced today that forward Brandon Tanev will miss the remainder of the season with an ACL injury. Brandon is a guy who gives everything every shift. During losing streaks this season he’s been spotted breaking sticks and storming off among other things. Losing an impact player amidst a very poor streak of hockey is a huge blow to the Seattle Kraken.
Meanwhile, the Flames have had 18 days to rest and a week of practice. Excuse the abuse of the English language, but tonight’s game is sink or swim for the Seattle Kraken.
Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk Lucic-Backlund-Coleman Mangiapane-Dube-Pitlick Richardson-Monahan-Lewis
Hanifin-Andersson Kylington-Tanev Zadorov-Gudbranson
Markstrom
Shedding the rust It’s no secret that Calgary has some slow players on their roster. Erik Gudbranson, Nikita Zadorov, Brad Richardson, Trevor Lewis. It’s one thing to maintain a quality of play while playing frequently, but getting up to speed after almost three weeks off may pose a challenge for said players. The Kraken have some top speed forwards in Jordan Eberle, Calle Jà¤rnkrok, and Jaden Schwartz. Something to keep an eye on.
Nineteen days to stew Jacob Markstrom played his worst game of the season on October 11th, posting a .852 save percentage and letting in several goals he would surely like back. Expect a big effort from the giant Swede.
Game time is 8pm MST.
Trevor Neufeld