Say this for the Seattle Kraken in the 2022 preseason: they haven’t disappointed fans from either team.
Nearly every game has featured the majority of their starting lineup. They went undefeated until last night. They have a young center tandem that allows your imagination to run wild about what the team will look like in five years.
This year? Well they got decisively trounced by a Flames team with a proverbial arm tied behind their back. No first line, no Rasmus Andersson. The Kraken while missing only Yanni Gourde, Brandon Tanev, Jonas Donskoi and Justin Schultz were out attempted 48-27 at 5v5.
Despite some seemingly shrewd moves such as acquiring Oliver Bjorkstrand from Columbus or signing Andre Burakovski as a UFA, if the Kraken roll out the same type of effort into the regular season — they’ll be in the race for Connor Bedard.
A few notes on the lines.
Mangiapane-Kadri-Dube It was good to see Andrew Mangiapane getting back to using his speed to scare the opposition. He needs a game or two to get his game into form, but the immediate results were encouraging.
Nazem Kadri looked solid. He wasn’t going all-out, but made some savvy plays in his own end.
Dillon Dubé went hard to try to prove that he belongs on this line. He generated three shots by simply being hard to knock off the puck.
Rooney-Backlund-Coleman This line easily outperformed any other unit. 13-2 in shot attempts while all three were on the ice. That’s 86.67%. The Backlund-Coleman chemistry is already hard at work.
Kevin Rooney had a great game. Four shots, three rebound attempts, one penalty drawn. He may actually stick on that line.
Lucic-Eakin-Lewis Despite a somewhat rough night for two of the three players on this line, they still managed to keep the puck out of their net and maintain a 50CF% over three periods.
That said, Lewis was the only one to impress. Eakin battled, but didn’t do much with the puck. He ate the Kraken alive in the faceoff dot — 80%. Beniers and Jaden Shwartz won a faceoff each against him. He swept every other Seattle player.
That said, his play after puck drop and the two minor penalties he accrued were negatives.
Lucic doesn’t look fully healthy. Hard to speculate exactly what’s going on, but that shoulder injury may be still affecting his movement. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to give the grizzly veteran of over 136 NHL playoff games a bit of time to get his body ready for another playoff drive.
Milano-Ruzicka-Ritchie Milano certainly played like his job depended on it. He just couldn’t get the puck to the inside enough.
Brett Ritchie played a solid physical game, but has a ways to go to get his intensity back that we saw last year. Three noticeable hits and some good board work.
Ruzicka’s play has wilted a bit since the 3-0 loss to the Kraken last Tuesday. He carried the puck well and generated chances in that game — and yet was criticized by first Darryl Sutter and, in turn, the media.
Hanifin-Tanev Tanev could have played a cleaner game in terms of chances against, but still looked excellent. A goal in the first was a nice surprise. Hanifin delivered first pairing minutes as usual.
Zadorov-Weegar This pairing is still working it out. Weegar plays a very subtly solid game with the puck. Zadorov skated the puck into troubles couple times, but otherwise played well.
Mackey-Stone Zero complaints from this pairing. Another goal by Stone. No one on the team shoots like he does. They need to make room for both of these players.
Markstrom Zero complaints. Markstrom looks healthy and in form.
On the Kraken.
Jaden Schwartz and Matthew Beniers were the Kraken’s best players in the offensive zone. Beniers took an extremely painful looking shot off the thigh from Tanev prior to the Flames’ first goal. He could barely stand back up or get himself to the bench after — then he took a massive hit from Hanifin.
Despite needing a bottle of Advil this morning, Beniers released a perfect one-timer to score the Kraken’s only goal. A powerplay marker.
Shane Wright is a hard player to evaluate at this stage of his career. That being an eighteen year old playing against adults. He has above average speed already, but he needs to get stronger. Not an uncommon issue for younger players. He did make a nice pass or two after using his speed to make space.
Him and Beniers both had a rough night on faceoffs. Both 25%. Backlund ate both of their lunches. 6 for 6 against the two future stars.
To be fair, Mikeal Backlund ate almost everyone’s lunch. He swept Donato (3/3), he swept Beniers (3/3), he swept McCann (2/2), and he swept Wright (3/3). The only Center to handle him was fellow Swede Alexander Wennberg — who he went 3 for 8 against. The two have played quite a bit of international games together.
Former Calgary Hitman Martin Jones didn’t have a strong night in net. Lots of time to get his confidence going this season.
The Calgary Flames are in Winnipeg tomorrow to play the Jets at 6:00pm MST. Likely a last opportunity for several hopefuls in camp.
Trevor Neufeld
@Trevor_Neufeld
Stats via eliteprospects.com, naturalstattrick.com, and nhl.com. Graphic courtesy of naturalstattrick.com.