Tonight the Kraken will face off against the Toronto Maple Leafs. Through the early part of the month, Seattle has been as up and down; losing to Boston, then winning against the Islanders, than losing to Arizona, than beating the Ducks. Seattle has not been able to string together two wins in a row since December 17th and 20th. They will hope to break that tonight against a Leafs team that has underperformed as of late.

In his last 5 starts, Jack Campbell has only posted one game above .900. Fans are starting to get a little anxious about that and losing to the Kraken would only pour fuel on the fire. That would be fun to watch.

Czarnik has impressed, albeit in the miniscule sample size of one game for the Kraken and he is giving the team one more useful bottom six player. He will be on a line tonight with Ryan Donato and Morgan Geekie. Geekie also registered an assist with Czarnik last game; his first point in seven games. If these two can develop a bit more chemistry together than Seattle might have the makings of a third line that can be defensively responsible and produce some goals.

As teams around the Pacific Division continue to stock up I wonder how long it will take for GM Ron Francis to get involved. Seattle has a number of pieces that would be of interest to other teams. Jarnkork and Johansson are UFA's who should garner some interest as depth options and Mark Giordano should obviously be a target for some teams if the Kraken want to trade their captain.

Seeing the Toffoli deal today makes me wonder if Francis would consider trading the likes of Yanni Gourde or Jordan Eberle if the price is right. Eberle has two more years left at 5 million but the 31 year old has shown even on a less offensively gifted Kraken team he can still produce. One would have to assume Eberle could fetch at least a similar return to what the Canadiens received for Tyler Toffoli.

Wennberg would be another name I would expect to be shopped around. The hope for Wennberg to be a top six forward just hasn't panned out as expected and while there are things to like defensively, there just isn't nearly enough offense there from the player. At 4.5 million for the next two seasons that is a decent salary for what may only be a third line centre.

The one area I hope Seattle gets involved is in taking on salary. There are a number of NHL teams that simply do not have the cap space available to make deals. Seattle could be the third team in a number of trades to take on cap space and receive draft picks in return. Seattle hasn't acquired nearly enough draft picks for my liking to start developing a plethora of NHL talent to make up the core of this team in the next 3-5 years. Francis needs to do better in this regard.

Tonight also marks the first game that Jared McCann will play against his former team the Toronto Maple Leafs. In 0GP McCann went 0-0-0 with the Leafs, registering 0 hits, 0 takeaways and 0 giveaways. He was also a Lady Byng candidate for the team with 0 penalty minutes.

Jokes aside I can imagine McCann might be a little fired up for this game. The Leafs acquired McCann as a bit of a buffer for Kerfoot knowing he would likely be taken by the Kraken. Seattle ultimately chose McCann which clearly looks like the right decision. McCann could be a bit more engaged tonight and I would love to see him score a goal just to stick it to Toronto a bit.

Tonight's game marks a mini Canada series as the Kraken will go on a road trip to visit Winnipeg, Calgary, and then Vancouver. Two of these are against divisional rivals so hopefully we see the boys come out more aggressive and really make those teams fight for any points.

Join the Discussion: » 24 Comments » Post New Comment

» Wright Plays In Top Six

» Eberle Signing Looking Less Likely - Trade to Edmonton?

» Seattle Trades Wennberg To Rangers

» Wennberg Healthy Scratched For Trade Related Reasons

» Should The Kraken Trade or Keep Jordan Eberle?