Daily Faceoff Live: Seattle’s dominant road trip may have cemented them as a playoff team
The Seattle Kraken are looking more and more like a playoff team every day. Their 25-12-4 record currently has them in third place in the Pacific, with games in hand on both the Los Angeles Kings and the Vegas Golden Knights, and they have five points on the Calgary Flames to keep them out of a wild card spot.
But more impressively, they’ve absolutely dominated on their current seven game road trip. Through the first six games, they’re undefeated, beating some other strong teams like the Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins, and have outscored their opponents 29-10 on the trip.
The Kraken seem to be in a pretty good spot to get their first ever playoff action, so Frank Seravalli and Matt Larkin discuss just how good this Seattle team has been.
Matt Larkin: “It’s almost like this is the version of the Kraken that I think a lot of people expected to see last year. This year, everything is coming together. They don’t have a superstar, they don’t have a single who’s a point-per-game, but they have six players already with double digit goals, and this is the best 5v5 offensive team in the NHL. Number three overall offense, but at 5v5, absolutely dominant.
What fascinates me about the Kraken this year is not just the expected guys that are the leaders. Not just Matty Beniers or new additions like Andre Burakovsky, you’re seeing career-best work from guys like Adam Larsson and Vince Dunn, who I pegged as a breakout candidate and is on pace for 60 points. So, you’re seeing varied contributions throughout that lineup, and it’s sort of a death by 1000 cuts attack rather than a superstar-based system.”
Frank Seravalli: “Who saw a 40 goal season coming from Jared McCann, and a team that now has 11 players who have scored 20 or more points in the first half of the season, a, as you said, death by 1000 cuts approach.
When it comes to the deadline, I think the next question is, how big of buyer should the Kraken be? Should they be more conservative, which I think is in Ron Francis’ nature? I kind of look at this group and say ‘they need a goaltender’. What would this team look like if they got league average or above in goaltending, which both goalies are still under .900 in save percentage.”
Matt Larkin: “I don’t understand how this team has been this dominant with goaltending that’s so sub-par. So if you’re Ron Francis, maybe you don’t have to go all in this season, but I think it would be fair to this group to see if you can get an upgrade. Maybe it’s a cheap upgrade, you don’t have to swing for the fences. But someone in the tier like a James Reimer to solidify that crease would be very interesting.”
Frank Seravalli: “The goaltending market seems to be a little bit depressed this year as well. Not as many teams are in it. We’ll see how that changes over the next 50 days until the NHL’s Trade Deadline.”
You can watch the full episode here…