The Bruins got their entire world wrecked on Tuesday night. Let’s see if they can put that behind them tonight.
Just the Facts
- The Time: 10pm EST
- The Place: Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, WA
- Place to Watch: NESN, Amazon Prime (in Seattle Market), KING-5
- Place to Listen: 98.5 The Sports Hub
- An Opposing Viewpoint: Davy Jones’ Locker Room
Know Your Enemy
- The Kraken are 6th in the Pacific Division, with a record of 14-14-2, and 30 points in the standings.
- Their leading goalscorer is Jared McCann, who has 10 goals in 30 games. He also happens to be the leader in points for the Kraken with 24.
- Shane Wright, their seeming eternal rookie that’s finally getting a chance to play some games, has ended up a major force over the last few games on the power play, having three goals in their last five games.
- Comparatively, there’s no question on who the better goaltender is in Seattle; Joey Daccord has played 20 games for Seattle, and has a .916 SV%.
Game Notes
The Kraken are an unusual foe.
Are they good? eeeh, probably not. Are they bad? That’s also a little strong, given what else lurks in their division and conference. They are a .500 team with some serious weaknesses (goaltending, consistent offense) that also has some interesting positives (Wright, Beniers slowly rounding into form as a defensive center, the entire line Oliver Bjorkstrand is on) happens to be a mere 3 points out of a playoff spot thanks to the Western Conference outside of it’s powers being a real mess.
Given what just happened to Boston however, that’s no guarantee of anything. Hell, given the bizarrely close history these two teams share with each other, it’s all the more reason to show up big-time.
Seattle doesn’t quite have the talent yet to make Boston pay as brutally for the many unforgivably bad turnovers in their own end like Winnipeg does, but they can still happily take ample advantage of a less than ideal defensive effort if the Bruins decide to bring it out. That means just about everybody who’s played a game in Black and Gold this year who’s also playing on defense needs to, and I’m gonna be a little vulgar here: shape the hell up. That effort against the Jets cannot be repeated at any level against Seattle.
The Bruins also need to test the limits of Seattle’s goaltending; If it’s Daccord, they need take advantage of his aggression in net; he comes out far from the net to make a lot of his saves, and a net-front presence that can force a rebound chance into the twine will do wonders for them. Seattle’s defense has the unusual quality of being disruptive but not necessarily great at creating Zone exits outside of individual talents, so pressing them to make mistakes and extend zone time will help.
If it’s Grubauer on the other hand…genuinely, just throw shots on him. A lot of them. He’s not been able to keep even medium-danger shots from staying in his glove or body, so by sheer force of averages; one of them ought to go through.
Other than that, if the Bruins can actually summon a reasonable defensive effort and keep the Kraken’s shooting to the outside, there’s a win in this game for them.