GDT: Game 15: Minnesota Wild(9-4-0) @ Seattle Kraken(4-9-1) - 7:00 p.m. PT/ 10:00 p.m. ET

[Ray Martyniuk]

Why Hakstol? I don't get his decisions.

No kidding

 

[Ray Martyniuk]

If the Kraken didn't have bad luck they wouldn't have any luck at all,Shite!!!

 

[Cisse]

Hakstol have a bet on 1-5?

 

[Fistfullofbeer]

Hakstol have a bet on 1-5?

At this time it is just 6-on-5 practice. Not like we are going to win.

 

[Cisse]

A good shot.

 

[Ray Martyniuk]

f***ing rights Wennberg scores

 

[Ray Martyniuk]

So without the Empty netter it would be 3-2

 

[Ray Martyniuk]

They don't call hardly anything the whole game and suddenly the whistle comes out again

 

[Toomany7pins]

So without the Empty netter it would be 3-2

Yep. I’m new to hockey and even my dumb ass can tell it’s to early to pull the goalie..

 

[Ray Martyniuk]

If I was the Seattle Kraken Pro scouts I'd be scouting the AHL for waiver wire pick ups. Also why did M Johansson spend the whole season on the sidelines,he's a good player

 

[Alan Pettit]

Not as athletic. Good positional goalie but if the team is playing crappy D, an athletic goalie is likely to bail your ass more than someone like Grubauer.

Weakness is 5-hole and I don't know the correct word for this - Gru makes an incredible highlight reel save and then lets in an easy goal. Another weakness is confidence: a goalie fully confident in himself will step up when his D is playing poorly. I think Gru struggles in his mind with letting bad games go

 

[Gniwder]

If I was the Seattle Kraken Pro scouts I'd be scouting the AHL for waiver wire pick ups. Also why did M Johansson spend the whole season on the sidelines,he's a good player

He was injured and on COVID protocol

Kraken's Marcus Johansson: Will play Tuesday

 

[Gniwder]

Weakness is 5-hole and I don't know the correct word for this - Gru makes an incredible highlight reel save and then lets in an easy goal. Another weakness is confidence: a goalie fully confident in himself will step up when his D is playing poorly. I think Gru struggles in his mind with letting bad games go

I don't recall Gruby ever having a 5 hole issue, and he can be athletic when he needs to be. The confidence thing is true (as with most goalies) looked really shaky in the playoffs for the Caps, and that's when they decided to trade him and keep Holtby. (I think the team might have had Jim Carey flashbacks, lol)

 

[Alan Pettit]

deleted

 

[Alan Pettit]

I don't recall Gruby ever having a 5 hole issue, and he can be athletic when he needs to be. The confidence thing is true (as with most goalies) looked really shaky in the playoffs for the Caps, and that's when they decided to trade him and keep Holtby. (I think the team might have had Jim Carey flashbacks, lol)

Some of the 5-hole goals seemed soft he should have stopped IMO. Thinking more about it the 5-hole thing is more in line with what I said about stopping tough shots and letting in easy perhaps not a problem itself

 

[Gniwder]

Some of the 5-hole goals seemed soft he should have stopped IMO. Thinking more about it the 5-hole thing is more in line with what I said about stopping tough shots and letting in easy perhaps not a problem itself

I meant in the past, not this season with the Kraken. I know he's kinda having issues this season.

I've lived all over the place, so I've followed a lot of teams. I started out as a Caps fan a long time ago, so I've watched Gruby when he was with the Caps.

 

[RainyCityHockey]

Well, yet another loss while the team was overmatched it seemed.

I think people need to be a bit more nuanced when it comes to performances.
We can all agree that goaltending hasn't been good enough and is very frustrating so far this season.

Though, this game is certainly not on Grubauer and as much as you'd like him to stand on his head and win you a game, you can't give opponents chances like we did in this one.
Two were breakaways, after terrible mistakes, and the third one was them being allowed to pass it cross ice to a guy that was all alone in front of a goalie who had to move side to side.

I think it might be worth giving Driedger games and Grubauer more time off, cause the team isn't helping him and he probably needs to work on some things in practise while Driedger might be able to get hot.

Overall, to me, this team is not good enough to win consistantly in this league and like I've said before, Hakstol's trying to play a way that is not suited to the makeup of this team.
He wants them to be open and attacking when they don't have a lot of natural scoring ability while the defense is also not the greatest skating defense overall.

To me, it has now also gotten to the players heads as they're not able to outwork other teams anymore and are also playing on a low level of confidence after all those bad results.

Well, it’s another night where I’m extremely happy to have an NHL team in my state.

The way this is going we should keep that as our #1 emotion for the whole season.

And to be honest, that's right no matter how frustrating all the losses and performances are.

Francis should consider of making a trade with our number 1 pick in the next draft for the right player. With only getting decent players through the draft it will take us the whole decade to get us to be competitive. There are teams who have challenges with their salary cap and we should see if we can use it.
With one good creative player we could get a lot more out of this team and adding Beniers to it. Could change our power play a lot too.

It's looking more and more like a top five pick for us in this upcoming draft which is a very good and talented one.

There's absolutely no way Francis should ever touch that pick in some kind of a trade unless it brings you an Eichel type of player.
And those are usually not available.

If we get Wright then it is fine but in other case we should consider our options. UFAs can be a solution too but a number 1 pick who start really to help us 2024 or thereabouts makes one consider the options.
I'm not saying that we should trade the number 1 pick automatically, absolutely not but to continue like this for several years is not a good options either for the franchise.
However a lot could be reached with a couple of UFAs and a smart trade or two. The thing is I don't expect to see us anything smart before Hakstol is replaced by someone which would likely to be happening around 2023.

This draft is more than just Shane Wright and has a lot of very talented young guys like Savoie, Lambert, both russians, Kemell, C. Geekie, Slafkovski etc. and quite a few of them could even be playing right away in the league.

But even if they don't play right away, this is a more traditional/long term built and there's absolutely no way you trade one of those top five picks unless it's a game changer and they're hardly ever available.

There's definitely a coaching issue. I thought Hakstol was supposed to be a low event coach, but he's got the forwards overcommitted to the forecheck for some reason. With this roster, the only way the team can win is to play a stifling defensive game, Trotz style.

Bingo.
This style of play makes no sense with the players we've got and it leads to a lot of rushes for other teams as the forwards are overcommitting.

So yeah, a style somewhat similar to Trotz would make more sense but I doubt we'll see a change like that especially since that would mean completely changing everything this team has done so far.
That usually does not happen during a season, of course unless you change coaches.

BTW: I think I'm going to create a 2022 NHL entry draft thread given the way this season seems to be going.

 

[Gniwder]

BTW: I think I'm going to create a 2022 NHL entry draft thread given the way this season seems to be going.

All of the other projected bottom 10 teams already have 2022 draft threads....

 

[RainyCityHockey]

All of the other projected bottom 10 teams already have 2022 draft threads....

Glad I could help in us joining them....

 

[Kat Predator]

5 minutes left and they pull the goalie again...why???

Nothing says, "I believe in our even strength offense" more than pulling your goalie with over 25% of the 3rd period still to play.

Seriously though, the Kraken weren't exactly built with a lot of offensive firepower. And it has shown in many games.

 

[Fistfullofbeer]

Nothing says, "I believe in our even strength offense" more than pulling your goalie with over 25% of the 3rd period still to play.

Seriously though, the Kraken weren't exactly built with a lot of offensive firepower. And it has shown in many games.

The lack of offense is far from a surprise for Kraken fans. What is surprising is the shoddy team defense and sub-par goaltending.

 

[Kat Predator]

The lack of offense is far from a surprise for Kraken fans. What is surprising is the shoddy team defense and sub-par goaltending.

What's noticeable is the regression in fundamentals. They had more of a forecheck, better transitions, better passing, etc. in earlier games. More recent games have looked more and more aggressive, disorganized, and confused.

Hakstol has a reputation for a very aggressive offensive leaning system. "We'll beat 'em with numbers." Taking risks to spend more ice time in the offensive and neutral zones. If he is still pumping the tires on that system, then it would explain some of Pitlick's goals last night, which were 1-on-0 breakaways created by our D-men over playing the puck through the neutral zone and having nobody behind the puck.