<p><p>TORONTO – Exactly one year ago Wednesday, the Seattle Kraken participated in what was either one of the best or worst NHL games played.</p></p><p><p>They headed into Los Angeles and defeated the Kings by a 9-8 overtime score that had pond hockey enthusiasts everywhere dancing in their tuques. For the Kraken, who won for the sixth straight time on their way to seven consecutive victories, the epic November clash epitomized much of what went right for them during the 2022-23 regular season.</p></p><p><p>Namely, their ability to score their way out of trouble when everything else let them down. That’s gone away this season and, judging by what’s there and what’s awaiting off the injury list, a flood of bailout goals per game isn’t coming back.</p></p><p><p>And that’s OK. Winning 9-8 is never a sustainable formula. The ability to prevail in low-scoring, tight games can be. But for the Kraken to do that, it isn’t a bundle of additional scoring they’ll need. It’s better goaltending.</p></p><p><p>They are 0-15 in games in which they fail to score at least four goals. And that simply isn’t playoff worthy, even if they garnered a handful of points from overtime and shootout losses. The most prolific NHL offenses barely average four goals per game. So, a Kraken offense that’s recently shown signs of at least averaging three goals a night needs its goalies to start making some stops. Even stops they aren’t necessarily “expected” to make.</p></p><p><p>It doesn’t take a genius to figure out which side of the best-or-worst-game equation Kraken coach Dave Hakstol was on after that 9-8 debacle. Hakstol, forever the champion of his teams being comfortable playing in 2-1 games, was inwardly horrified at how his squad threw defense in the dumpster and then watched goalie Martin Jones leap right on into the garbage pile along with it.</p></p><p><p>That marked the beginning of the end for Jones, the fake aura of his netminding Messiah status suffering a serious pinprick that bled the air out of his inflated hype balloon by January. As for Hakstol, he’d spend the rest of the season espousing the value of playing with a cool head in 2-1 games. It was a strategy that eventually reaped dividends when the Kraken pulled off the biggest win of their brief history by that exact score in Game 7 of their opening-round playoff series upset of the Colorado Avalanche.</p></p><p><p>Want to know what else happened that playoff game? Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer stole the show. In his signature Kraken moment, Grubauer stood on his mask-covered head and denied the Avalanche anything in an opening period in which they came at him with everything.</p></p><p><p>Grubauer wasn’t “expected” by the advanced analytics folks to stop all the pucks he did that night, but his team needed him to.</p></p><p><p>Things have changed quite a bit for the Kraken. Oh, sure, Hakstol would still love him some 2-1 victories. Especially given that he won’t soon be beating the Kings again – or anybody else – by a 9-8 count. Nine goals these days represents a two-week Kraken output at times.</p></p><p><p>But the Kraken also aren’t getting the goaltending they saw in Game 7. Not from Grubauer, who allowed four goals on the first 15 shots against the Chicago Blackhawks on Tuesday night – at least two of them appearing imminently stoppable – and not much from Joey Daccord either.</p></p><p><p>Daccord has been lights-out early in games, but then the floodgates open by the third period. With Grubauer, it’s the opposite: He’ll be a third-period lion, as he was in Chicago, but it’s moot if his team is forever digging out of an early hole.</p></p><p><p>To date, Daccord has been the better goalie – but not by nearly enough to claim the No. 1 mantle for a playoff aspirant. His save percentage of .895 ranks 35th among NHL goalies while Grubauer’s .881 mark is 46th.</p></p><p><p>We can quibble about whether the Kraken allowing fewer shots than average makes the save percentages of their goalies look worse. OK, fine, but the advanced stats from Evolving Hockey say Grubauer has given up 5.42 more goals than “expected” while Daccord has allowed 2.41 more.</p></p><p><p>Don’t like those numbers? MoneyPuck said Grubauer has given up 6.3 more goals than expected, while Daccord has allowed 5.0 more. So, no matter where you get those stats from, or which algorithms are gauging shot quality, all have Kraken goalies in the league’s bottom rung.</p></p><p><p>The Kraken are also ninth worst in goals allowed per contest at 3.26.</p></p><p><p>We can go on and on. At some point, even the cherry-picked numbers matter. Because if we’re going strictly by eye test, that 50-foot goal by Jason Dickinson and the short side sneak job from 29 feet by Tyler Johnson, both against Grubauer on Tuesday, weren’t getting hung in any museums.</p></p><p><p>So, where to go from here? Well, when you’re allowing 3.26 goals per game and scoring only 2.8, the results aren’t going to be there. And the Kraken need results, as they’ve been passed in the wild-card standings by Nashville and Arizona and – more important – caught by Calgary, with Edmonton charging up fast from the bottom.</p></p><p><p>The Oilers and Flames are far more formidable than the Predators or Coyotes, and if the Kraken miss the playoffs, it will likely be because of those Alberta squads. So, the Kraken need to start piling up points.</p></p><p><p>As mentioned, the offense is building to where three-goal games are no longer an anomaly. Matty Beniers has been coming on strong after a tough opening month, Eeli Tolvanen and Tye Kartye as well.</p></p><p><p><span class="print_trim">Tolvanen gives the Kraken four players with at least five goals. Beniers and Kartye give them seven players with at least four. Jordan Eberle should have had his fourth goal of the season against the Blackhawks but was absolutely robbed by Petr Mrazek.</span></p></p><p><p><span class="print_trim">The power play also looks better, Tuesday night notwithstanding. Andre Burakovsky and Brandon Tanev are due back soon as well, so expecting the offense to score at least three per game seems fair going forward.</span></p></p><p><p><span class="print_trim">But the goaltending can’t continue to be so inconsistent that the Kraken need to score at least four times per contest.</span></p></p><p><p><span class="print_trim">Hakstol can talk all he wants about players executing his transition system and avoiding poor puck play. We can gripe about defensemen needing to clear the net front. But all teams make mistakes. The Kraken need their goalies to start having their backs more often. And right now, those backs are firmly pressed against the wall with no place left to go but forward.</span></p></p>
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