How Seattle Kraken used unexpected break to turn season around

In general, an NHL hockey schedule is predictable. After training camp, the regular season kicks off with a regimented and dependable routine of a game every couple of days and practice in between, and that repeats until the All-Star break. The Seattle Kraken head into this season’s All-Star break after a schedule that was anything but routine, though.

Grubauer, Seattle Kraken blank Isles 3-0 for franchise’s first shutout

The NHL schedule has been a scramble since COVID-19 led to a league-wide shutdown in 2020, then a restart in a bubble, which in turn pushed back and shortened the 2021 season. It has continued with this season’s protocol lists and game postponements.

Seattle has struggled through the first half of its inaugural season, but one of these unplanned postponements helped the expansion club find its collective skates. Just after the New Year, a week’s worth of games were canceled. That gave the Kraken, who were in the midst of what would turn out to be a nine-game losing streak, a valuable week off.

The Kraken used that week wisely and now find themselves playing well, and playing the way they had hoped to from the start. They are 5-5-0 over the last 10 games and registered their first shutout as a franchise in Wednesday’s 3-0 win over the New York Islanders.

“We’re certainly creating a bit of an identity, which is important,” Jordan Eberle said after the victory over his former Islanders teammates. “You understand that identity and then you try to strive for it every night, and then that just gives you a chance to win.”

For the first time this season, it feels like the Kraken have a chance to win on any given night.

Winning five out of 10 games isn’t cause to begin planning a Stanley Cup parade down Fourth Avenue in downtown Seattle, but it is a glimmer of hope and positivity.

This newfound identity and moderate success all go back to that unexpected break.

Seattle Kraken staff turned the break into midseason minicamp

With a week off midseason, head coach Dave Hakstol put his team to work.

There were the familiar systems drills, but not like they had done prior in the season. These practices were tough, long, and physical. They were not the standard NHL practice. This was training camp.

Regularly the Kraken will skate for about 45 minutes during practice, but these sessions went well over an hour. The intensity was higher, and there were so-called battle drills, one-on-one reps, fighting for a puck in the corner, or racing down the ice to get to a loose puck first. Those types of drills raised the overall competition level.

The purpose was to go beyond crystalizing the system Hakstol wants.

“This gives us an ability to get up and down the rink and skate a lot in practice,” Hakstol said after the first day of the break. “We have a chance to execute and practice, to touch on some things that we haven’t been able to touch on over the last month. One of the biggest benefits for us that I believe is we can use it to just clear our minds. You know, get our thought process squared straight and really get to work over the next few days as a group here in practice.”

Watching those practices, the buy-in was obvious. Players skated hard and wanted to win those puck battle drills. They embraced the work.

“I think this week coming up is gonna be kind of critical that we put the work in and as much as we can,” center Morgan Geekie said at the time. “It sucks getting those games canceled but we’re going to do the best we can to use it to our advantage.”

The week was positive for goaltender Philipp Grubauer.

He had struggled through the first half of the season and became the poster child for all Kraken ails, but he looked strong in practice as that week progressed. Once Seattle got back to playing games, Grubauer was dialed in.

Whether it was gaining more familiarity or improved communication with his defensemen, he was playing at the level that earned him a Vezina Trophy nomination with Colorado the season before.

“I think it started after that little COVID break we had,” Grubauer said after stopping all 19 shots he faced Wednesday. “Since then, I think we’ve had time to work on some stuff. Like systematically, we worked on a lot of things which you don’t usually have time to work on, so I think since then it’s been really consistent for us and we’ve been playing smart hockey at the right times.”

Grubauer earned the first shutout in Kraken history on Wednesday and has won five of his last seven starts with a 2.14 goals-against average and a .918 save percentage. If nothing else, that January break brought back the Grubauer from Colorado.

Still work to be done

None of this is to suggest the Seattle Kraken are fixed. Goal scoring has still been a scarcity during this stretch. Over the just-completed four-game road trip, the Kraken scored nine goals, and that includes one in overtime and an empty-net score.

“We’re not going to say we’re scoring a ton but that really isn’t our DNA to begin with,” Eberle said. “I like to make the comparison of the team that I played for (the Islanders). We went to a couple of conference finals, we defend really well, we’re not gonna score a lot but we capitalize when we can.”

The Kraken are built to grind out goals at 5-on-5 and they’ve been finding the bare minimum of goals to put some wins together.

However, the power play is, to put it plainly, a mess. Seattle was 0 for 2 with a man advantage Wednesday and over the past 11 games is a dismal 3 for 40. With the thin margin for error they are built to play with, finding a way to improve the power play is critical for the second half.

The Kraken are not making the playoffs in 2022, but if they can play .500 hockey the rest of the way it just might help create some momentum for the offseason and next season. They won’t get a bonus break next year so will have to learn from how they’re playing now and carry it over.

More from Andy Eide: What Seattle Kraken may look like defensively next year

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