Salk on Seattle Kraken: The things to like from surprising early success

It’s early, but the Seattle Kraken (6-3-1) are… good? They’re playing well anyways, and regardless of who they’re playing, they’re finding ways to get wins.

Tuesday: Seattle Kraken beat Red Wings for wild shootout win

I don’t know whether that will continue over the entirety of this season, but I do think there’s a lot of value in winning early – for two reasons.

One, I think it gives a lot of the young players the confidence they need to play better and to play with confidence over the course of the season. Seeing that play its way out early is a really good sign for the long term. But maybe more importantly, I think it gives the veterans a reason to buy in.

Older guys, they may look around and say, we know this isn’t going to work, we know we don’t have the horses. And maybe it’s just internal, maybe they don’t mean to, but I don’t know whether they always give full, 100% max effort in that case. If they look around and say, hey, we’ve got a shot at this thing, then maybe you get the best out of all of those veteran players that they have to offer.

NHL standings

I’ve seen some things I like. I think Mackie Samoskevich is a good addition for this team. He brings a little bit more speed, he brings some scoring finesse. I like what I’ve seen from Berkly Catton in Year 2. I think he looks a lot more comfortable and confident than he did last season when he probably shouldn’t have been up.

And, let’s be real, whether you expected it or not, the German gentleman himself Philipp Grubauer has been a whole lot better. He has been the superior goalie early this year, and if he can reclaim some of that form, he can keep you in a lot of games that make things a whole lot more interesting for the Kraken this year.

This article is a transcript of the video at the top of the post. It is edited for clarity. Catch Mike Salk weekdays from 6-10 a.m. on Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.

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