Silver Seven Sens<\/a><\/p>\nGame Preview<\/p>\n
The Deadline is over, and the Kraken have a whole Bobby McMann and a re-signed Jordan Eberle to show for it!<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s\u2026kind of it!<\/p>\n
Yeah, kind of a weird deadline.<\/p>\n
On one hand, the NHL right now is extremely in flux. Several teams are only a few points and a few wins away from finding space in the NHL Playoffs, and as a result plenty of teams believe that the Western Conference is so wide open that many of the prospective sellers figured that they may as well give their best shot and just part with some of their auxiliary pieces. That\u2019s my best guess as to why the deadline, already rapidly becoming a bit of a dud while moves happen before it, felt even deader than usual.<\/p>\n
As for the Kraken? It does feel like a bit more of the same; a huge body with some scoring upside known for his jam and effort level rather than his high-skill cieling. It also hits as a bit of a sober reality: if they want to actually add that fabled high-skill player, they\u2019re gonna have to either find them in the draft or pay through the nose to get them in the offseason. They do have the resources to do that! It just takes the will.<\/p>\n
And the season to be over. But until that point, the Seattle Kraken hockey club is living and dying by the method laid out by Lane Lambert, and the front office seems to be quite willing to make this particular brand of hockey their meal ticket from here on out. We\u2019ll see how it goes for the last 19 or so games.<\/p>\n
So, let\u2019s put it to the test against another eastern conference team; the Ottawa Senators.<\/p>\n
The Sens are one of a couple of teams on the outside looking in as the Eastern Conference wildcard is slowly beginning to congeal. They went out this deadline Warren Foegele from the Kings and sent David Perron to the Red Wings. Maybe not the most exciting deadline; definitely not fixing their problems, but it\u2019s something!<\/p>\n
Of course, their biggest problem is one that seems to have just been a constant, never ending struggle for the Sens, and unfortunately that\u2019s the one position that didn\u2019t get much movement this deadline: goaltending. Linus Ullmark and James Reimer have been slightly under or at the league average in SV% all year, and it\u2019s left Ottawa\u2019s offense, which is doing decently, to hold up the team as they come into the final stretch of the season.<\/p>\n
The biggest nut for the Kraken to crack is their defense, which brings me no pleasure to let you know is actually quite stout this year. Their goalies may not be, but getting those shots off at all will be the central concern for Seattle. Forcing the Sens out of position through strong skating is going to be the key here.<\/p>\n
LET\u2019S GO KRAKEN, LET\u2019S GO SQUIDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Need to Knows The Time: 7pm PST The Place: Climate Pledge Arena in beautiful Seattle, WA Place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739],"class_list":["post-521751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}