The good, the bad, and the ugly: notes from the Seattle Kraken home loss to the Montreal Canadiens March 24th, 2024
By Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA – The bad continues to get worse for the Seattle Kraken, as their losing streak has hit the eight-game mark and there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of positive to take away as these ugly losses continue to pile up. The Kraken dropped an ugly game to a rather unimpressive Montreal Canadiens team, ensuring that Seattle would put away their Winter Classic sweaters without having won an indoor game in them (0-3, losses at home to Minnesota and Montreal plus a road loss to Las Vegas) as the team's poor luck with alternate jerseys continues. Changes appear to be coming for the Kraken, if head coach Dave Hakstol’s words in his postgame press conference were any sort of means to read into, and it’ll be intriguing to see what takes place before we get to puck drop on Tuesday when this homestand continues.
Pictures of the Seattle Kraken forwards throughout the teams 5-1 loss at the hands of the Montreal Canadiens on Sunday, March 24th, 2024 at Climate Pledge Arena. (Photos by Rio Giancarlo)
The good: Winter Classic sweaters
There really isn’t much good to take away from this game at all, considering the fact that any sort of momentum that the Kraken could’ve had would’ve been a second goal on a Matty Beniers tip on the power play that could’ve cut the Canadiens lead in half, but Montreal challenged the play for offsides and it was overturned. Any signs of offensive life that Seattle had were squashed and stomped out after that and there really wasn’t much of a dangerous opportunity on Canadiens goaltender Cayden Primeau after that. It’s truly a shame that the Kraken have struggled so much in their Winter Classic jerseys when they’ve been worn indoors, considering how good they look and how the Winter Classic itself was the highlight of the team's season. For some, that memory of that New Years Day shutout will be marred because of the team's poor performance in the games that have followed while wearing the jersey, and that’s just a darn shame. Maybe the Kraken have just been cursed (I could just stop the sentence there) to not be allowed to wear an alternate jersey and win games at the same time?
The bad: defensive miscues, offensive execution
Defensive mistakes have been part of this time since its inception unfortunately, they were just hidden last year due to the number of goals that this team could score on a nightly basis. Without that premium offensive production that was a flash in the pan last year, the Kraken’s mistakes and goofs have been thrust into the spotlight for all to see. The goaltending hasn’t been anywhere near Seattle’s top issue in almost every case this season, and it really wasn’t at fault tonight either as the only real “soft” goal against came on the fourth goal of the night for Montreal that went through Philipp Grubauer’s five-hole. Jamie Oleksiak tipping the puck past his own goaltender, Brian Dumoulin trying to check a Canadiens player yet screening his own goaltender, that two-on-one created by the defenseman on the ice failing to backcheck (hell even the forwards failing to get back) and then the poor passing decision on the power play that led to the shorty. All things that can be and should be avoided by good teams, or at least things that good teams would learn from. The Kraken are not a good team this year, and if they’re going to be one next year, their defensive play must be shored up as a whole.
Weirdly enough for Seattle, the offensive statistically wasn’t horrible even though it generally didn’t look good from the “eye test.” The Kraken nearly tripled the Canadiens in shots, doubled their expected goals, had more high danger and turnover chances, more offensive zone time, and twice as many power play opportunities. Like most of the season and how it’s gone, the chances and the opportunities for the Seattle offense to either pull themselves back into games (like tonight) or have them pull ahead for a victory have been there, they just haven’t executed or pushed that little bit further in order to get the potential of another chance that could lead to a goal. Yes, to that one person on twitter who continues to bring it up, I understand that the shooting percentage is not what it was last season, we’ve all long moved past that. It’s some of the easier aspects of the offensive end that the team isn’t clicking on, things like the odd-man rush, the struggles at times with the power play, and the failure to create more rebounds net front.
“You can say we had looks, you can do that kind of thing. But at the end of the day, we gave them too much. We had some odd man rushes, looks inside. And I thought we just failed to execute.”
The expressions on the faces of the Seattle Kraken in their 5-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Sunday, March 24th, 2024 at Climate Pledge Arena largely told the story. (Photos by Rio Giancarlo)
And the ugly: This game, Seattle’s effort
These can kind of both go into the paragraph, so they will. The Kraken haven’t looked like the team that we’ve seen for the large part of two and a half years in recent memory. Some will say that the struggles have lasted all season, but at least for most parts of the year it looked like Seattle was trying and just making bad mistakes that was leading to them dropping tons of points throughout the schedule. That effort doesn’t mean they’re completely perfect in execution, but at least it was watchable because you could tell that they cared and that everything was being left out on the ice and that a few screws here and there needed to be tightened. We’re at the point right now where the hockey is somewhat unwatchable because the offense is struggling to get in the hard areas of the ice on a consistent basis to create net front opportunities, their crazy high shot percentage last year wasn’t sustainable, and because of the defensive lapses that show up even more when you can’t score goals to hide them. Despite what the guys on the couch will tell you on social media about this team, it isn’t strictly because Hakstol isn’t doing his job. Something’s amiss in that locker room because this effort isn’t what we’ve come to know from this team, even when they’ve struggled before. A coaching change might not solve all the issues internally like some want, unless the right candidate is just sitting at home. And that isn’t reality, so start holding the players accountable too. These aren’t babies that have no wrongs to their name, these are grown men that are disappointing thousands around the country. They must be better for this fanbase and for their own damn pride.
“I think the mindset has to be we have to find a way to finish strong, because that’s just unacceptable. People pay good money to come watch, we can’t find a way to get down early like that, we can’t find a way to quit. Not saying there’s any quit in the locker room, but we got to find a way to execute better, win more battles, and be on the same page because I see a lot of different things. ”
“It’s got to come through us getting connected here and figuring out what we want to do. Because this stinks, tonight this stinks. We’re walking out of this rink for a second time in two home games feeling this way, and that’s unacceptable.”
What’s next?
Following tonight’s dismal defeat to the visiting Montreal Canadiens, the Seattle Kraken will continue a four-game homestand when they get back in action on Tuesday. That game is the first of two consecutive games against the Anaheim Ducks, as the teams will also meet on Thursday, March 28th. The Tuesday, March 26th contest against Anaheim is a 7PM PDT puck drop that will be broadcast on Root Sports Northwest within their market (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska) and on ESPN+/NHLPP nationwide. The first 10,000 fans into Climate Pledge Arena will receive a Jared McCann bobblehead, the final bobblehead giveaway of the season for the team. The Kraken, currently sitting at sixth place in the Pacific Division, will host an Anaheim team that sits just below them in the standings and has lost eight of their last nine games.
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Check out our previous Seattle Kraken articles here.
Cover photo and other photos in this article by Rio Giancarlo, and his portfolio here.
Check out our previous articles with writing by Charles Hamaker here.