Seattle Kraken practice notebook: January 24th, 2025
By Charles Hamaker
Northgate, WA - Coming off last night’s tough loss to the NHL’s top team in the Washington Capitals, our Seattle Kraken held a full practice at the Kraken Community Iceplex as they prepare to continue their current stretch of games at the friendly confines of Climate Pledge Arena when they return to game action tomorrow, Saturday, January 25th, 2025 against the Pittsburgh Penguins with an early start time. Even coming off the tough loss, the Kraken had to hold a full session today considering they aren’t able to get a morning skate in ahead of their contest tomorrow. While it wasn’t the most eventful practice for Seattle in terms of what happened on the ice during the teams main session, there are a few important notes that the fanbase may want to know about ahead of tomorrow’s game against the Penguins. Here’s our Kraken practice notebook from Friday, January 24th, 2025.
Seattle Kraken forward and team captain Jordan Eberle during the teams training camp back on September 17th, 2024 at the Kraken Community Iceplex. (Photos by Rio Giancarlo for Circling Seattle Sports)
Oh captain, my captain
As he has for the last few practices/morning skates that the team has held, Seattle Kraken forward and team captain Jordan Eberle had an on-ice session with skills consultant coach Matt Larke and a few other team staff watching prior to the teams actual practice taking place. For those who aren’t aware, when a player isn’t fully healthy and or working back from an injury that’s landed them on LTIR (Long term injured reserve) or IR (Injured reserve), they will typically practice with Larke on the teams main rink (Rink one aka the Starbucks rink) about an hour before the teams scheduled practice as means of either getting back into skating shape or passing the final checks before they can return to the team session itself. Eberle had been just doing skating work in the days prior to this practice, but when I got into the rink today he was ending his work for this session by shooting some pucks on net. After Dan Bylsma’s words back on Wednesday, the 22nd about how Eberle was just really getting onto the ice to skate and get the feel of the ice back, it has to be encouraging to see Jordan shooting on the net even if that’s what he’s doing as the final aspect of his on-ice session. Ron Francis said on the Kraken Hockey Network a few weeks ago that the team was aiming for their captain to rejoin the team by the end of February, following the Four Nations and the break that it creates, and it seems like that’s true to what we’ll see even if Jordan continues to take big steps to a return quickly. The break would provide the captain even more of an opportunity to feel comfortable again on the ice so that when the team returns to game action he’ll be more secure in his own game.
“The progress for Ebs is kinda unprecedented, I’ll say. He’s dealing with an injury that there’s not a history for in terms of athletes. He’s progressed really nicely, he had six weeks of no weight bearing and really two more weeks of very little weight bearing. He’s been doing a lot in the gym, he’s been eager to step onto the ice. He’s really just stepping onto the ice, getting the skates on... not much more than moving around. We’re still looking at weeks away from when we’ll see him on the ice.”
Missing a few faces
Forwards Chandler Stephenson and Jared McCann and defenseman Ryker Evans were all absent from practice today, and head coach Dan Bylsma said that those three will all be game time decisions for tomorrow’s 1PM PST puck drop against the Penguins. While he clarified that Stephenson is dealing with an upper body injury, which tracks as the main reason we saw that could lead to him being hurt was blocking a shot with his hand, there was no other real update on Jared McCann or Ryker Evans. Stephenson did skate on his own today, per Bylsma, so that at least seems positive in terms of the team getting lucky and avoiding missing him for any games but Dan saying that he needed further evaluation last night still looms as a concern in my book. The unknown is not our friend as with McCann, I don’t believe we’ve ever gotten an update on what Jared has been dealing with this past week as he’s missed at least one other practice with a maintenance day. We did see McCann in some obvious pain from our vantage point on the press bridge (doubling over and holding your body isn’t something a person who is perfectly fine does, at least not typically), and we saw the same from Eeli Tolvanen after his own one timer seemed to hurt him as his stick was pushed back into his midsection by a Capitals player trying to block the shot. With Evans, we had no idea there was anything with Ryker that was wrong as he didn’t seem to have any problems on the ice last night and played the whole game without any absences.
With the uncertainty of having two forwards and one defenseman as gametime decisions, especially ahead of an early start time game, I imagine that there would be a call up from AHL affiliate Coachella Valley sometime this afternoon if the Kraken are legitimately concerned that one or more of those players would miss the contest against Pittsburgh. With Tye Kartye already a healthy scratch, him slotting in for Stephenson or McCann is an obvious choice but the Kraken don’t currently have an extra defenseman on the roster after sending Gustav Olofsson back to the Firebirds on January 19th. If one of the forwards can’t go, Kartye slots in and everything is fine. With Garth dealing with something, things get interesting and I imagine we’d have to see a move soon. With our luck, the move will be announced shortly after I post this, but currently no additions to the roster have been listed on the NHL’s media site.
Seattle Kraken goaltender Philipp Grubauer during the teams training camp back on September 17th, 2024 at the Kraken Community Iceplex. (Photos by Rio Giancarlo for Circling Seattle Sports)
Potential goaltender preview
It’s hard to use anything you see on a non-gameday practice as something that you’ll witness for certain during a game, but there are a few factors that play into why I believe Philipp Grubauer will be getting the start in net for the Kraken when Seattle hosts the Penguins tomorrow afternoon. With Joey Daccord playing in eight straight games and performing very well against the leagues best team last night, Philipp Grubauer was the first player we saw out for practice today (After Eberle had gone into the locker room following his on-ice session) and went over to the second rink here at KCI (Smartsheet) with goaltender coach Steve Briere. Typically on a gameday, Seattle’s starter for the night will go over to that rink with Briere first to go through their starter routine. Other factors that go into media projecting the start for the night include which goalie primarily practices on the starter net, the net closest to the 32 Bar & grill side of rink one, and which goalie leaves the ice and heads to the locker room first once practice officially finishes. Grubauer did all those things today, so that’s another check in my book for why he would start tomorrow against Pittsburgh. Daccord’s stretch of starts and games played consecutively, Grubauer going through the starter routine today, and the impending back-to-back that the Kraken have coming on Monday and Tuesday lead me to believe Philipp will be in net against Pittsburgh tomorrow. Giving Grubauer this game gives Joey three days (Today, tomorrow, and Sunday) off from game action, but from what I’ve been told the thought is that Grubauer will play against Pittsburgh tomorrow and Edmonton on the road Monday before Daccord gets the nod Tuesday at home against Anaheim. That back-to-back strategy I’m not the most sure of, but Grubauer tomorrow seems like a safe bet to me.
Dialogue with Dan
This segment of the Seattle Kraken practice notebook will be dedicated to our post-practice availability with head coach Dan Bylsma, even when it doesn’t include his family dog, Duchess. Despite it being a Friday and open to the public, this practice session was sparsely attended by both fans and media as only five members were present for Bylsma’s availability this morning. Here’s what he was asked about and his responses, besides the injury updates because we wrote about those earlier in this article.
Tye Kartye’s absence from the lineup: I figured a practice day, especially given the injuries to two of Seattle’s forwards, was a good time to ask Bylsma about Karts’ absence from the lineup and what he hopes that Tye takes away from his time spent up on the press box. Many fans were surprised by his healthy scratch status over this current run of games, so I wanted to get inside the mind of Dan to figure out what he’s hoping that Kartye is learning or understanding during this time because you don’t just scratch the young forward for no reason. Bylsma largely said what he’s said about the other players that the Kraken have healthy scratched this season: this is a chance for Kartye to reset himself and remember what makes him a professional in this sport so that he can do it when he gets a chance to play once again. Something interesting about Bylsma’s response though was citing that Kartye, just 23 years old, is still in the development period of his career which harkens back to an intriguing question to Jessica Campbell’s introduction press conference as an assistant coach that seemed to allude that the NHL isn’t a development league like junior hockey features. Dan mentioned that while Tye has parts of his game that have gotten him to this point, he still needs to continue the growth of his game and that’s an aspect of these healthy scratches. I remember asking Bylsma about Kartye during training camp because of how he’d worked with him in Coachella Valley and Dan mentioned the shot talent that Tye possesses, yet we really haven’t seen that come into play this year so far. With Stephenson and McCann listed as game time decisions, perhaps Kartye gets a chance here to help take what he’s learned during this time to improve his game and earn his consistent role once again.
Assessing last night’s game: Mike Benton, Radio host from the Kraken Audio Network, asked Bylsma where he began to assess the start from last night’s game, how it took over the rest of the contest, and how it makes a difference for the team considering the early start time in tomorrow’s game. Bylsma immediately cited the puck play and execution as critical things to do in order to essentially control the game. Dan gave credit to the Capitals as a good team that’s heavy, forechecks well, and how Washington gets to the puck first typically across their four forward lines. Bylsma said that the Kraken weren’t able to stop the Capitals from doing that in last night’s game, and while respecting what Washington is able to do with their size and forecheck, Seattle failed to control play with the puck and execute their own game which led to issues against them in their own building. Self inflicted mistakes are always a bad sign in professional sports when it comes to trying to win, and they can be a death sentence against the top teams in the league.
“A little bit of a reset out for sure. Getting back to what he does well, what he can bring, and being real, focused on bringing that each and every chance he gets. He’s still in the development part of his career. His game has to continue to grow and that’s really what he’s got to be focused on when he gets back into the into the match, and gets back into a game. He has some clear assets that he can be effective with and bring to the table, and he will be focused on doing that.”
“Just too many puck plays, too many execution markers that were off that led to them getting to their game and playing that heavy game.”
What’s next?
Following today’s practice at the Kraken Community Iceplex here in Northgate (Hello from the hallway next to the team store location!), our Seattle Kraken will continue their stretch of nine contests at home over ten games. That next matchup comes on Saturday, January 25th when our Kraken host the Pittsburgh Penguins at Climate Pledge Arena with a 1PM PST puck drop as it’s Seattle’s “Kids day” game. The first 5,000 kids inside of the Climate Pledge Arena doors will receive a pair of “Buoy” themed kids slippers, as presented by WaFd Bank as there will be kids who will take over multiple gameday positions such as in-arena hosts, radio announcer, broadcast analysts, DJ, anthem performer, mini buoy, and more. It’s another game that will feature some all-time greats of the game of hockey as Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin come to town following Alex Ovechkin and Washington’s stop here. Seattle will look to get back on the winning track and try to build off their success in an early game from Monday when they handled the Buffalo Sabres with a final score of 6-4. The Kraken may be without some key forwards in this game against the Penguins as Chandler Stephenson did not play the third period and coach Dan Bylsma said he’d need further evaluation tomorrow, while Jared McCann and Eeli Tolvanen both spent time on the bench in pain during this contest.
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