Preview: Kraken on the menu

Preview: Kraken on the menu

Seattle Kraken @ Toronto Maple Leafs
07:00 PM at Scotiabank Arena
Watch on: TSN4, KHN, KING 5, KONG

King and Kong. Wow, that’s really great (no I have no idea what that means).

The Leafs last game was away on October 28 against the Winnipeg Jets, which Toronto won by a score of 6-4 in regulation. The Leafs have a record of 5-4-1 for a 0.550 Points %.

The Seattle Kraken last played away on October 29 against the Montreal Canadiens. The Kraken won by a score of 8-2 in regulation, and their current league record is 5-4-1 for a 0.550 Points %.

Them

Well, they just tuned up the Habs, so that should do them for a while.

The Kraken are the team I usually know the least about. Matty Beniers is really good, and, yeah. They have some other guys. I encountered Ryker Evans, who I’d never heard of, last summer looking at defenders, and he looked very promising.

And of course, this is the Tanev brothers meetup in Toronto.

As a team, the Kraken are very poor by Corsi and worse by Expected Goals at five-on-five. They are very like the Jets, in that their offense is extremely poor and their defense is almost as bad. They are currently scoring goals way over expected, and some of that is likely the shooting talent of that top line, but some of it isn’t.

Their power play is extremely poor by Expected Goals, but they have scored over Expected by a bit.

They have 11 players with a Shooting % of 10 or higher. A lot of those players are talented, but that’s not going to last. Joey Daccord has been very good, so if he’s in net, scoring is not going to be very easy.

lines

Last Game (2024-10-29) via Daily Faceoff

Jared McCann – Matty Beniers – Jordan Eberle
Eeli Tolvanen – Chandler Stephenson – Andre Burakovsky
Jaden Schwartz – Shane Wright – Oliver Bjorkstrand
Tye Kartye – Yanni Gourde – Brandon Tanev

Ryker Evans – Adam Larsson
Jamie Oleksiak – Brandon Montour
Josh Mahura – Will Borgen

Joey Dacord
Philipp Grubauer

Us

Nick Robertson looks to be back in the game tonight, although he wasn’t in the line rushes yesterday.

lines

David Alter via Daily Faceoff from yesterday’s practice, and assuming Robertson comes in for Holmberg – to be confirmed.

Matthew Knies – Auston Matthews – Mitch Marner
Max Pacioretty – John Tavares – William Nylander
Bobby McMann – Max Domi – Nick Robertson
Steven Lorentz – David Kämpf – Ryan Reaves

Morgan Rielly – Oliver Ekman-Larsson
Jake McCabe – Chris Tanev
Simon Benoit – Conor Timmins

Anthony Stolarz
Joe Woll – confirmed starter

The Game

Bad teams aren’t bad at everything, and the Kraken are a case in point. They have skilled forwards, they have one good goalie, and Brandon Montour is bringing an offensively focused game to a team that needed it. They get outshot, and in the long run that’s going to hurt them, but it doesn’t mean they’re a weak opponent tonight.

The Leafs need to bring the same game they used against the very similar Jets. Your Hallowe’en fright comes courtesy of Joe Woll’s second start this year.