One: Enjoy and Embrace the Playoff Push
There is not one player on the Kraken roster who doesn’t know his team is just four points outside of a wild-card playoff with eight regular-season games to go. Most, if not all, are likely aware that three Western Conference teams (San Jose, Nashville, Los Angeles) are tied in the second wild-card spot and that Winnipeg is in the mix too.
But Jaden Schwartz, who has played in 102 Stanley Cup Playoffs games and won a Cup with St. Louis in 2019, advises his teammates not to think too much about those other teams and, while at it, enjoy the process and the pressure of the next two weeks.
“Each game is obviously massive,’ said Schwartz, back in the lineup the last two games after a March 7 scary collision sidelined him three weeks. “You control what you can control, and what other teams are doing, we can’t control that. “You don’t want to overthink it, right? Just go out there and play. This is the most important and the most fun time of the year when you’re in a big playoff push near the end of the season, a lot on the line … enjoy this opportunity that we have.”
Head coach Lane Lambert said after Friday’s spirited practice that a positive and opportunistic mindset is fundamental to winning games down the stretch. Focus on who is next, in this case, Chicago at Climate Pledge Arena Saturday night.
“It’s about how you perceive the situation,” said Lambert, who won a Cup of his own as an assistant coach with Washington in 2018. “If you perceive it as a negative, it’s a negative. If you perceive it as a positive and an opportunity, we can make the most of it. Things change fast in this game. I’ve been there, seen it. It’s never as good as you think it is. It’s never as bad as you think it is … There’s pressure, no question about it. How do you handle that pressure?”
Two: Expect Changes on the Power Play, Lineup
Lambert was asked about the state of the power play, which has ranked among the lowest in the NHL since the end of the Olympic break. He barely waited for the question to be posed when he said personnel was part of his plan to revive productivity during power plays.
Yeah, change the personnel up completely and see where that takes us,” said Lambert, who didn’t specify whether it meant shaking up positions on the power play units or switching some players between the first and second units or substituting a skater not currently logging man-advantage minutes. “More or less, we’re talking about putting more pucks in the net. We’ve been very good on [zone] entries all year long [during power plays]. We’re really high in the league in terms of our entry rate. But right now, the last couple of games, certainly last night, our first unit had trouble entering the zone. We’ve just got to be we’ve got to be better.”
While anticipating possible power play changes, Lambert indicated the forward lines in Thursday’s loss to Utah might be adjusted before Saturday’s puck drop. While it is expected Matty Beniers will be centering Jordan Eberle and Jared McCann, and perhaps Bobby McMann-Chandler Stephenson-Kaapo Kakko line stays intact, the third and fourth lines could be altered with Eeli Tolvanen (he was a fourth-liner Thursday) as a possible X-factor. Plus, healthy scratches Ben Meyers and Ryan Winterton might be back in the mix. Check back on the Kraken app and website for updates after the morning skate.
Three: Chicago Headed for Another High Draft Choice
The Blackhawks were officially eliminated from postseason contention after a 3-1 loss at Edmonton on Thursday. They are here in the PNW with no significant pressure, which likely helps the young lineup fans will see. Superstar in the making and potential CHI captain Connor Bedard has notched 30 goals and 39 assists for 69 points this season, ho hum to some observers, but keep in mind injuries have limited him to 63 games played to date this year.
Bedard is playing up top on Chicago’s current five-forward power play unit, which includes 2022 first-rounder (13th overall) and 18-year-old Swedish-born center Anton Frondell, who just joined the CHI roster after finishing his year in Sweden’s top pro league. Frondell (No. 3 overall at last July’s NHL Draft) played wing for a couple of games, but Chicago sees the Swede as a Jonathan Toews-type whose two-way play complements the scoring skills of Bedard and Nazar up the middle.
Young goaltender Spencer Knight has been solid all year, most notably posting 18.8 goals saved above expected behind a team that is decidedly young up front and even more so in the defensive corps. For Kraken fans wanting to know, Andre Burakovsky has notched 11 goals and 21 assists for 32 in 70, while Ryan Donato’s totals are 14-14-28 in 76 games.
Projected lineup (not official):
McCann – Beniers – Eberle
McMann – Stephenson – Kakko
Schwartz – Gaudreau – Catton
Tolvanen – Molgaard – Melanson
Dunn – Larsson
Evans – Montour
Lindgren – Oleksiak
Grubauer