The Vancouver Canucks look to close out their quick three-game road trip with a win on Thursday against their Pacific Division foe, the Seattle Kraken.
Bouncing back has been an impressive trait for the Canucks this season and they will look to continue the trend and pick up a pair of points before returning to Rogers Arena.
The Kraken have had a slow week of work and have only played two games over the past seven days. They picked up a 4-1 win last Thursday against the Boston Bruins in their final outing of a five-game road trip. They then followed up that win with an overtime loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Monday.
Checking in on the NHL standings, the Kraken are three points out of a wild card spot in the Western Conference and following a nine-game winning streak, the team has gone 4-7-2 over their last 13 games.
The Kraken's offence is led by Jared McCann and Oliver Bjorkstrand, the two forwards each have 41 points on the season and McCann is the only Kraken player with over 20 goals this season – finding the net 24 times this season.
Following closely behind the two forwards is defenceman Vince Dunn. The 27-year-old defender has eight goals and 32 assists for 40 points this season. He leads the team in ice time with an average of 23:18 per game. Dunn links up with Adam Larsson on the Kraken’s top pairing and that duo has played a total of 829 minutes of five-on-five together this season and they hold a 58.9% control of the goal share – being on the ice for 33 goals for and 23 goals against.
The Dunn-Larsson pairing is third in the league for most minutes from a defence pairing. The Canucks’ top pairing of Quinn Hughes and Filip Hronek is fourth for ice time with 823 minutes played together this season. In those 823 minutes, the Hughes-Hronek pairing has been on the ice for 62 goals scored and 36 against for a 63.3% control of the goal share.
Joey Daccord continues to be the Kraken’s leading man between the pipes. He has started 35 of their 55 games and holds a 16-11-10 record with an impressive .921% save percentage. Daccord has picked up a pair of shutouts and has a goals-against average of 2.37 on the year.
Quick Hits on the Competition:
- The Kraken have the 17th-ranked power play in the league. They are clicking at 21.3% and being led by Jared McCann, who has eight power play goals.
- As for the penalty kill, the Kraken have a 79% kill rate, putting them at 18th in the league.
- Four Kraken players have registered 100 or more hits this season: Eeli Tolvanen (149), William Borgen (138), Tye Kartye (133), and Adam Larsson (118).
- The Kraken are 15-6-4 when they score first and are 18-0-4 when they are leading after two periods. First periods have been the best this season, the Kraken have a 54-45 goals-for to goals-against ratio and have a negative control of goal share in the second and third periods.
- Ranking 10th in the league for goals against, the Kraken average 2.82 goals against per game.
Thursday will be the third and final matchup of the season between the two Pacific Northwest teams. The Kraken won round one by a 4-3 score on November 18th and then the Canucks took game two in commanding fashion with a 5-1 win down in Seattle on November 24th.
Tyler Myers is the Canucks’ leading scorer against the Kraken this season, he’s picked up three points through their two games and the depth of the team has shown up in their previous matchups this season, picking up goals from Nils Höglander, Teddy Blueger, Ilya Mikheyev, and Sam Lafferty.
Thatcher Demko made both starts against the Kraken this season and was phenomenal in the 5-1 victory. Demko stopped 23 of the 24 shots he faced in the win – one of his 13 games this season where he has allowed one goal or less.
The Canucks killed off all three of their penalties against the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday night and were excellent in the faceoff dot – they won 66% of their draws against the Avs. J.T. Miller won 11 of the 16 draws he took while Elias Lindholm and Teddy Blueger each won nine of their 13.
Sitting atop the Pacific Division with a 10-point lead on the Vegas Golden Knights, the Canucks are facing some adversity but will look to get back to their staples and rely on their structure to give them the game they want against Seattle. There’s been a lot of talk in the locker room about how the team is happy with their five-on-five play of late, but the stick penalties need to be cleaned up.
Arshdeep Bains made his NHL debut on Tuesday night in Colorado and played 13:21. He had two shots on net and was on a line with Conor Garland and Teddy Blueger. Bains was the fourth Punjabi player to ever suit up in an NHL game and the Surrey-born Bains was able to make that NHL debut with his hometown club.
Canucks’ Top Performers over Last Five:
J.T. Miller: 5g-1a-6p
Elias Lindholm: 2g-2a-4p
Elias Pettersson: 1g-3a-5p
Quinn Hughes: 0g-4a-4p
Conor Garland: 2g-1a-3p
Thursday’s game is scheduled for a 7:00 pm PT start down in Seattle and can be viewed on Sportsnet or listened to on Sportsnet 650 radio or through the Sportsnet Radio Network.
