Slow start, but some new beginnings

This Sunday night start to a fourth Kraken preseason was all about new beginnings for the franchise on multiple fronts.

A new head coach behind the bench in Dan Bylsma was being talked up on-air by a nascent Kraken Hockey Network broadcast on KONG and Prime as a plethora of young faces in home team uniforms took the ice for their initial NHL taste of any kind. And after shaking off some early-game nerves and lack of familiarity in a 6-1 loss to the Calgary Flames at Climate Pledge Arena, some of those younger faces began imposing themselves in the game’s latter stages.

“I think there were individuals that did show well,” Bylsma said afterwards. “You saw (Shane Wright) skating through the ice in the middle of the rink, showing his speed and skill. We saw that Berkly Catton, in the third period, had a couple of chances up the ice and rushes.

“And I thought (Nathan) Villeneuve clearly made a statement in the game. Not on every shift. But he had an impact on the game as well, and that was evident.”

It was Villeneuve, the feisty centerman drafted this past summer in the 2^nd round, 63^rd overall, who got the Kraken on the board in the third period with his team trailing by four goals. Villeneuve one-timed a nice cross-ice pass by Oliver Bjorkstrand and beat former Everett Silvertips goalie Dustin Wolf from just inside the top of the right faceoff circle.

Later that frame, after the Flames had added a fifth goal, Catton, this summer’s 8^th overall pick, was sent in alone only to be hauled down from behind by Adam Klapka with no penalty called.

Play continued back up the ice and Klapka wound up finishing off a brilliant three-way passing play for a sixth Calgary goal, the second of the final period allowed by goalie Ales Steska.

Prior to that, Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer had played the first two periods, allowing four goals om 19 shots. But Grubauer was often left fending for himself as the Kraken struggled to adjust to all the newness around them.

Catton lost a faceoff to Clark Bishop, then lost sight of his man on the game’s opening goal just 1:58 in. The puck went back to Jake Bean off-the-draw, and he floated a harmless-looking wrist shot Grubauer’s way from the left point.

But Bishop broke free from Catton and got a crack at the rebound, which Grubauer stopped with a kick save. Bishop then had a crack at a second rebound and backhanded it home with Grubauer down and out.

And that was pretty much the story of an opening period where the Kraken controlled a lot of the offense – with Wright just missing a goal on a redirection of a puck headed toward the Calgary net – but then got burned on just about every miscue.

It's all part of the learning curve for a team breaking in several new lines and players.

Former No. 4 overall pick from 2022, Wright was on a line with Jordan Eberle and Tye Kartye, while Bjorkstrand was out there with Matty Beniers and Jared McCann.

As for Catton, he played a team-high 19:01 among Kraken forwards, including 4:23 on the power play. Bylsma said he didn’t say a word to Catton about his defensive lapse upon his return to the bench after the Bishop goal.

But Bylsma does plan to address the collective group about some of the team-wide lapses and lack of aggressiveness at times in a predictably scrappy game that included plenty of pushing and shoving and one spirited fight between AHL prospect Tucker Robertson and much-bigger Calgary defenseman Artem Grushnikov early in the middle period.

“It’s the NHL, and it’s competitive, and everyone wants to be here, and everyone in Calgary wants to be there,” Kraken forward Kartye, in the thick of the fray throughout as he usually is against the Flames, said of all the chippy play. “So, nobody should have been surprised.”

If anything, the Kraken showed plenty of pushback when the Flames tried to intimidate them. At one point midway through, when a Flames player dove into the crease very late after Grubauer had covered up the puck, McCann jumped in on top of him, sparking a heated scrum that even saw Beniers wrestle multiple players off his fallen teammate.

Beniers was also marking a new beginning of sorts in this one with a body now said to be laden with 17 additional pounds of muscle.

That new body mass – four pounds of fat shed and the 17 of muscle added for a net weight gain of 13 – was displayed early and often by Beniers as he mixed it up physically at both net fronts and whenever he went after a loose puck.

Still, as Bylsma pointed out, the Kraken were usually their most physical when responding to aggressive play by the Flames. While a marked departure from some of the team’s more timid play last season, Bylsma still would like to see the Kraken initiating that aggressiveness.

Villeneuve tried to initiate something to fire up his team after scoring a goal, stick-tapping Dryden Hunt as they returned to their respective benches.

“We were down a couple of goals and the goal kind of changed the momentum a little bit there,” Villeneuve said. “I thought I was going to be able to mix it up on the physical side and maybe throw a fight there to get more momentum going for our side.”

But Hunt didn’t bite.

Villeneuve said that while physical play is always part of a style he tries to model after his favorite player from his Ottawa hometown – Senators forward Matthew Tkachuk – it isn’t all he brings to the table.

“A lot of people don’t see my offensive side,” he said. “They see my Matthew Tkachuk style of game. And obviously, I love scoring goals. But I love playing my type of role. I like to play any type of role throughout the game.”