Home Cooking Has Kraken Heating Up 

Kraken center Matty Beniers was reflecting on the impact a winning homestand has had on the team’s overall mindset.

The season-long stretch of six games at Climate Pledge Arena ended with Wednesday night’s 3-0 win over the Nashville Predators and erased the damage caused by a tough East Coast swing just prior. Not only did winning five of six games at Climate Pledge Arena vault the Kraken back over .500 at 10-9-1 and into a tie with Vancouver for the final Western Conference wild card spot, it brought them much closer to seeing defenseman Vince Dunn finally return after missing a month due to injury.

And to hear Beniers tell it, the winning stretch changed his team’s confidence level and approach to games.

“We were obviously losing those games, and I think your confidence, momentum and mindset starts to change a little bit,” Beniers said of the prior losing skid. “So, I think being able to get home, we just kind of had a couple of days off. We were able to get some really good days of practice and make sure that our mindset and game was good and together.

“And then we were able to get that first win,” he added. “And once that happens, you build confidence, and you build chemistry from there.”

The kind of confidence in which they don’t go into every game expecting to lose. That’s what head coach Dan Bylsma was starting to see creep into the team’s collective mindset when it scored only four goals in four consecutive losses the prior trip.

“I like the change in mentality from our team,” Bylsma said. “I think on the road, when we got down or something bad happened it was ‘Woe is me’ and we didn’t react with skating. We didn’t react with aggression.

“And over the course of this homestand, we won a couple of different ways.”

Most notably, they came from behind to win on three separate occasions, the first coming in the homestand debut referenced by Beniers against the Vegas Golden Knights. Down two goals, the Kraken rallied to win 4-3 in overtime against a team they’d never beaten previously at Climate Pledge.

Not only did the Kraken score as many goals that game as in four prior losing road contests combined, but they also withstood a late tying marker by Vegas and still won anyway. A loss under such circumstances would have been doubly tough since it was the Golden Knights that all-but-ended the Kraken’s fading playoff hopes at Climate Pledge last March by overcoming a late two-goal deficit and prevailing in overtime.

But the Kraken won this time, against a team that entered Thursday leading the Pacific Division and is considered by many to be a Stanley Cup contender.

And then, despite a poor start against the Columbus Blue Jackets the next game, the Kraken exploded for four second period goals to erase another deficit and win 5-2. They had a better start against the Chicago Blackhawks after that and scored just enough for a 3-1 victory.

All of a sudden, they were rolling. And it wasn’t always the top line of Beniers, Jared McCann and Jordan Eberle leading the way. This time around, Brandon Tanev scored four times in the team’s first three victories and then added two assists in a fourth straight win over the New York Islanders.

Beyond Tanev, the Kraken saw Yanni Gourde notch his first of the season against the Islanders. Tye Karte had a goal and an assist the first two games of the homestand and another assist in the Islanders’ game.

Daniel Sprong was added in a trade with Vancouver, making his debut against the Islanders and scoring the winner versus Nashville in his third Kraken contest. Sprong appeared to click well on a line with Chandler Stephenson, who logged three assists in the Nashville game and finished with four for the homestand.

That prior Islanders game saw the Kraken overcome their third deficit of the homestand, getting a tying goal from McCann and then a later winner by defenseman Jamie Oleksiak. Along with Oleksiak’s second of the season, defenseman Will Borgen notched his first of the campaign in the victory over Columbus.

“Our team success is going to come from that support,” Bylsma said. “It’s throughout our lineup. Our D is scoring. We’ve got 12 or 13 goals right now from our defense and it’s coming from throughout our lineup.

“When we have success, it’s coming from Turbo’s (Tanev) jump around the scoresheet here a bunch in the last five games. Tye Kartye has a goal and that compliments when Schwartz and Canner (McCann) are getting goals where you hope and expect them to come from.”

McCann had three goals and two assists the first four games of the homestand ahead of Sunday’s 2-0 loss to the New York Rangers. He now leads the Kraken with nine goals and 21 points.

“The way things ended on the road trip, we felt like we’d let some games get away from us,” McCann said. “Obviously, it wasn’t good but coming home here we kind of turned the page and just tried to focus on the next game.”

And like Beniers and Bylsma, he chalks a lot of it up to the team changing its frame of mind heading into games.

“I mean, it’s just more of a mental thing,” McCann said. “You’ve got to get past that mental block. We didn’t have our best (on the road), but you’ve got to just push that aside and worry about the next one.

“That’s kind of the way we had to look at it and it’s worked out for us.”

The Kraken also had to overcome the loss of Eberle, injured against Chicago in the team’s third straight win last Thursday when he crashed into the boards. They’ve been without him in three straight contests since, already without the offensively talented Dunn.

Losing Dunn, arguably the team’s best overall player along with McCann the last two-plus seasons, put a crimp in the Kraken’s immediate offensive plans. So, staying just above .500 even in his absence – he’s expected back by early December – has been huge.

It helps that the Kraken tightened things up defensively in the six homes games, allowing just 10 goals total. Goaltender Joey Daccord registered all five homestand wins, recorded his first shutout of the season against Nashville and entered Thursday second in the league in goals saved above expected at 10.6 behind only the 13.6 for Lukas Dostal of Anaheim according to Money Puck.

He's had help, as usual, from the two-way play of Brandon Montour, who raced back to thwart a Nashville breakaway chance in Wednesday’s game before scoring the game’s second goal. Montour leads all Kraken defenders with five goals, helping ease the loss of Dunn by providing that secondary level of scoring Bylsma referenced as key to homestand success.

“Especially after that road trip, I don’t think we were happy with that,” Montour said. So, this is great…again, you couldn’t ask for more energy this week or the last two weeks. The guys are excited to see the direction we’re going in right now.”

The Kraken will need that two-way defensive discipline to continue in their upcoming stretch of games against Pacific Division opponents, especially with Dunn not expected back before December and with Eberle’s status still uncertain. They face the playoff-positioned Los Angeles Kings on the road Saturday afternoon before heading to Anaheim for the first of two home-and-away games against the Ducks – and goalie Dostal -- before finishing with another such combo against the last place San Jose Sharks.

While no NHL games are ever pushovers, the schedule represents a chance for the Kraken to further improve upon their record before a tough, four-team East Coast trip to start December.

Kraken forward Oliver Bjorkstrand said that’s a big reason why getting back above .500 – and staying in the thick of the playoff pack of teams – was so important. Not just from an NHL standings perspective, but also to remain within good standing on the local sports scene.

“I think it’s good for the fans and it’s good for the team,” Bjorkstrand said. “You want to play good hockey at home. So, yeah. It’s a positive thing.”

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