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The Kraken’s season started with a challenge. The month’s slate of 10 games had them crisscrossing the United States and playing in three different time zones against some of the toughest competition in the NHL.

The final block of matchups was made up of a four-game swing through Detroit (the fourth-best team in the NHL), Carolina (a team that made it to the Eastern Conference Finals last year), and both Sunrise and Tampa, FL (two teams that have been in the Stanley Cup Final in the past two seasons).

But the Kraken were up to the task. They returned home to Seattle with a solid 2-1-1 record earned by contributions from all over the lineup.

Here are a few key things that stood out from the final road trip of the month.

• Depth Remains a Strength: Last year the Kraken proved that they had a lineup of options when it came to generating offense. It served the team well and confounded opponents who could no longer focus on just one player, line, or pair. On this road trip, 16 different Kraken skaters earned at least one point, and 11 players were multi-point generators with Jaden Schwartz (2-4-6); Jared McCann (3-2-5), and Oliver Bjorkstrand (1-3-4) leading the way.

• New Faces in Good Graces: Three new faces joined the Kraken on opening night: defender Brian Dumoulin and forwards Kailer Yamamoto and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare. All three have already scored their first goals as part of this Seattle team with Dumoulin’s coming against the Lightning on Monday.

• Answering the Call: Other additions have joined the Kraken roster, and they too, have been difference makers. Tye Kartye – a key piece of last year’s playoff run - made his regular season debut with the team on Oct. 12 and has since scored twice including a goal against Detroit. Devin Shore, an experienced NHL forward with 426 games to his name joined Seattle for this last road trip and promptly scored his first Kraken goal in Carolina – a skilled play where we saw the 26-year-old corral a Bjorkstrand pass out of mid-air before beating Frederik Andersen on the rush.

• Powered Up: Don’t look now but the Kraken ended October with a 25-percent conversion rate on the power play, good enough for eighth in the league. On the trip, the team had four goals with the skater advantage – including McCann’s game-winner in Tampa Bay.

• Net Gain: Across the season thus far, both goaltenders’ have been solid. Grubauer and Daccord each have two quality starts, and both Philipp Grubauer and Joey Daccord were in action on the road trip. Across all four games, the tandem had a combined save percentage of .911, making key saves at key times including Grubauer’s 34-save performance against Tampa Bay which Yanni Gourde described as “exceptional.”

• Back End Support: The Kraken have been able to rely on their defense to not just keep opponents from getting scoring chances, but to be part of creating offense as well. That has continued this season. On an individual level, Vince Dunn has picked up right where he left off with a 1-7-8 stat line, good enough for 11th-most points among all NHL defenders this season. And beyond the scoreboard, the pairings of Dunn and Adam Larsson as well as the duo of Jamie Oleksiak and Will Borgen sit in the top seven of all blueliner couples when it comes to the shot quality their team creates when they are on the ice.