Two: Ride that Gift Horse Longer
The good news is the Kraken have jumped out to multi-goal leads in two of their four games. The bad news? They’ve blown them both in short order. In their season opener at home against St. Louis, it took just 1:55 for the Kraken to see a 2-0 lead become a 3-2 deficit.
And in Nashville the other night, a 2-0 lead became a 2-2 tie just 2:13 later. In both cases, those leads were surrendered late in periods – a double blow. That the Kraken managed to win the Nashville game has kept the overall season damage minimal for a .500 team, but coughing up multi-goal leads was an early season problem a year ago and didn’t end well.
Three: Know Your Opponent
Philadelphia opened the season on a tough West Coast swing that concludes here, garnering three points with a shootout win and an overtime defeat in Edmonton on Tuesday night in which they blew an early 2-0 lead and a late 3-2 advantage. You know they’re ready to get home, so the Kraken jumping on them early could pay dividends. Flyers rookie sensation Matvei Michkov, who many believe was the second-best player in last year’s draft but dropped to No. 7 overall because of uncertainty over availability, scored his first two career goals against the Oilers.