Daccord shines for Kraken in 'magical' Winter Classic

SEATTLE -- The biggest save in the biggest game of Joey Daccord’s NHL career not only put an exclamation point on the first shutout in Winter Classic history, but it also came with an old-school flair that perfectly matched the occasion.

Daccord made 35 saves for the Seattle Kraken in a 3-0 win against the Vegas Golden Knights in the 2024 Discover NHL Winter Classic at T-Mobile Park in Seattle on Monday, none more memorable than the cross-crease glove stop on Jack Eichel with 2:13 remaining that left a sellout crowd of 47,313 chanting “Joey, Joey."

“Truly the coolest thing in the world,” Daccord said. “Something I'll never forget, and probably one of the coolest days of my whole life.”

As he pushed across and raised his glove to rob Eichel, Daccord also twisted his left pad up toward the afternoon sky, adding a vintage flair befitting of his tan-colored retro pads and the eye black he wore under a goalie mask adorned with images of old baseball cards of Seattle Mariners legends.

Daccord called the save on Eichel, who he has played against since they were kids growing up in Massachusetts, his most memorable moment from the game.

“I loved that save,” said Kraken goalie Chris Driedger, who also trains with Daccord in the offseason. “I love a good toe-up glove save, and you know you're feeling it when there's two minutes left, Eichel backdoor, and right into the glove. That's kind of the nail in the coffin for them and the cherry on top for Joey.”

Daccord's recent results with Seattle have been years in the making.

Selected by the Ottawa Senators in the seventh round (No. 199) of the 2015 NHL Draft, the 27-year-old had made just 15 NHL starts prior to this season. However, the Kraken lost their No. 1 goalie, Philipp Grubauer, to a lower-body injury on Dec. 9, and since then, Daccord has started nine of their 10 games, going 6-1-2 with a 1.43 goals-against average, .953 save percentage and his first two NHL shutouts.

“You have to take advantage of these opportunities when you get them,” Daccord said. “It’s allowed me to get in a rhythm.”

Daccord found that rhythm early against Vegas.

Outside of the signature stop on Eichel, his best saves came late in a first period, when the Kraken were leading 1-0. Daccord first sprawled right to left on a 2-on-1 pass from Chandler Stephenson that deflected in front of him off the stick of teammate Vince Dunn at 16:47. He then stared down Eichel on a 1-on-1 and stayed with his deke to the left at 17:50.

Daccord’s puck-handling skills also helped the Kraken get out of their zone several times, while at the other end of the ice Seattle's first goal came shortly after Golden Knights goalie Logan Thompson couldn’t corral a dump in behind his net.

“It's a third defenseman making plays out there with the puck,” Dunn said. “It's so nice for us to be able to go back and not worry about forecheckers coming at us so much. … He's been great. Besides the puck-handling, he's been making the saves we need. Joey played phenomenal tonight. Very happy for him.”

Daccord spent most of last season in Coachella Valley of the American Hockey League after the Kraken signed veteran Martin Jones as a free agent. Although he had hoped to call Seattle home, he instead led Coachella Valley to the Calder Cup Finals, where it lost to Hershey in overtime of Game 7.  

Daccord believes he is better for the experience.

“Joey and I have a little saying every time something doesn't go his way. We say, ‘Hey, more calluses,' and you need a lot of calluses to be successful as a goalie,” said Joey's father, Brian Daccord, who is the goaltending coach at Boston University. “We talk all the time about adversity for goaltenders, and all the hard times that a goalie goes through actually puts you in a position to be able to do something like this.”

Brian, who is also a former goalie coach with the Boston Bruins and director of goaltending operations for the Arizona Coyotes, runs a large goalie school in the Boston area called Stop It Goaltending. He was at the ballpark on Monday with his wife and younger son, Alex, to watch Joey's historic shutout in person.

And just like Joey, he thought the late save on Eichel was the highlight, but for a different reason.

“It is a carbon copy of Mike Condon's glove save in the (2016) Winter Classic at [Gillette] Stadium, and Mike is long time Stop It client who trains with Joey, and I was there, too,” Brian said. “As soon as he made that save, we all jumped up and said 'Condo!' If you pull the clip of Condon’s glove save, it's identical.”

And an ideal ending to a day Joey called “magical."

“He buried it right in my pocket,” he said. “It was perfect and a lot of fun to make that one.”