Chicago’s west-coast swing continues on Wednesday night, with the suddenly slumping Seattle Kraken as the opponent.
These two teams met one month ago in the Emerald City, with the Kraken firmly lodging their foot in the Blackhawks’ collective asses in a 7-1 blowout. Starting about one week after that win, the Kraken ripped off nine straight wins. Since then, though, they’ve come back down to earth with a four-game losing skid. Seattle’s had a few days to digest since its most recent outing: a 3-1 loss at home to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Sunday night.
The Kraken offense has sputtered a bit lately, with just five goals in the last four games. But that comes just after a four-game stretch during which Seattle scored 20 goals, so perhaps this is all just a regression to the mean for a Kraken team that flew a touch too close to the sun in December and early January. The Kraken do need to turn things back north in a hurry, though, as they remain fifth in the Pacific Division and in a three-way tie for 11th place in the Western Conference. The good news for Seattle is that some injured players could be returning to the team shortly to help with that needed second-half surge. Goaltender Philipp Grubauer was removed from long-term injured reserve on Tuesday, the same day that forward Matty Beniers and defenseman Vince Dunn returned to practice. At least two of those players are reportedly available to face Chicago on Wednesday night, although Grubauer’s absence has been offset by the revelation that is Joey Daccord. The 27-year-old netminder is 13-8-8 with a .922 save percentage and 2.33 goals-against average this season, helping keep Seattle afloat.
Seattle still has enough firepower to outduel the Blackhawks, though, with Oliver Bjorkstrand as the team leader in points with 36 (12 G, 24 A) in 46 games and center Jared McCann owning the team lead in goals at 18. The top-end talent necessary for a deep postseason run may not exist here, but there’s enough NHL-level talent within the lineup below to skate away with two points from the Blackhawks.
Bjorkstrand’s absence was reportedly a “personal” matter, so it seems like he should return for this game.
Speaking of those Blackhawks, Monday’s game saw Cole Guttman and Lukas Reichel head to the press box for a night off, with the latter of those two continuing to signal alarm bells all over 1901 W. Madison. The morning skate is happening in the afternoon thanks to this game being on the west coast, so confirmation wasn’t available as of this writing, but Reichel could be watching from above again.
With a game against the white-hot Edmonton Oilers awaiting on Thursday night, it’s possible Arvid Soderblom handles the Kraken assignment while Petr Mrazek allows the ink to dry on his fresh contract before he’s sacrificed to the wolves hailing from Alberta.
[UPDATE] Here’s the gameday update from coach Luke Richardson:
Seattle’s lost four in a row. The Blackhawks have lost 17 in a row on the road. Something’s gotta give. FEEL THE EXCITEMENT!
Let’s go Hawks.
Tale of the Tape
Blackhawks — Statistic — Kraken
43.90% (31st) — 5-on-5 Corsi For — 50.95% (11th)
42.05% (32nd) — 5-on-5 Expected goals for — 50.93% (12th)
2.17 (31st) — Goals per game — 2.74 (27th)
3.53 (29th) — Goals against per game — 2.89 (11th)
44.9% (32nd) — Faceoffs — 47.2% (26th)
12.2% (32nd) — Power play — 16.9% (20th)
76.8% (26th) — Penalty kill — 79.7% (18th)
How to watch
When: 9 p.m. CT
Where: Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle
TV: TNT
Webstream: N/A (Double-check this, but a national TV broadcast usually means no streaming options)
Radio: WGN 720