dpTwo: Keep skating for three periods – Not to dwell on last Friday’s loss in Calgary, but the Kraken need to do a better job of skating and competing than they did the final two periods. The good news is, the Kraken know this to a man. And even if they didn’t, Lambert would have been there to remind them. He made sure to drill that message home when he had the Kraken out doing wind sprints from blue line to blue line at the tail end of Sunday’s practice.
The Kraken won only 38% of puck battles against the Flames in that game and that’s often a byproduct of not moving your feet and arriving late to the puck. The team looked out of position all game long, which is atypical to how they’d performed in getting off to the best start in franchise history while taking down some potential playoff squads in Washington, Utah and Toronto, while snagging an overtime loss point versus Tampa Bay.
Three: Know your foe – Clearly, the Flames are no longer the same team that lost their first five games and scored only a goal apiece in each of their first three contests.
Calgary has now won seven of their last 10 games, while their offense has steadily improved to where they’re scoring roughly three or four goals per contest. As the Kraken learned last Friday, they must stay out of the penalty box. The Flames scored on both their power play opportunities against a Kraken penalty kill that’s now down to second-worst in the league at 64.1% efficiency.
The Flames’ power play, conversely, is now ranked No. 5 in the NHL at 30.6%.
Considering how poorly the Flames began the season offensively, that’s a unit that’s functioned at around 35% the past 10 games. So, they are absolutely to be avoided with the man advantage.
Joel Farabee leads the Flames with 15 points, having picked up three of them Friday against the Kraken with a goal and two assists. Matt Coronato is second with 14 points, having notched a four-spot versus the Kraken with a goal and three assists.
Farabee, Coronato and Morgan Frost have been keys to the power play and made the Kraken pay big on Friday.
But it’s the goals allowed where the Flames have even more impressively improved. They were allowing 5.40 goals per contest the first five games, but ever since have cut that in half to 2.60 the last 10 matchups.
A lot of that stems from cutting down on high-danger chances against, despite allowing a higher shot volume.
We’ll likely see former Everett Silvertips netminder Dustin Wolf for the fourth time this season as Devin Cooley remains week-to-week on injured reserve. This will be the final game between the teams this season, barring a playoff matchup, with the Kraken holding a 2-1 edge.
Projected lines (not official)
McMann-Beniers-Eberle
Stephenson-Gaudreau-Wood
Kakko-Catton-Samoskevich
Nyman-Meyers-Winterton
Dunn-Larsson
Evans-Montour
Mahura-Ottavainen
Daccord
