The Seattle Kraken entered Thursday having gone 8-0-1 in their nine games, moving within a point of the two teams tied for first place in the Pacific Division, the Vegas Golden Knights and Edmonton Oilers. Seattle’s hot streak has come directly after a dismal 1-9-1 stretch, and also in the immediate wake of trading away their most notable offseason addition, big winger Mason Marchment.

Why are the Kraken suddenly one of the hottest teams in the NHL? Seattle Sports’ Mike Salk breaks it down in the video above. Below is a full transcript.

What was holding the Seattle Kraken back?

The Kraken, really since their inception, have essentially always had the same two problems.

One, they don’t have a superstar, they don’t have anybody that will really threaten the defense and score a ton of goals and just wreak havoc on the other team because they’re such a threat to score at any point. And that’s why they’ve always had problems on the power play and scoring goals and getting deep into the playoffs.

Their other problem is that they’ve just never been physically tough. They’ve never been hard to play against because they don’t have enough grit, they don’t have enough sandpaper, they don’t have enough physicality, they don’t hit enough, they don’t fight enough. They’ve never really had any of those things.

So when you don’t have a finesse/scoring type of a personality, and you don’t have a physical, gritty, difficult-to-play-against personality, what is left to be your personality? And unfortunately, I think that’s what got them early in this season.

What’s behind the Kraken’s turnaround?

It’s always hard to just pinpoint one thing, and sometimes in hockey it’s just the way the puck bounces, but pretty clear that when Mason Marchment left, the team started getting better. And I think that’s what happens when a guy doesn’t deliver on the promise of who he’s supposed to be.

The guy came in here to be a physical presence and bring that sandpaper and grit that they’d been missing. Instead, he offered essentially none of that, all while not scoring any goals or opening up for anyone else to score goals. So not only do you remove that problem, but then you start relying on some of the young guys who are just hungrier.

The fourth line has been on fire. I could watch Ben Meyers and Jacob Melanson and Ryan Winterton do their thing all day. Specifically Melanson – I could spend the entirety of this video talking about him because in, what, half a dozen games he’s already become my favorite player in the history of the franchise. Physical, separates the offensive guys from the puck, opens things up for his teammates, does the dirty work. You just need people like that on your team. I’m under no illusion, he’s not going to be an MVP candidate, but he is the type of guy that this team’s been missing, and I think that’s been a big part of the success.

Can the Kraken keep it going?

I don’t think we know yet whether or not this is sustainable. They’ve gotten much better goaltending from both Philipp Grubauer and Joey Daccord, and if that continues, that’s a huge help.

The coolest thing about this little resurgence is that it’s been triggered by a lot of the young players. Matty Beniers has started to step up his game. Shane Wright has been better. Young Berkly Catton, who’s also a top 10 pick and a rookie, scored his first two goals just the other day. You’re seeing it from Cale Fleury on the blue line and Ryker Evans on the blue line, two young guys that they’ve been hoping for a while would start to carry them.

It hasn’t been all Jared McCann – although he’s been really good – and Jordan Eberle and Adam Larsson. It hasn’t been all of the older guys. I think you’ve seen some of the young nucleus. Ben Meyers, we talked about the fourth line, Melanson – all of those guys are starting to really play a role in this. And they’re going to have to because, again, they don’t have that superstar scorer, so they need some of the young nucleus to start to grow into being something.

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