Kraken at KCI
A common refrain from coaches around the NHL this season is, “we have very little time to practice because of the condensed schedule.”
Due to the three week NHL break in February for the Winter Olympics, the rest of the calendar is smooshed.
Practice time between games and travel is scarce. The Kraken should consider themselves blessed.
“The practice is welcomed, and it’s needed,” Kraken head coach Lane Lambert said on Monday after the first of three consecutive days of on-ice work at Kraken Community IcePlex.
This window in the calendar is practically unheard of this season. In fact, after Wednesday, Seattle might have the opportunity to hold one more practice the entire month of December, and that would be coming out of the league-wide Christmas break. Otherwise, they play every-other-day for the rest of the month, in addition to two back-to-back game nights on the calendar.
January is worse, with three back-to-backs. The maximum number of days off between games the entire month: one.
On Tuesday, Lambert upped the competition element.
“I think it’s important that we focused on ‘tight area’ stuff, making sure we can make plays in tight spaces, tight areas, and I thought we accomplished that today,” he said after practice. “It was an offensive day today to a certain degree, but it was also a competitive day. We drafted teams before and the guys competed with each other. So it was good.”
Special teams were also a focus, given the club’s inconsistency on the power play and penalty kill, ranked 21st and 31st respectively in the NHL.
“We’ve gotta stick with it, try some different things, I think it just comes down to shooting the puck more,” Seattle forward Jared McCann said of the power play. “Creating second chances off shots and we should be fine.”
The PK is a bigger problem.
“There’s a lack of execution and responsibilities,” Lambert said Wednesday after practice. “We’re kind of developing on the fly as we go here with certain guys and they’re gonna have to be better. It’s just the bottom line.
“We can sit here and say, it’s this, that and the other thing, but 24 games into it and 20 goals, whoever is killing penalties has to be better,” He continued. “It doesn’t matter if you’ve done it in the National Hockey League before, but we have to better because we know what we’re supposed to do. Now it’s a matter of executing.”
The Edmonton Oilers went 2-for-2 with the man advantage in a 4-0 win against the Kraken on Saturday night.
“We have to get on some kind of run here to get our confidence back,” Lambert said.
The first chance to see the results of practice, practice, and practice comes Thursday night against the league’s third best power play and some of the game’s most elite talent, when the Kraken face the Oilers again, this time in Edmonton.
Earlier Kraken:
— Another Day, Another Kraken Injury
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