So those Kraken, a team a lot of people sort of wrote off as directionless with too many albatross contracts and too few high-end scoring talents\u2026appear to be third in the division and have one of the best records in the Pacific over the last ten games.<\/p>\n
This season\u2019s theme is \u201cwait, really?\u201d<\/p>\n
So yeah! The Kraken are\u2026.good, I guess? They\u2019ve managed to be a prototypical Lane Lambert team in that they love their low event games, but manage to get enough chaos from their young talent and from their vets to create decent net-front chances. They\u2019re extremely easy to keep to the outside\u2026most of the time. Their craftiness in stretching out defenses (especially not great ones) is what\u2019s made them a difficult beat recently and got them somehow back into the picture out west. The Pacific Division is less a monkey knife fight and now just a bunch of apes taking swings at every jugular they can find in a room full of mirrors; it will be a miracle if anyone in that division escapes it unscathed.<\/p>\n
Riding some highs of Jordan Eberle, Eeli Tolvanen, Matty Beniers, and Chandler Stephenson of all people has also made their attack extremely difficult to gauge; they usually take few shots and get fewer high danger chances\u2026but they also drag you right down into that as well, meaning every single scoring chance suddenly counts for a lot more than it did previously.<\/p>\n
Oh yeah, and they have better than average goaltending. That definitely feels pretty Lane Lambert.<\/p>\n
The Kraken already played Grubauer against Calgary, but right now neither of their goalies are easy beats. Daccord usually goes about four or five games before his first clunker of a game (and he already finished that against Vancouver), and Grubauer, someone we all assumed was washed, is now rocking a SV% that could, and I swear to god this is true, be close to league leading among goaltenders who\u2019ve started at least 12 games. This team is much like this NHL Season, in that they defy a lot of conventional wisdom about the sport in order to be successful, and Boston cannot take them for granted.<\/p>\n
The Bruins meanwhile\u2026are actually kind of figuring things out again. While having fallen out of a wildcard spot, they\u2019re riding high on beating Edmonton and Vancouver in extremely impressive fashions. Part of it is yes, they do have at least one of their stars playing lights out, but now they\u2019ve got a little extra help in Fraser Minten, who\u2019s got 4 points in 2 games. Once again it will require the Bruins to find a way to break open the game and absolutely not get suckered into playing Lambert hockey. Lambert hockey will absolutely force some of the stragglers on the Bruins to try and make plays\u2026and recently that\u2019s been a bit of a mixed bag. They need to get this game moving fast, they need to force Daccord to make big saves, and keep him moving. He\u2019s a very active goalie and the Kraken defense isn\u2019t very mobile, so catching him while he\u2019s out of position is a great way to score on him. Keep hammering the net, and if your best is on the ice, give them the room to make the magic happen. That does apparently include Fraser Minten, for what it\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n
Oh yeah, and you\u2019ve got absolutely zero excuse if you can\u2019t score on the Kraken during power plays. They\u2019ve absolutely earned their 32nd in the league PK. If you gotta get even, get even on the power play. Any missed opportunities can and should be judged harshly. Trust me.<\/p>\n
Will the Bruins even the all-time series against Seattle and come home with a song in their hearts? Or will there be more bubbling discontent?<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s find out tonight!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"So those Kraken, a team a lot of people sort of wrote off as directionless with too many…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5099],"tags":[38177,154,95,5132,530,34198,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-393511","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-bruins","8":"tag-2025-2026-game-coverage","9":"tag-boston","10":"tag-boston-bruins","11":"tag-bostonbruins","12":"tag-bruins","13":"tag-bruins-gameday","14":"tag-hockey","15":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115848149943919653","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}