The Need to Knows<\/p>\n
The Time: 4pm PST<\/p>\n
The Place: Climate Pledge Arena in Beautiful Seattle, Washington<\/p>\n
Place to Watch: KING 5, KONG, KHN Networks, Amazon Prime, SportsNet West<\/p>\n
Place to Listen: KJR 93.3-FM<\/p>\n
Game Preview<\/p>\n
Anything I could\u2019ve said about tonight\u2019s game, especially given how well they handled a comeback victory on Thursday, went directly out the window just before lunch today, as the Kraken dropped a helluva bombshell on us:<\/p>\n
For those keeping track, that means that both Coachella Valley Firebirds goaltenders are considered the active goaltenders for tonight\u2019s game as Grubauer and Daccord are out, and Matt Murray is still dealing with the family issue that\u2019s kept him away from the team as well as a lingering injury. As for Coachella\u2019s goalie situation given that they play tonight? I imagine a Kansas City Maverick like Jack LaFontaine is already on his way to the desert, if not giving prospect Kim Saarinen the opportunity to start.<\/p>\n
This is not what I meant by \u201cgraduating Firebirds\u201d, squids.<\/p>\n
Regardless, both goalies are doing decently in the AHL, both hovering about .900 in SV% and have helped lead the Firebirds to a 4th in-division spot alongside the law firm of Firkus, Nyman and Morrison. Ostman himself currently sits at 10th in the American Hockey League in SV-%.<\/p>\n
Now? They gotta do this at NHL speed, which can be a hell of an adjustment.<\/p>\n
As for which one they should use tonight? Kind of up in the air. Coachella has been platooning these two back and forth and getting similar results. Even over the last month, you could rightly say both have been just as instrumental on the Firebirds being both winners and losers of every contest they took part in (Kokko slightly edges out Ostman in SV% over the last month and into April, but only just: .925 SV% for Nikke and .911 SV% for Ostman.) so it\u2019s more of a matter of who you\u2019d think would match up well against the Flames. The Flames tend to get a lot of their scoring done from distance this year (a surefire sign that you are Bad At NHL Hockey), or from the power-play out in front, so I guess the big thing for success tonight is making sure that the goalies do not struggle to see shots.<\/p>\n
This is an interesting test for the Kraken, who will have to start helping their goalie like they\u2019ve never helped them before in order to get a win. If you\u2019re not looking for a win of course, this is just about the easiest game you could ask for to fulfill that purpose. <\/p>\n
But if you want one of these guys to get the best possible chance to win their first NHL game, it falls on the skaters to finally tighten this defense up and play an effort to be proud of.<\/p>\n
LET\u2019S GO KRAKEN, LET\u2019S GO SQUIDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Need to Knows The Time: 4pm PST The Place: Climate Pledge Arena in Beautiful Seattle, Washington Place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550590,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[5,4188,4,2686,234,5318],"class_list":{"0":"post-550589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-kraken","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-kraken","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-kraken","13":"tag-seattlekraken"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116388137958810609","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550589","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=550589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}