Preview: Kraken on the menu

Seattle Kraken @ Toronto Maple Leafs
7:00 p.m. at Scotiabank Arena
Can be seen on: TSN4, KHN, KING 5, KONG

King and Kong. Wow, that's really great (no, I have no idea what that means).

The Leafs' last game was on October 28th away from home against the Winnipeg Jets, which Toronto won 6-4 in regulation time. The Leafs have a record of 5-4-1 with a .550 points percentage.

The Seattle Kraken last played on the road against the Montreal Canadiens on October 29th. The Kraken went 8-2 in regulation time and their current league record is 5-4-1 with a .550 points percentage.

Them

Well, they just tweaked the Habs, so that should be enough for a while.

The Kraken are the team I usually know the least about. Matty Beniers is really good, and, yeah. They have a few other people. Last summer I ran into Ryker Evans, who I had never heard of, looking at defenders and he looked very promising.

And of course, this is the meeting of the Tanev brothers in Toronto.

As a team, the Kraken are very poor at Corsi and even worse at expected goals at five-on-five. They are very similar to the Jets in that their offense is extremely poor and their defense is almost as bad. They are currently scoring goals well above expectations and some of that is probably due to the shooting talent of this top group, but some is not.

Their power play is extremely poor based on expected goals, but they have exceeded expected goals by a lot.

They have 11 players with a shooting percentage of 10 or higher. Many of these players are talented, but that won't last. Joey Daccord was very good, so if he's in the net it won't be easy to score.

lines

Last game (October 29, 2024) via Daily Faceoff

Jared McCann – Matty Beniers – Jordan Eberle
Eeli Tolvanen – Chandler Stephenson – Andre Burakovsky
Jaden Schwartz – Shane Wright – Oliver Bjorkstrand
Tye Kartye – Yanni Gourde – Brandon Tanev

Ryker Evans-Adam Larsson
Jamie Oleksiak – Brandon Montour
Josh Mahura – Will Borgen

Joey Daccord
Philipp Grubauer

Us

Nick Robertson appears to be back in the game tonight, even though he wasn't on the line rushes yesterday.

lines

David Alter on Daily Faceoff from yesterday's training and assuming Robertson fills in for Holmberg – to be confirmed.

Matthew Knies – Auston Matthews – Mitch Marner
Max Pacioretty – John Tavares – William Nylander
Bobby McMann – Max Domi – Nick Robertson
Steven Lorentz – David Kaempf – Ryan Reaves

Morgan Rielly – Oliver Ekman Larsson
Jake McCabe – Chris Tanev
Simon Benoit – Conor Timmins

Anthony Stolarz
Joe Woll – confirmed starter

The game

Bad teams aren't bad at everything, and the Kraken are a good example of that. They have talented forwards, they have a good goalie and Brandon Montour brings an offensively focused game to a team that needed it. They're falling behind, and that will hurt them in the long run, but that doesn't mean they're a weak opponent tonight.

The Leafs have to show the same game as they did against the very similar Jets. Your Halloween fright comes courtesy of Joe Woll's second start of the year.