Kraken Weekly: Winning Recipe is…Defense First

After being on a six game losing streak, the Seattle Kraken finally found their way and got off the schneid by beating one of the league’s top teams in the Washington Capitals 5-2. Not only did they beat the Caps this week, they beat the Carolina Hurricanes and Florida Panthers as well despite losing to the defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning. Seattle beat some really good teams this week and let’s take a look back at the week that was:

Got off the schneid, defeat Capitals 5-2 (11/21/21)

Calm the storm & beat the Hurricanes 2-1 (11/24/21)

Back down to earth, got struck by Lightning (11/26/21)

Kraken tame the Panthers, win 4-1 (11/27/21)

How’s it Kraken? My thoughts on the week

The Kraken had a very good week this week as they beat some of the league’s best teams. To be honest, I thought they would’ve lost all of these games considering the way they were playing but fortunately that wasn’t the case. The six game losing streak seems to have reminded or shown the Kraken that they need to play a defense first type of mentality in order to win games. Especially since they don’t have that x-factor or dynamic scorer. Seattle in two of their three wins this week scored four and five goals. They were able to create more offense by playing sound defense with good positioning, sticks in passing/shooting lanes, and blocking shots. Also, they outworked and out hustled their opponents as well. As a result, they made the top teams make mistakes they don’t usually make and capitalized on it.

I really liked how Seattle played all week and this is how they need to play with defense first. Against the Capitals, once they tied they score, the Kraken took over that game and didn’t look back. Sure, Washington was finishing the second back to back of a West coast trip and were gassed, but the Kraken still deserve credit for their efforts. The game against Carolina was a tight defensive game all around but they found a way to win it at the very end. With the Tampa game, the Kraken slipped up and forgot what helped them win the two previous games against top teams. It wasn’t their best performance of the week but it was a good teacher for the team. They certainly remembered what they needed to do when they beat the Florida Panthers the next night and ended their perfect home record which also prevented them from setting an NHL record for most consecutive home wins to start a season.

Overall, this was a very good week for the Seattle Kraken and the fan base. Picking up wins against the league’s best teams is always exciting. It was nice to see the team turning a bad losing streak into something positive and finding or re-remembering what their identity should be this season which is defense first as the recipe for successes. Let’s see what happens next week…stay tuned Seattle!