3 Game Essentials | Hurricanes (3-1-0) at Kraken (0-3-1)| 7 p.m.

One: Setting Goals and Expectations

Understandably, media and fans alike are circling the Kraken’s three goals in four games, which equates to a 2.13 shooting percentage, a statistic that will quadruple or more over an entire NHL season. Even the lowest team shooting percentages in the NHL last season were barely below nine percent. Something’s gotta give and Seattle coach Dave Hakstol says the scoring is in the details.

“The focus seems to always come back to how much offense we're producing,” said Hakstol after Monday’s optional practice. “I'll probably challenge our group a little bit differently. Our shooting percentage isn't going to stay at two percent all year. That's one thing.

“So what are the little areas of the game that we can be better in individually and collectively, where can we be more competitive? Can you come up with an extra puck? Can you defend a play a little bit harder? Until the offensive pieces started coming a little bit more frequently, we have to challenge ourselves to be better and do a little bit more in detail areas.”

Those detail areas include winning back more pucks in the offensive zone to both generate more havoc for opposing goalies and slowing down the other team’s offensive attack. Winning puck battles in all zones is another (Hakstol noted one of the deciding goals in Tuesday’s Colorado loss started with two Kraken players losing the puck to a solo Avalanche intruder deep in the Seattle end). One more: Maintaining screens net-front and not getting pushed off.

Two: Defense on the Offense, What to Watch

Fans are accustomed to seeing Kraken defensemen join or even push the offensive rush. It was a thing of beauty to watch alternate captain Adam Larsson do so in Tuesday’s game, especially late second period. He’s underrated as an offensive contributor (he set career highs in assists (25) and points (33) last year and tied his NHL season-best eight (8) goals, which he set in Seattle’s inaugural season).

Hakstol acknowledged Larsson’s play, along with Brian Dumoulin racing to win a puck battle late-middle period to generate a near-score on a backdoor pass and shot.

“There’s room there for us to grow” when asked about the “D” going “O”: “That's a big part: ‘D’ joining. We’re generating and creating pretty regularly there. One of the areas we need to do a little bit better job is decision-making at the blue line [in the opponent’s zone] when we have an opportunity to sift the puck and get a puck through to the net versus when that puck needs to go back to the bottom [deeper in the zone for a reset of playmaking]. Probably most importantly, just being really decisive. Right now, we're a little bit in between ... we're seeing a few too many pucks that get turned over, you know, above the hash marks [of faceoff circles] in the offensive zone. That leads to no offense and also leads to a real difficult puck to track and defend.”

Three: Know Your Foe: Carolina Winning Despite Injuries

Hurricanes center Sebastian Aho is arguably the best of numerous successful picks by Kraken GM Ron Francis when he held the same job for Carolina. Aho was scratched for Tuesday’s 6-3 victory at San Jose (scoring four goals in the third period to come back from a 3-2 deficit). Check back on the Kraken app and website for updates on Aho, plus goalie Frederik Andersen, who left Tuesday’s game early when he took a shot to the mask. Andersen practiced Wednesday at Kraken Community Iceplex but Carolina nonetheless called up AHL goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov after the workout. Carolina is also short young star Andrei Svechnikov, who is still mending from ACL knee surgery in March.

The injuries haven’t stopped Carolina from finding ways to win with a 3-1 record after the first week, including notching four shorthanded goals already. Only ten NHL squads have a “shorty” so far while Canes star defenseman Jacob Slavin has two. Second-pair D-man Brady Skjei has six points in four games.