One: Don’t turn the puck over – This one falls under “D-uh!” on the recommendation scale but needs to be mentioned given the free-for-all enjoyed by the Tampa Bay Lightning on Tuesday night courtesy of Kraken generosity. The funny thing is, the Sportlogiq stats from the game show it was the Kraken enjoying a 6-5 edge in turnover chances, but this is one instance where numbers don’t tell the full story.
While Bobby McMann scored a Kraken goal directly off a turnover, the Lightning are a different breed when it comes to natural scoring ability. And unfortunately for the Kraken, they kept giving the puck away when the NHL’s second-best point-getter, Nikita Kucherov, was on the ice.
Three of Tampa Bay’s goals were a direct result of giveaways and when the Kraken only score twice all night in response, well, you get the math part. The good news is the Predators aren’t quite the Lightning when it comes to gifted offensive prowess so there’s probably a teeny bit of wiggle room when it comes to margin for error.
That said, we can throw a, “Don’t make basic mistakes” caveat in there as well for the Kraken, given a fourth Lightning goal came on a line change. Instead of holding on to the puck and allowing the change to occur, the Kraken wound up giving it back quickly to the Lightning, leading to a stretch pass and resulting 3-on-1 break. That’s a turnover of sorts as well, so, yeah, no more turnovers in Nashville. Unless they’re being cooked up at “D’Andrews” or “Five Daughters” – but I’d order the Pain au Chocolat and call it a day.
Two: Order Up a McMann-McCann With Some Cheddar – OK, sticking with our food themes, you have to like the four goals and two assists by Bobby McMann in just three games since coming over at the trade deadline. Unless, of course, you’re a Maple Leafs fan, but they’ve got plenty else to gripe about at the moment. McMann has given the Kraken another prolific scoring threat to go along with Jared McCann and that’s good news for a team that again scored only twice – McMann and McCann doing the honors – against the Lightning.
Now, Tampa Bay entered as the NHL’s third best defensive team. The Kraken had put up 11 goals in two games prior, so we’ll assume they score more than twice per contest more often than not.
While McMann now leads the Kraken with 23 goals in his combined Toronto-Seattle totals, McCann also has two goals since McMann came on and his 18 goals in just 48 games this injury-reduced season represents the squad’s top scoring rate at 0.42 per contest. When healthy, this pair makes the squad demonstrably better across the top two forward lines, especially when it comes to getting to the dangerous parts of the ice.
Three: Know your foe – It was three years ago next week that the Kraken went into Nashville and pretty much ended the Preds’ playoff hopes by taking three of a possible four points in a two-game set. They can go a long way toward doing the same by taking two of two on Thursday night.
Nashville jumped right back into the playoff mix with a win over Winnipeg on Tuesday that, combined with the Kraken’s loss to Tampa Bay, pulled the Preds back within two points of the final Western Conference wild card spot heading into Wednesday. There are no games in-hand at play, so a Kraken regulation victory puts them four points up on Nashville with only 14 games to go. It might not seem like much, but in the NHL world of points for overtime and shootout losses, a cushion of four looks much better than the alternative of zero.
The Kraken squandered a 2-0 lead and managed to lose at home in regulation to the Predators last week, so they know what's ahead. Nashville goalie Juuse Saros started off poorly but then stonewalled the Kraken the rest of the way despite facing a 45-shot barrage. Steven Stamkos had an empty net goal in that contest and leads the Predators with 31 at the ripe old age of 36.
Filip Forsberg is right behind him with 29 goals and his 55 points are second best on the team behind Ryan O’Reilly’s 61.
Nashville has given up the fifth most goals in the league at 3.39 per game and only scores at a slightly below mid-pack rate like the Kraken so they aren’t exactly the Lightning. But again, the Kraken need to do a better job of putting shots in the net than they did on Saros the last time – minus McMann in the lineup – and can't have a spell of lapses defensively as that game produced.
It would also help to have Eeli Tolvanen in the lineup again against his former squad. Tolvanen is still day-to-day but did accompany the team on its trip. The Kraken nonetheless recalled forward Jani Nyman from AHL Coachella Valley on an emergency basis Wednesday, so we’ll see whether everybody else is OK after the Tampa Bay game.
Projected lineup (not official):
McMann-Beniers-Eberle
McCann-Stephenson-Gaudreau
Catton-Wright-Kakko
Winterton-Meyers-Melanson
Dunn-Larsson
Lindgren-Montour
Oleksiak-Evans
Daccord
