Winning a Stanley Cup is by wide estimation the most arduous postseason task in all of team sports. And that’s after NHL teams have to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs by traversing an 82-game regular season that can include, say, four road games in a week followed by a six-game homestand over 10 days.
That’s what Kraken players are waking up to on Tuesday after arriving in the early morning hours on a six-hour flight from Montreal that by circadian cycle will feel three time zones later. They just completed a four-game, week-long road trip. Now, along with reuniting with their loved ones, the Kraken will no doubt be fondly anticipating a return to Climate Pledge Arena for six straight games.
Alternate captains Yanni Gourde and Jordan Eberle have raved about the home crowd noise since the first-ever NHL game on Seattle ice. Gourde has heard the roars of two Stanley Cup-winning years in Tampa and Eberle was an indelible Team Canada hero at the 2009 World Juniors Championship, scoring a late goal against Russia for his country’s fans amid bedlam inside an Ottawa arena.
Both veterans say the crowd noise for last spring’s second-round playoff Game 6 against Dallas was as loud as any decibels they’ve heard in their hockey careers. In the foreboding elimination game, fans were raucous from puck drop, fueling a rousing 6-3 victory. Gourde’s line played a huge role in the Seattle scoring and keeping Dallas’ potent offense in check.
“The fans have been great,” said Gourde from year one to that thrilling night last May. “Every game they are outstanding. We’re grateful to have such a loyal and unbelievable fan base. When the energy in this building gets going, it’s amazing, all the loyalty and passion.”
Before the 2023 playoffs started, coach Dave Hakstol gave serious props to Kraken followers making their way to the Seattle Center campus.
“They’ve been with us right from day one,” Hakstol said. “They went through a grind of a first year. They’ve been a big part of some of our progress this year. They’re a huge part of it, and our guys know that.”
What vocal locker room leaders know this week is the pending six-game homestand is vital to staying within striking distance of both the Pacific Division automatic top-three qualifiers and the Western Conference wild-card spots (seventh and eighth places, teams with best records among fourth/fifth place team in Pacific and Central divisions).
No doubt Gourde, Eberle, and others will exhort teammates to improve upon the team’s 4-6-1 record to convert the cheers and decibels into energy. Defenseman Justin Schultz might well remind his teammates how the home crowd sounded when he played here as an opponent, same for defensive partner Brian Dumoulin. Hakstol has oft mentioned this fall leveraging the home-crowd noise to build and sustain momentum with strong first periods.
For his part, Hakstol has been in this position before during his first NHL coaching job in Philadelphia, sticking with his systems of play with a Flyers squad battling to get above the .500 mark only to see the team rev up a strong final two-thirds of the season to qualify for the playoffs. His comportment of not-too-high, not-too-low after wins and losses exemplifies his resistance to panic or doubting his coaching plan.
The upcoming homestand starts Thursday when the New Jersey Devils come to town. The half-dozen games are basically a game-every-other-night proposition with one exception being back-to-back home dates this coming weekend with Tampa Bay visiting Saturday and Minnesota Sunday (remember 6 p.m. puck drop for the latter).
Then next week, the Kraken hit the ice Tuesday (vs. Florida), Thursday (vs. Chicago and rookie phenom Connor Bedard), and Saturday (vs. Los Angeles in the first of two key Pacific Division games in five nights with Kings).
The longer homestand has a parallel from last season, when the Kraken started a six-game homestand on Nov. 8, 2022, that yielded nine of 12 possible standings points. Seattle started with a 5-1 victory over Nashville, then were shutout by Minnesota and Marc-Andre Fleury three nights later before snatching up seven of the eight points available over the final four games of the homestand.
The final three games of the homestand were the start of a seven-game win streak that included road victories in Vegas, Anaheim, and Los Angeles before returning home to notch a seventh straight “W” over the Washington Capitals. Note to self and all Kraken fans: Similar to last season, this six-game homestand will be followed by a rematch road date with the Dallas Stars on Dec. 18 and then divisional tilts with Los Angeles on Dec. 20 and Anaheim on Dec. 23.
Opportunity will be knocking hard this month and the likes of Yanni Gourde and Dave Hakstol, along with Matty Beniers, who maintains hearing the crowd roar when he scored his first-ever NHL goal before the Climate Pledge Arena crowd in April 2022 will always be a top NHL memory, are confident Seattle fans will do their high-decibel part. Let the homestand begin.
