Breaking Out Some Critical Kraken Detail

Kraken head coach Lane Lambert wasted little time after this week’s opening preseason contest in tipping which of several in-game “details” he’s particularly focused on.

Lambert is a details-guy. Just ask players who’ve gotten to know him in training camp or who played for him prior. Heck, even ask Lambert himself and he’ll tell you: It’s all about detail.

So, it’s worth re-hearing Lambert’s detailed postgame response after last Sunday’s opening 5-3 exhibition win over Vancouver when asked about the two-goal performance by Kraken prospect Jani Nyman. In recapping Nyman’s first goal, on a puck fired home at the net front after a slightly deflected Kaapo Kakko pass, Lambert offered up: “The thing that excited me about that goal was our (defensive) zone. It started in the D-zone. We killed the play and then it ended up in the back of their net.

“And so, from my perspective, that’s what I’m talking about when we’re talking about defense and how it translates into offense.”

For the record, the goal indeed began 200 feet away behind the Kraken net when defenseman Adam Larsson knocked a Canucks player off the puck and Matty Beniers picked it up. Beniers fed it ahead to Kakko, who carried it out of the Kraken end and hit quick-moving defender Vince Dunn with a pass just outside Vancouver’s blue line. Dunn carried it across and then sent it back to Kakko on the opposite point, where he then threw the net front pass that wound up on Nyman’s stick and behind the goalie.

So, bang-bang-bang-bang and a Canucks scoring chance quickly became a Kraken goal just 10 seconds later at the opposite end of the rink.

And yes, Lambert apparently couldn’t wait to talk about it. He was so eager, he didn’t even wait for a specific question about it. Instead, he simply used a vaguely related question about Nyman to get his defense-to-offense message across.

And the message appears to be reaching his players.

After Tuesday night’s 4-1 loss in Calgary, new Kraken forward Mason Marchment was asked whether any “details” the team had been working on seemed to not have panned out against the Flames.

“I think, for the most part, just breakouts,” Marchment replied. “That kind of starts everything. If you can break out clean and use each other easily and get open for each other it kind of makes it easy on everyone and then the game just flows from there.”

Again, by “breakouts” Marchment is referring to breaking the puck out of the defensive zone and up the ice as part of an offensive transition. And yes, unlike the Nyman goal in the first game, Marchment’s reference to the team’s breakout plan this time was that it had not been executed well.

“Most of the guys in here love to play offense,” Marchment said. “But the hardest part is just being able to break out easy and execute. That’s probably why we were playing in our zone the rest of the night.”

But it’s preseason, where all teams work out kinks. Until the games count for real, the messaging is what matters. And Lambert’s messaging isn’t that complicated because hockey basics haven’t changed much the past half-century despite the increased size and speed of players. To win, you must outscore the opposition. The Kraken last season didn’t do that. They scored 18 fewer goals than they allowed and won 12 fewer games than they wound up losing in regulation, overtime and shootouts.

So, scoring more goals must be the answer, right?

Well, not necessarily. The Kraken last season scored 30 more goals than the prior campaign. Yet, they finished with five fewer standings points.

The reason is, they allowed 29 more goals than the season before. The 30-goal gain on offense was nullified by the 29-goal give back on defense. And it left the team with a goal differential of minus-18 that almost exactly mirrored its minus-19 the season prior.

So, the answer to figuring things out is not necessarily scoring more goals. It’s about reducing that goal differential.

Sure, some of that could come through offensive improvement after adding Marchment. And from Matty Beniers further developing and expanding upon his 20 goals from last season, or Shane Wright building off his 19. Perhaps Kakko has a breakout season.

Any of those scenarios could lessen the goal differential.

But a potentially bigger way to reduce, or – dare I say it? – reverse that differential to the positive side, is by tightening up on goals allowed. Part of that comes with improved goaltending, especially from whoever plays after No. 1 starter Joey Daccord. But an even more significant chunk, if Lambert’s vision is executed to fruition, could come from quickly getting the puck out of the Kraken’s defensive end.

And not just dumping the puck out where the other team pounces on it again. No, Lambert’s vision is getting it out and on to the sticks of a Kraken offensive thrust headed the other way.

That part makes sense. If the puck is moved quickly out of the Kraken end and they hold on to it for a while, the other teams won’t score as much. And turning those breakout plays into offensive chances should lead to the Kraken scoring more.

Pull that off, the goal differential gets erased in both directions a lot more quickly. This defense-to-offense approach also makes sense when you look at Kraken personnel.

They’ve loaded up on defenseman who, while not necessarily elite offensive playmakers such as Cale Makar or Evan Bouchard, can still move pucks quickly up ice. The obvious ones are Dunn, Brandon Montour and Ryker Evans while Josh Mahura is also a capable puck-mover. And even the more physical Kraken defenders such as Larsson, Ryan Lindgren and Jamie Oleksiak are still known for solid first-pass ability on breakouts.

They don’t all need to sprint up ice with the puck leading an offensive charge. But they’ve all demonstrated the ability to get it out from deep in their own end and ahead to puck movers that can provide the offense. Same applies to forwards battling for loose pucks in the defensive zone. Remember, it was Beniers – not a defenseman -- making the first pass on the Nyman goal from deep in his own zone.

Among playoff teams last season, the Montreal Canadiens had the worst goal differential at minus-20 while the Minnesota Wild were at minus-11. The Ottawa Senators were on the ledger’s positive side at +9, but none of those teams were all that far ahead of how the Kraken performed.

So, negating or reversing that differential enough to move the proverbial needle isn’t some pie-in-the-rafters dream.

In fact, this could be the fastest ticket to success for a Kraken team that considers its offensive strength to lie in four closely balanced forward lines rather than a couple of elite top-end scoring trios. More offense will surely help. But it needs to be offense that doesn’t come at the expense of defense. It needs to be offense that happens because of defense.

Get better at executing on that one detail, plenty of other Kraken issues could resolve themselves quicker than last Sunday’s end-to-end breakout goal.