Tuesday October 5 - Seattle Kraken 4 - Vancouver Canucks 0
The Seattle Kraken took a 2-0 series lead in the battle of the Pacific Northwest on Tuesday, rolling into Vancouver and leaving with a 4-0 win.
Vince Dunn scored twice for Seattle, and the Kraken power play went 2-for-7, while Philipp Grubauer stopped 38 shots. At the other end of the ice, Thatcher Demko made 21 saves.
As a rule, preseason matchups favour the home team pretty significantly. Teams tend to dress more of their star players for home games, so their fans can see them and to spare them any unnecessary travel.
But a schedule quirk on Tuesday superseded that rule of thumb. Because the Kraken were playing their final preseason game, they dressed a lineup that's expected to be pretty close to the group that will debut as the regular season opens next Tuesday in Vegas.
Seattle also took full advantage of its proximity to Vancouver — holding its morning skate at its own practice facility in Northgate before heading up for the game.
Here's how the lines shook out:
As we try to get used to the Kraken roster, there were a couple notable names who didn't dress: forward Marcus Johansson and defenseman Jamie Oleksiak.
Forward Yanni Gourde, one of the higher-profile players selected in the expansion draft, underwent offseason shoulder surgery. And while he was initially projected for a December return, he has been skating with his teammates and wore a non-contact jersey earlier this week. So it might not be a stretch to imagine that he'll be in the lineup by the time the Canucks play the Kraken in the new club's home opener on October 26 at Climate Pledge Arena.
As for former Canuck Kole Lind, he didn't dress for either preseason game against Vancouver but played in all four of Seattle's other games, where he failed to record a point. He was placed on waivers on Wednesday.
As for the Canucks, Travis Green mixed up his combos a bit.
The marquee story of the night was Vasily Podkolzin, who was back in the top six and on the power play, and had his most noticeable performance with five shot attempts and four hits in 14:29 of ice time.
After coming into training camp with plenty of swagger, it seemed like Podkolzin's confidence waned as he got into game action. Seems like Green's 'chat' on Tuesday helped him find his mojo.
The Canucks still have two preseason games to go: a back-to-back series against the Oilers, in Edmonton on Thursday and then back at Rogers Arena on Saturday. Here's hoping that the Russian rookie can continue to build on what he brought to the table on Tuesday night.
In addition to outshooting Seattle by a wide margin, the Canucks also came out on top in the hit column, by a margin of 33-19. I don't think the numbers are working in Will Lockwood's favour, especially because he's waiver exempt, but once again he delivered his patented high-energy game, finishing the night with a game-high six hits and three shots in 11:28 of ice time.
Lockwood also logged more than three minutes on the penalty kill. He may be in consideration to fill Tyler Motte's role, but he was on the ice for the Kraken's first man-advantage goal on Tuesday, as well as Nathan Bastian's tally which rounded out the scoring in the last minute of the game.
With Travis Hamonic's situation still up in the air, the chatter now is that Tucker Poolman might be the best option on the right side to play with Quinn Hughes. With any luck, we'll get a look at that in the last two preseason games. In the meantime, Oliver Ekman-Larsson was paired with Tyler Myers on Tuesday night. Olli Juolevi and Kyle Burroughs were listed as the second pair — and once again, Juolevi was a key penalty killer, logging nearly five minutes shorthanded. Jack Rathbone and Luke Schenn rounded out the blue line, and were on the ice with the Horvat line when Dunn scored his second goal in the second period, at even strength.
As far as Horvat goes, he seems to already be up to full power at a time when many veterans around the league are still on cruise control. He led the Canucks with a whopping eight shots on goal on Tuesday night, and looks like he could start the season on a line with Tanner Pearson and Nils Hoglander.
Uncharacteristically, though, Horvat got torched in the faceoff circle on Tuesday night, winning just nine of his 21 draws. All told, the Canucks were just 41% successful on the dot, while Seattle's Jared McCann (11 for 15) and Morgan Geekie (10 for 14) both went over 70%.
After the big club made its first round of roster cuts on Sunday, the Abbotsford Canucks announced their training camp plans on Tuesday. Sessions will run Wednesday through Saturday at the Abbotsford Centre, although the club's initial roster is limited to just 14 players.
Based on the calculations by
Thomas Drance and Harman Dayal at The Athletic, Canucks still have 33 healthy players in camp — including PTO candidate Alex Chiasson and Danila Klimovich, who could still end up being sent to junior.
That number has dropped by one on Wednesday morning, as Jonah Gadjovich's name is on the waiver list. He and Lind will be forever linked, it seems.
The Vancouver Canucks open their regular season next Wednesday, in what will be their third-straight game against Edmonton as they embark on a six-game road trip.
Abbotsford begins with three road games, starting Saturday, October 16 against Edmonton's farm team, the Bakersfield Condors.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
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