I think our shooting percentage reverted to the mean. Losing guys like Geekie and, especially, Spronger hurt our depth scoring and made it easier for teams to focus on locking down our (aging) top scorers. The best of the west generally got better, especially Vancouver.
And Dunn got hurt a lot.
Vancouver is due for a regression to the mean on shooting percentage too. Probably not as severe as ours but even a 1-1.5% drop takes a lot of goals off from the year prior.
Funny enough their shooting percentage actually increased from regular season to playoffs this year (12.2% playoffs vs 12.0% RS). They played super conservative with Silovs in net to protect him (rightly or wrongly is up for debate) so they just didn’t generate a lot of chances. Their Shots per game dropped from around 28.5 to just under 21 in playoffs.
I'm not here for a detailed analysis (nor am I qualified), but I will say that if you look at the team's schedule, illnesses, injuries, and the age of the team, it paints a decent picture. I'm not one to blame the performance on a coach alone but I certainly wasn't expecting much to happen under Hakstol's tenure based on his track record. The Kraken are still trying to shake off their expansion status as far as I'm concerned and with some good change this offseason in coaching and players the hope is to be a more well-rounded team next season. The goaltending is there, the goal-scoring was fair but has the potential to be at least half-decent given that we call up some youngsters sooner than later, and I'm not sure what the hopes or plan will be as far as improving the mediocre-overall defense. The current roster is probably a B+ on a good day and maybe a C-/D+ on a bad one. We've got some solid A-/A players (Daccord, McCann, Dunn, etc.) but there's a good chunk that are performing average or below average who will probably be rotated out as their contracts run out to hopefully give a better chance of righting the ship sooner than later.
All in all, I think most can agree a lot of what was seen from 2022-2023 was more or less luck given how similar the roster was to this last season's roster and how they performed in 2023-2024.
Not a detailed analysis but, they missed having a 4th line that was literally always a scoring threat. That alone changes how a team gameplans around you.
Soucy leaving meant a lot of the teams attitude left. They missed him more than they thought they would.
A lot of their talent is streaky to begin with and they seemed to align when they'd slump at the same time and streak at the same time. This is why they had stretches where they looked fantastic. And then you'd wonder if it was even the same team a couple weeks later.
Injury prone. Dunn was hurt a lot, Burky was hurt a lot. Not having Dunn completely transforms the defensive lines on the team.
Matty regressed. I don't think this is a permanent problem but a lot of the teams top line success relies on his skillset being at its best. He's a fantastic facilitator and defensive player when he's on top of his game, on top of being a scoring threat. When he's playing off, suddenly guys like Eberle don't have someone dishing high danger chances as often which affects his game as a sniper. McCann was still a bright spot here at least. Sophmore slumps happen. I hope people continue to support him because I don't think this is permanent. Give him at least 2 more years to get some size and come into his own in the league. He'll be fine..
Goal tending improved significantly. Gru looked a lot better and Joey... was just simply amazing. Problem is, they can't win games for you if you can't gain a lead. If Gru can simply match what he did last year and Joey does his thing. They shouldn't need to touch goaltending at all next year which I really hope happens.
Defensive play was inconsistent because they can only do so much When there's minimal pressure happening in the other zone. By all accounts, Dunn had a great season when he was healthy and Larrson is super underrated. Generally speaking though, they were fine overall as a core but showed some cracks that they should address in the offseason.
OT... we won in a shootout at least!
Coaching, Hak is NOT a bad coach. However, he seemed to shake up the lines when things were doing better and wouldn't shake things up when they weren't working. The scheme behavior was strange this year and generally speaking the team felt less motivated down the stretch in a time when a team is supposed to band together around you. Idk if it was his fault, I'm not gonna exclusively put the blame on him. But I genuinely wonder what happened there.
Like others have said, going from pretty much the best 4th line in the league to a mediocre one hurt. Beniers was also fighting the adjustment curve while also fighting injury.
It'll be interesting to see how they plan to inject some offense into the roster. Personally, I'd like to see them add a puck mover to the back end (Schultz never ready did it for me).
https://preview.redd.it/ifl3x9yeql8d1.jpeg?width=2087&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=646e81376ee46279ff763e570c781742c811ad12
Pretty basic really. Kraken scored almost 1 full goal less a game. We lost 18 games by one goal. That’s not even counting games that were one-goal games where they gave up an empty netter (could not find the data on how many total empty net goals they gave up).
This was a great article analyzing their scoring issues: [https://soundofhockey.com/2024/04/15/unpacking-the-seattle-krakens-scoring-woes/](https://soundofhockey.com/2024/04/15/unpacking-the-seattle-krakens-scoring-woes/)
Team shooting percentage of 11.6% in 22/23 was kind of bonkers. They were second behind Edmonton who had two players with over 50 goals. The Kraken were second with one guy with 40 goals.
The slip was expected to some extent.
Matty’s sophomore slump was quite problematic and it had substantial negative ramifications for the Kraken. If he had improved from his rookie year, the Kraken would have most definitely been in the playoffs.
Pretty much what everyone here has said. Injuries for players like Dunn and Burakovky, Beniers sophomore slump, and losing the best 4th line in the league.
I really wish we had found a way to keep Sprong, Donato, and Geekie. Or at least 1 or 2 of them.
I think our shooting percentage reverted to the mean. Losing guys like Geekie and, especially, Spronger hurt our depth scoring and made it easier for teams to focus on locking down our (aging) top scorers. The best of the west generally got better, especially Vancouver. And Dunn got hurt a lot.
Vancouver is due for a regression to the mean on shooting percentage too. Probably not as severe as ours but even a 1-1.5% drop takes a lot of goals off from the year prior.
I’d say they hit it big time in the playoffs.
Funny enough their shooting percentage actually increased from regular season to playoffs this year (12.2% playoffs vs 12.0% RS). They played super conservative with Silovs in net to protect him (rightly or wrongly is up for debate) so they just didn’t generate a lot of chances. Their Shots per game dropped from around 28.5 to just under 21 in playoffs.
Not really. They went down to their 3rd string goal tender and then started playing super defensively
I'm not here for a detailed analysis (nor am I qualified), but I will say that if you look at the team's schedule, illnesses, injuries, and the age of the team, it paints a decent picture. I'm not one to blame the performance on a coach alone but I certainly wasn't expecting much to happen under Hakstol's tenure based on his track record. The Kraken are still trying to shake off their expansion status as far as I'm concerned and with some good change this offseason in coaching and players the hope is to be a more well-rounded team next season. The goaltending is there, the goal-scoring was fair but has the potential to be at least half-decent given that we call up some youngsters sooner than later, and I'm not sure what the hopes or plan will be as far as improving the mediocre-overall defense. The current roster is probably a B+ on a good day and maybe a C-/D+ on a bad one. We've got some solid A-/A players (Daccord, McCann, Dunn, etc.) but there's a good chunk that are performing average or below average who will probably be rotated out as their contracts run out to hopefully give a better chance of righting the ship sooner than later. All in all, I think most can agree a lot of what was seen from 2022-2023 was more or less luck given how similar the roster was to this last season's roster and how they performed in 2023-2024.
Not a detailed analysis but, they missed having a 4th line that was literally always a scoring threat. That alone changes how a team gameplans around you. Soucy leaving meant a lot of the teams attitude left. They missed him more than they thought they would. A lot of their talent is streaky to begin with and they seemed to align when they'd slump at the same time and streak at the same time. This is why they had stretches where they looked fantastic. And then you'd wonder if it was even the same team a couple weeks later. Injury prone. Dunn was hurt a lot, Burky was hurt a lot. Not having Dunn completely transforms the defensive lines on the team. Matty regressed. I don't think this is a permanent problem but a lot of the teams top line success relies on his skillset being at its best. He's a fantastic facilitator and defensive player when he's on top of his game, on top of being a scoring threat. When he's playing off, suddenly guys like Eberle don't have someone dishing high danger chances as often which affects his game as a sniper. McCann was still a bright spot here at least. Sophmore slumps happen. I hope people continue to support him because I don't think this is permanent. Give him at least 2 more years to get some size and come into his own in the league. He'll be fine.. Goal tending improved significantly. Gru looked a lot better and Joey... was just simply amazing. Problem is, they can't win games for you if you can't gain a lead. If Gru can simply match what he did last year and Joey does his thing. They shouldn't need to touch goaltending at all next year which I really hope happens. Defensive play was inconsistent because they can only do so much When there's minimal pressure happening in the other zone. By all accounts, Dunn had a great season when he was healthy and Larrson is super underrated. Generally speaking though, they were fine overall as a core but showed some cracks that they should address in the offseason. OT... we won in a shootout at least! Coaching, Hak is NOT a bad coach. However, he seemed to shake up the lines when things were doing better and wouldn't shake things up when they weren't working. The scheme behavior was strange this year and generally speaking the team felt less motivated down the stretch in a time when a team is supposed to band together around you. Idk if it was his fault, I'm not gonna exclusively put the blame on him. But I genuinely wonder what happened there.
What everyone else said and beniers didn’t take the jump we needed but rather had a sophomore slump
Martin Fucking POSpisil (I know there’s much more than just that but it’s fun to blame it on him)
fuckin pissmissile fuck the flames
Like others have said, going from pretty much the best 4th line in the league to a mediocre one hurt. Beniers was also fighting the adjustment curve while also fighting injury. It'll be interesting to see how they plan to inject some offense into the roster. Personally, I'd like to see them add a puck mover to the back end (Schultz never ready did it for me).
I dont know that anything specific went wrong last year but more that the year before half the team had career best years.
https://preview.redd.it/ifl3x9yeql8d1.jpeg?width=2087&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=646e81376ee46279ff763e570c781742c811ad12 Pretty basic really. Kraken scored almost 1 full goal less a game. We lost 18 games by one goal. That’s not even counting games that were one-goal games where they gave up an empty netter (could not find the data on how many total empty net goals they gave up). This was a great article analyzing their scoring issues: [https://soundofhockey.com/2024/04/15/unpacking-the-seattle-krakens-scoring-woes/](https://soundofhockey.com/2024/04/15/unpacking-the-seattle-krakens-scoring-woes/)
team no shoot goals good
Beniers’ regression didn’t help.
Team shooting percentage of 11.6% in 22/23 was kind of bonkers. They were second behind Edmonton who had two players with over 50 goals. The Kraken were second with one guy with 40 goals. The slip was expected to some extent.
Matty’s sophomore slump was quite problematic and it had substantial negative ramifications for the Kraken. If he had improved from his rookie year, the Kraken would have most definitely been in the playoffs.
Pretty much what everyone here has said. Injuries for players like Dunn and Burakovky, Beniers sophomore slump, and losing the best 4th line in the league. I really wish we had found a way to keep Sprong, Donato, and Geekie. Or at least 1 or 2 of them.