Whenever a team brings on a new head coach, everyone holds their breath. How much success and failure actually rides on the coach remains a fun debate topic for any professional sport. In hockey, coaching changes have spurred some amazing turnarounds, but that can’t be guaranteed. After all, a team is only as good as the sum of its parts. For the Seattle Kraken, a coaching change became the move of-choice this past summer. While still too early to tell, the team seems to be finding footing under Dan Bylsma as the Kraken’s head coach.
Kraken Finding Rhythm Under Coach Dan Bylsma
Right away, the Kraken looked different in game one. Despite a 3-2 defeat, Seattle played with a pace and energy they lacked most nights last season. Outside of a short span in the second period, where they surrendered all three goals against, Seattle owned the puck. In game two, the offence picked up and they wound up on the winning side in a shootout.
That second game stood as the first of a quick three-game roadtrip, with three games in four nights. They played the very next night, and lost 2-0 against a Cup-contender calibre Dallas Stars team.
Here, fans started experiencing all those same thoughts from last season, namely regarding their lack of offence. How quickly they forgot about the five-goal output just one night prior. How quickly they underestimated the effects of a back-to-back at the NHL level, especially against a rested top-tier team.
Scoring Contributions Up and Down the Lineup
Those offence gripes quickly subsided again, following Seattle’s 7-3 drubbing of the Nashville Predators to wrap up the road trip. Finishing with four points out of six, in just four days, on an early season roadtrip. Check, check, and check. Thought them home on a high note, averaging 3.25 goals per game, well up from the 2.61 they averaged last year. Yes, the sample size is way too small. But, this is a new coach, with both new and old players, getting off to a solid start.
The coaching approach Bylsma takes with the Kraken looks efficient. Similar to every other year of their existence thus far, the team remains without any elite superstars on the roster. Their surprise success two years ago came as a result of incredible depth contributions from all four lines. They did so while playing a reserved style of play, somewhat forced by below average goaltending in their own net. They lacked the firepower to get into run-and-gun shootouts on the scoreboard; they went 5-25-4 in games when allowing four or more goals. Last year, the depth scoring anomaly corrected way back and landed them at 34-35-13 to end the season.
So far this season, Bylsma seems intent on driving results across four lines like they managed to do two years ago. But, a bigger scale tip in their favour comes from the offence boost they receive from the blue line. Rather than avoiding the run-and-gun, they embrace it, with all five players involved in the offensive zone.
Kraken Coach Bylsma’s Forward Lines
With the addition of centre Chandler Stephenson this offseason, and the full-time promotion of Shane Wright, Seattle boasts a deeper centre position than many realize. Following their opening night loss, the coach Bylsma moved Kraken centre Matthew Beniers off his usual line with Jared McCann and Jordan Eberle. In his place, he inserted Wright. Though Wright remains without a point, Eberle and McCann combined for five goals and three assists in the two games since.
The team’s second line consists of Stephenson, Jaden Schwartz and Andre Burakovsky. Then, their third line features Beniers between Oliver Bjorkstrand and Eeli Tolvanen. When all nine of those forwards stay healthy, the team boasts an elite fourth line of Yanni Gourde, Brandon Tanev and Tye Kartye. Already, those three have two goals and five points, and eat up valuable minutes on the penalty kill to boot.
On paper, this team features more talent than the playoff team two years ago. With coach Bylsma pushing the Kraken to play fast and hard, the ceiling looks even higher.
Defence Producing Offence
New defenceman Brandon Montour looks to be fitting in beautifully with his new team. Coming off a Stanley Cup Championship with the Florida Panthers, Montour enters as an experienced, successful veteran. His skating ability ranks amongst the best in the league at his position, and he possesses an absolute cannon of a shot. He and Vince Dunn both give Seattle awesome options to quarterback the powerplay.
Kraken coach Bylsma smartly separated Dunn and Montour too, across his top two defence pairings. Dunn remains with Adam Larsson, his partner since the team’s first year in Seattle, while Montour skates with Jamie Oleksiak. Those two units eat up about 75% of the ice time each game, meaning the Kraken have one of Dunn or Montour supporting their forwards three quarters of the time. It’s almost like playing with four forwards, and given both guys skate so well, they aren’t giving up a lot defensively in exchange for offence.
This stood out dramatically against the Preds, a game in which Montour contributed an assist when Tanev tipped his point shot past the goalkeeper. Montour also led the team in icetime (25:56), +/- (+3), and shots (5); in fact, he remains atop the team in shots on the season, not a statistic a defenceman usually leads. Beyond him, Larsson added a goal and an assist, Oleksiak contributed two assists of his own, and Ryker Evans even scored as well. The blue line is contributing three points per game right now, surprisingly led by Evans (one goal, two assists). If that maintains, they will win plenty of games this year.
Looking Ahead
As noted, the season remains very, very young. A lot still needs to go right for this team to sniff the postseason, but certainly optimism brews after a strong start. That’s not to say they’ve been without errors; all four goals allowed against the Wild came off of wide open Minnesota players in the middle of the ice. It looked like a group of players still adjusting to a new defence system, with guys misdirecting traffic in plain sight as pucks entered their net.
Again, expect some growing pains. If there’s reason to get ahead of ourselves, though, Bylsma once won the Stanley Cup in his first season with a new team. Sure, that was 2008-09, and the coaching change came with just 25 games left in the regular season. And yes, this ignores his poor stint with the Buffalo Sabres from 2015-17. But, he claims to have learned and grown a lot in the seven years since his last NHL head coaching gig.
Main Photo: Matt Blewett-Imagn Images
