RENEWAL: Seattle Kraken SPARK a Playoff Season to Remember Forever

0:00This is the Lockdown Podcast Network celebrating 10 years of your team every day. Thank you for making Lockdown your first listen every day. For your second listen, go find Lockdown Fantasy Hockey. Steal Rodin and Flip Living Stone provide daily fantasy tips to give you the edge over your leaguemates all while making you a smarter hockey fan. And Lockdown Fantasy Hockey on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day. On today's episode, we look back at the second year of the Seattle Crack-In, a crazy year, the best year in franchise history, and one that led them to the playoffs. You are Lockdown Crack-In, your daily podcast on the Seattle Crack-In, part of the Lockdown

1:02Podcast Network. Your team every day. Talk about how the Crack-In actually made the playoffs, how they shed the expansion woes after a bismill expansion year, and that was set up by the offseason ads by Ron Francis. Alright, let's just take a step back. So if you recall from our last episode, our last history episode, the inaugural year did not go well. The Crack-In, they were deeply disappointing. I think there were a lot of factors that came that played into that. A lot of that, I think, was COVID. I think that, you know, when you have a new coach and they instill a new system, it takes

2:05a while. It takes, you know, sometimes like a full season for players to acclimate and understand where they should be and trust where they should be. And even at the end of last season, with the Crack-In after playing all those games together, the players talk about not having the trust and losing that trust where knowing where the players are. Now, this is something that is not uncommon with a new coach and like maybe a couple of new players over the offseason, imagine instead you have all new players who, I mean, for the most part, none of them have ever played with each other. And now you have a brand new coach, you have a brand new system, you have a roster that doesn't know anybody, they have no experience, no chemistry, and then you have a short and training camp. And so they don't even get the practice time. And then players are in and out of the lineup because of COVID, because of COVID protocols. And it was just so hard to build any cohesiveness, any chemistry, any sense of connectiveness.

3:08And you really saw that in the inaugural year. And yeah, there was also a talent issue. But the Kraken, they were drastically underperforming, even their expectation based on roster. And I can't prove it. And we don't have a lot of sample to go off of. We don't have a lot of expansion teams after COVID to go off of our sample sizes one. So we can only draw whatever inferences we can based on educated guesses. It just, it can't help. It certainly can't help. And it really, I remember thinking at the time, this is really, really bad for them. Because even as the season goes on, you use training camp to set up a lot of things. They don't have a lot of time to do wholesale adjustments. During the season, you know, they're, they're, they're either playing or they're traveling. It's just, you just don't get a lot of time to retool your, your system. And to retool the way that you play hockey.

4:10And so that was a problem with the Kraken well in year two. Now they go into that off season. And there are quite a few changes. So Eunice Donscoy, Raleigh Sheahan, Marc Giordano, Jermino Luzon, Marcus Johansson, Kelly Young Kraken, Hayden Flurry, all from the inaugural year are now gone. Donscoy, oh, the saddest one. He had just the worst finishing lock. He would have like a break away. And then the goalie would make some like ridiculous save. Or, you know, he would, it was just like hop over his, his stick at the last second. And it was just like bad luck because he's a, he was a very good player. You know, it's not like, oh, this guy just can't finish. It's not like a brand in TANF, who that was a, a real problem with his game. Donscoy was a real good player who's expansion pick from Colorado. And he just could not bury a puck to save his life. And then unfortunately, he had concussion issues and had to retire.

5:11And so Donscoy, you know, no longer on the crack and really too bad. Love, loved his game. And also he was just like a really great person to have in the community. But Giordano Luzon were traded for meaningful draft capital. Luzon, in particular, traded for a second round pick. I know I've said this before on the show. But when I was watching NHL Network, I thought they said, you know, I thought they misspoke because I'm like, well, he, they really, they must have meant seventh round pick and not second round pick. Because Jeremy Luzon is nowhere near worth a second round pick. But that's what he was traded for and that pick ended up being Yanni Newman. And so Ron Francis, like, okay, the expansion draft, damn it, that didn't go so well. But we got some, we got some nice deals of trade deadline. And now you're heading into this off season. And he signs three free agents. Martin Jones, a backup gold tender, Justin Schultz, a defenseman who then, now you have the Justin Schultz, Jayden Schwartz, confusing issue.

6:14And then they signed under Berkowski to a pretty significant free agent deal as a adding scoring punch and under Berkowski, also from Colorado. You know, two times Stanley Cup winner and a real, just a real sniper should add a lot of scoring punch on the wing. Personally, my favorite goal scored about time. It was an under Berkowski goal. I wanted nothing, I want, there's nothing better than a playoff over time winner, right? And there's nothing better than being in the building for a playoff over time winner. And I went to the 2022 Stanley Cup finals in game one. You know, because I grew up a Colorado fan, I'm now fully in on the crack. And by the way, there are no divided loyalties here. So I just want to be clear about that. But, you know, I just went to the cup finals and I went as a fan because I wanted to see the team that I followed since I was a teenager.

7:18You know, I wanted to go to a Stanley Cup final game. And that game went to overtime. And then under Berkowski scored the overtime winner. And there's just nothing better. There is just nothing better than a home overtime winner. And then a home overtime winner in the Stanley Cup finals is just like peak, like peak, peak. I mean, there's just nothing, nothing like it. And the we're going to talk about a the crack in having their own home Stanley Cup overtime winner. In the future because that is a moment that is going to live forever in crack and history as it should. But the bad Berkowski, that's Sheldon, Martin Jones. And then also the blue jackets. They signed Johnny Gidrow. And then also Johnny Gidrow's friend and teammate Eric Gidrowson, who was overpaid.

8:20And it was not a good contract, but Johnny Gidrow took less money to go to Columbus. But because at the time the salary cap was flat and wasn't going up skyrocketing like that is these days. You know, they said they were going to keep the cap basically hold it in place where it is so that they can pay back the the cap money they borrowed to COVID, you know, from COVID when all the revenues dropped. So then Columbus found themselves in a cap crunch. And you know, when Ron Francis had talked about weaponizing cap space. And then that never really materialized. But in this case, it did materialize. This was the one time that GM Ron Francis really did weaponize the cap space because Andreber Kowski, excuse me, Oliver Bjorksrand, Danish Winger, who is a real good two way Winger. That he was traded for a third and a fourth round pick. And that is nothing. It is absolutely nothing.

9:22This was highway robbery. Ron Francis should pop champagne and he should feel really good about this trade because this was just extracting so much value from the Columbus Blue Jack is because they were in a cap crunch. Well, we'll talk about how the season went on. But then that December, the final piece came in place when Nashville. Waved their first round pick from a few years prior. Winger, Ellie told it in. And they were hoping to send him down to the AHL and the minors. But if you put a player on waivers and if they're way resultigible, then every other team gets a chance to claim that player on waivers and then add them to their roster. And the worst, the record, the higher you are in the waiver order. And the Kraken, they claimed Ellie told them in. I do not think there was any realistic chance that Ellie told them was going to clear waivers.

10:29This is just Nashville. I think they made some pretty pretty regious errors in their front office. It's a different front office now. And it's much better. But at the time, you know, especially like the Jeremy Luzon trade to Nashville for a second round pick. And then the Ellie told them in waiver claim was just like two really egregious moves by Nashville that the Kraken had capitalized on. And so Ron Francis, yeah, he's doing it. Yeah, this guy's, this guy's a great GM. He's, he's really, you know, he's just getting a lot of value. And so that was then setting up the stage for heading into year two, significant roster changes. And so now you have Benears, who is playing his full first full season after playing 10 years prior. You have Bjorks strand, you have Burkowski, you have Boulsar Galactica. Maybe not that last one.

11:29So they head into this next season. And I was pretty hopeful. And I think that the team they then commenced on one of the wildest regular seasons. I have ever seen and we're going to talk about that coming up next. Welcome to your most rewarding NFL season ever only on Fandall. How rewarding are we talking more rewarding than to touch down with time expiring more rewarding than an 18 point comeback. Maybe even more rewarding than an alignment catching a touchdown. Perhaps more rewarding than having your Hail Mary at the end of the game knocked down with no time left them. They're adding a second on to the clock inexplicably, even though all the replays show that it was at zero. And then running that Hail Mary again and then scoring and winning the game winning touchdown anyway. This could be even more rewarding than that because Fandall is making the excitement go beyond what happens on the field with the all new

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13:33So it's worth opening the app to see what's waiting make this your most rewarding season ever with Fandall visit Fandall.com to get started. So the Kraken they now head into the regular season with a full training camp and a full sense of a full season together. And so they have these additions and they have removed a lot of the chaff or what they hope or chaff and there weren't a lot of high expectations, but a funny thing happened, which was the Kraken started scoring and they started scoring a lot. In fact, they had six players with 20 goals or more and this was mostly balanced, right? And Tana of Ellie told them in with 16 goals, a lot of double digit scores and OK, Jared McCann might be like the one player who was driving it more than others, but yet 40 goals.

14:36But this was really a balanced scoring attack, Matt even years 24 goals, 33 points, 57 of 24 goals, 33 assists, 57 points in 80 games played a outstanding rookie campaign and one that won him rookie of the year and it was not particularly close. And so you have, you have this talent, you have Ellie Tolvenen who then you picked up for free. Another player who I think is super interesting is Daniel sprong now Daniel sprong 21 goals is legitimately one of the best shooters in the NHL or would be if he was still in the NHL. He is certainly he is not aged out of the NHL. This guy has one of the highest points per minute in all of hockey. When he is on the ice, that guy scores, he scores a lot, absolute, ridiculous shot.

15:44And so the Kraken they add Daniel sprong to the lineup and they accept his shortcomings and you're like his shortcomings. There are players who don't play defense in the NHL. And then there is there are players who don't give consistent effort all the time. There are players who might be not so interested in playing defense. Daniel sprong takes us to an entirely new level. Defense is not an option for him. He's like, no, it's like it's like his religion and he's like actually my religious beliefs prevent me from playing defense. When I say that there is no defensive effort, I mean there is no defensive effort. When he's in the defensive zone, it's like his controller disconnected and he's just standing there. He's not trying, he's not skating, he's not trying to get in in anyone's way.

16:47He's not trying to disrupt anything. He is just waiting to get the puck so he can shoot it. And this drives coaches crazy. But his offensive talent is absolutely undeniable. And so you got enough out of Daniel sprong that you were able to get 46 points in 66 games, 21 goals, 25 assists. They put him on the power play with the absurd one-timer. And everything's happening. And they're spronging and Jared McCann, it's scoring. And then the Kraken, they go on a run. And this team is like, kind of, are they good? And so then, they go on a multi-week road trip in January of 2023. And it's a seven-gay road trip and the Kraken win all seven games.

17:48They hand the Bruins their first regulation loss on January 12th, which is insane. The first regulation, home loss, excuse me. You know, Martin Jones ends up being a hero because Phillip Gruber gets hurt. And so Martin Jones comes in and even though Martin Jones had struggled in previous stops, you know, it's a little bit of a little bit of resurgence from him who, you know, at one point he was a quality starting goal tender. And now he's coming in and he's got a little bit of revival. And so they end up being the first team in NHL history to win a, to sweep a seven-gay road trip. Now, I mean, how many seven-gay road trips have there been? You know, not that many. And so that's a little bit of a, I mean, it's not a fake record, but it is something that, you know, it's maybe a little less impressive than it sounds. But winning seven games on a row all in the road is still a very impressive fee and is certainly

18:52impressive for a team that only had 60 points the previous year. And 14 of them now come in a seven-game span. Well, the Kraken, I mean, the thing is when the team was drafted, and the inaugural draft, you're like, okay, this team, they're going to win off of good defense and good goal pending. And then what happened in that second season is the Kraken, there was not so much good defense, and not so much good goal pending, and they were winning these games in up, like, these crazy games. These, like, high scoring games, and there was one in particular, there was a game against the Kings in Los Angeles. And I remember this game very clearly, for sure, because it is maybe the most absurd hockey game I've ever seen in my life. And second, a friend of mine who was new to hockey had invited a mix of hockey enthusiasts,

19:55or people who were fans of hockey, who had watched the game, and then people who are curious about the Kraken, because, you know, they're a new thing, this was your two, but people are like, oh, this is cool, like, what is this all about? And so we had a learn how to play hockey, or learn how to watch hockey, or learn hockey party. And so we watched this game, and we'll just skip to the end of regulation, where the score is tied, 8 to 8. The Kraken scored 8 goals in a game, and it was not enough to win. They had to go to overtime. It was the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. The Kraken ended up winning in overtime, and they win 9 to 8 with 9 different scores. This was the Kraken. This was the Kraken season. And they were now, they're starting to feel themselves.

20:57And so we're going to talk next about their march towards the playoffs, and how this team ended up getting into the postseason. Running a business shouldn't feel like surviving a software group project. One app for accounting, another for inventory, another for sales, and somehow none of them talk to each other. That's where Odo comes in, and all in one business management software that brings every part of your business together from sales and accounting to inventory and marketing, all in one powerful platform. No messy integrations, no bouncing between tabs, and best of all, no spreadsheets. Stop managing software and start managing your business with one unified system. Try for free today at odo.com slash locked on. That's odo.com slash locked on. Well, this was now climate pledges rocking, right?

22:00This place is, you know, really just absolutely going bonkers. Kraken easily clinched the playoffs. They defeat the coyotes, rest in peace, coyotes, at home, and it was them clinching their first ever playoffs spot at home was awesome. Now we're going to talk about the playoffs series. It's series is multiple series spoiler. They did not display one playoff series. In a future show, because that deserves its own show, it did so much happened. And I want to give that room a space to breathe or give that to the space to breathe rather than just shoving the whole playoffs into its own little segment. But the Kraken that one of the things, and this is a little bit of a red flag,

23:01was during the first year, the Kraken were, you look at expected goals and then actual goals. There's a lot of variance. There's a lot of chaos and noise and hockey. And so teams, there's pup lock and team if a pup can bounce over a stick or it can bounce off a player and go into the net or, you know, go off a player skate or all sorts of crazy ways that hockey goals can be scored or not scored. And so then you have expected goals, which says, hey, over the history of hockey, a goal, a shot from this particular place on the ice with these particular conditions, you know, if I have to rebound or, I mean, so all this data, the edge of tracks, you can say, OK, well, overall this particular shot has a 6% chance of going in. And then you look at all of the, you add them all up, you say, OK, this shot had a 6% chance, a 1% chance, a 12% chance.

24:08And then you say, OK, give it all that. This is how many goals we expected them to score. And over the large sample, the expected goals and the actual goals, they do converge and they do basically match up over the course of all of the teams and all of hockey, expected goals and actual goals. And it's a pretty accurate way to measure how a team did because if they're generating a lot of expected goals, then over time, over a large sample, that means that team is going to generate a lot of actual goals. But for a one team in one season sample, that is very noisy. And the expected goals and actual goals can be very divergent. And that can create false narratives or false sense of expectation. And so the first year, the crack in they dramatically underperformed their expected goals against.

25:21Most of that was Philip Groobauer really struggling and you know, Philip Groobauer is very sensitive to the system he plays in. I think that is that has been true ever since he, like when he signed from watching the Colorado, he really struggled at first before he learned the defensive system in front of him. And then he ended up being a pretty good golden or quite good. And then same thing happened here, it seems that Philip Groobauer really, really struggled. Well, that then, yeah, if you're not, if you're allowing way more goals than you should, then you're probably not going to have a very good record. Well, in year two, the crack in we're shooting at a absurd shooting percentage. You know, given the talent on the roster, it was really surprising for the puck to just keep going in at the rate it was going in. And so if you look at the all situations and then five on five, five on five is more predictive than power play and shorthanded because the sample sizes are smaller, but I did want to look at all situations.

26:38In the inaugural season, they were about 41 goals below expectation. And in 2022, they finished 21 goals above expectation. If you look at five on five, it's negative 21 to plus 33. And so you're looking at like a swing of like 50 to 60 expected goals where the crack in in year one, they dramatically underperformed their gold differential. And in year two, they dramatically overperformed their gold differential. And this is a cautionary tale. This is a red flag for the future, but we'll let future crack and worry about that. And they will worry about that rest assured, but we'll talk about that in a future episode. But at the time, it just feels like they're scoring and they're scoring a ton.

27:41And they end up with this, you know, it's like, oh, are they, is this like a way to build a sustainable hockey roster? Because could you just roll like four lines of depth and then, and then everyone's a 15 or 20 goal score. Could could this then be the blueprint for for the team? You know, the NHL or the crack and end up scoring the fourth most goals of any team in the NHL that year. And they, you know, they had a nice system. It wasn't just that the puck was going in, but they were really aggressive with the 4 check and creating pressure in the transition game. And so the crack and they end up finishing 46, 28 and eight with 100 points. So they had 60 points in year one and a 100 points in year two.

28:4720 extra wins, which lines up with like the 50 plus 50 in expected goal differential. So they, they are now a playoff team. And now this looks like a validation of everything that Ron Francis has done that, okay, your one was a, was a struggle, but look at where this roster is now. Look at all of the talent on this team, look at all of the scoring talent on this team, look at how you can't just, you can't just shut down one line because the crack and they're bringing in four lines. And you, you, you have all of this depth. And this is now the crack and are going to be a nightmare to play against. You know, you got strong two way play, Maddie Beniers, rookie of the year. And his star is just ascending. And okay, the, the goal tending wasn't great this season, but Philip Gruber was back and, you know, he's playing better since his injury.

29:56And this team really seems to be going places. And that 40 point improvement from year one to year two. Was the largest improvement from year one to year two in NHL history. Again, the sample size on this isn't very high, but that, that shows just like a, what a, a huge jump. And with the crack and then defying expectations, becoming a playoff team. The crack and coach Dave Hacksdall. Was named a finalist for the Jack Adams trophy for coach of the year. The crack and signed him to an extension. This is the coach of the future. This is the roster of the future. And the future looks very bright. And so they head into the playoffs. Very challenging opponent, the defending Stanley Cup champion, Colorado, Avalanche.

30:58This is a revenge game for revenge series for Andre Berkowski, who was actually hurt. But Philip Gruber, who was the Abland starting goal tender before signing a free agent deal with the crack and. And that series. Was really, really crazy. And talk about that in a future episode. That should do it for today's episode. Now on video will send you to lock down sports today 24 seven YouTube channel on audio. Check out locked on fantasy hockey for your second listen. You can find us at David Jones locker room where we do print coverage of the Seattle Torrent and Seattle Crackin. Or at David Jones LR on all social media platforms. We got rookie camp coming up this Friday. We're so close. We're so close. So close to actual hockey returning. And then you know actual training camp comes up in not. Longer, not much longer than that.

31:59And we got we got the prospect showcase coming up this weekend. And so we got crack and hockey is, you know, that that's cracking adjacent hockey baby. So I'm real excited. Of course, we'll report from rookie camp. And I'm feeling well enough to physically go out there on like dev camp, which I'm very sad to have missed. But you know, we're 100% baby. And so I will return from the trenches with reports. So how the rookies are doing or how the prospects are doing. And. And we'll see. We'll see what happens there. But for David Jones locker room. I'm Zane Beg and I will see you next time. The locked on podcast network is brought to you by Fandall baseball fans. If you think you know who's hitting a home or today, Fandall is giving you a free chance to call your shot with daily dingers. It's easy to play. Just make your free pick for who you think will hit a home run in their game.

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