Kraken Morning Skate: Oilers Come to Town Following Seattle’s Long Road Trip
SEATTLE, Wash. - The Seattle Kraken are back in town following a six-game road trip, during which they went 2-2-2. Coming off a 3-0 win against the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday, the Kraken are set to host the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday (7 p.m. PT/KHN, KONG, SN1, CBC).
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Seattle Kraken projected lines from morning skate at Climate Pledge Arena:
Berkly Catton – Matty Beniers – Jordan Eberle
Mason Marchment – Chandler Stephenson – Eeli Tolvanen
Jaden Schwartz – Shane Wright – Jani Nyman
Tye Kartye – Ben Meyers – Ryan Winterton
Vince Dunn – Adam Larsson
Ryan Lindgren – Brandon Montour
Josh Mahura – Jamie Oleksiak
Joey Daccord
Philipp Grubauer/Matt Murray
Extras: John Hayden, Cale Fleury
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The Kraken announced they placed Jared McCann (lower body) on injured reserve earlier on Saturday morning, but they welcomed back Brandon Montour, who missed the past four games due to a personal leave of absence.
After Saturday’s skate, Montour revealed he stepped away from the team to be with his brother, Cam, who died on Monday after living with ALS for the past several years.
“My older brother’s been dealing with ALS for three, four years now, and it was a rough week,” Montour said through tears. “Very proud, very happy to be his brother. Somebody that I’ve looked up to since, obviously, Day 1. A great son, brother, best friend, father.”
Montour said that returning to the team has helped him take his mind off things, and as expected, the team expressed full support behind him as the 31-year-old defenseman works through this difficult time.
“We’re going to have to continue to support him through this time,” Kraken coach Lane Lambert said. “I think it’s obviously important to have him back, not only as a player but certainly as a leader, and important for him to get back into the groove of the game and maybe take his mind off a little bit of the outside part of it, but certainly we feel for him and we’ve supported him. We’ll continue to support him.”
As far as other returns, Kaapo Kakko was spotted on the ice as he works towards his season debut after sustaining a broken hand during the preseason. Lambert listed him as day-to-day, and that while the team will continue to evaluate him over the coming days, things are “trending positively” regarding his return.
Seattle will look to build off their win against the Jets on Thursday, where goalie Joey Daccord’s 32-save shutout snapped a two-game skid. Daccord is expected to take the crease once again on Saturday, but that won’t be confirmed until warmups.
“That’s a really high-powered offensive team that we ended up shutting out,” Shane Wright said. “We just really took away a lot of their chances. Really just limit their high-danger looks, and that’s the way we gotta play if we want to win, especially against better teams in the league like that.”
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Edmonton Oilers projected lines based on Saturday’s morning skate:
Isaac Howard – Connor McDavid – Andrew Mangiapane
Matthew Savoie – Leon Draisaitl – Vasily Podkolzin
Adam Henrique – Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Jack Roslovic
David Tomasek – Noah Philp – Trent Frederic
Mattias Ekholm – Evan Bouchard
Darnell Nurse – Jake Walman
Brett Kulak – Ty Emberson
Stuart Skinner
Calvin Pickard
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The Oilers are coming off two straight wins — a 3-2 overtime victory against the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday followed by a 6-5 win against the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday — entering Saturday’s clash.
Superstar Connor McDavid finally scored his first goal of the season in the win against Ottawa, and he followed it up with three assists against Montreal to reach 10 on the season, which is tied for fourth in the NHL so far.
Lambert believes the team will need to maintain its mental discipline to compete against McDavid and a high-powered Oilers team.
“The mental discipline is key here,” Lambert said. “We’ve been on a very long road trip. The first game back, there’s a tendency or whatever to think, you know, ‘First game after a road trip, we’ve got to be ready to go.’ It’s that simple.
“We’re playing against a team that’s gone to the Stanley Cup Finals two years in a row. We know who’s on their team, and we have to be ready.”
