“Never too high, never too low. »
If there’s one expression you hear a lot in an NHL locker room, it’s this one. It designates, in general terms, the importance for players and their team to neither let themselves be intoxicated by success nor discouraged by failure.
Last season, the Seattle Kraken soared high, very high. In its second year of existence, the Sea Monster eliminated the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche in the first round of the playoffs, before pushing its second round series against the Dallas Stars. All this while almost no one even placed this club in detail in their training camp predictions.
In short, the frenzy was at its height.
A little over six months later, the hangover is painful. At its current rate, the team would accumulate 72 points over a full schedule – very, very far from its 100-point haul in 2022-2023.
The goals allocated are numerous; goals scored, rare. The young Matthews Beniers, sublime in his rookie season, seems disoriented. Barring a miracle, Jared McCann won’t repeat his 40-goal production. Jordan Eberle slowed down, Yanni Gourde too. This was already not a team that relied on its goalkeepers to get out of trouble; it still isn’t.
Within the group, the word “constancy” is pronounced in unison. In the sense of: the absence of.
“We have a good match, then we play two mediocre ones; then, two incredible matches, but we are not able to collect points, and an ordinary match, but where we manage to take the points. It’s a little incomprehensible,” illustrated Pierre-Édouard Bellemare, Monday morning, after Kraken training.
“We find ways to lose,” added Jordan Eberle. We gain momentum in a match, but we give away goals in crucial moments. »
Matthew Beniers, for his part, agreed when a journalist asked him if the opponents had stopped taking him and his teammates lightly.
“I think last year we took a lot of people by surprise. Good teams were not ready to face us. Now it’s harder. »
The euphoria inherited from last spring was real at the start of the journey, confirmed Yanni Gourde. “Maybe we had the impression that we would have an easier season, given that everyone had taken a year of experience,” he admitted. But after a few matches, we realized that this would not be the case. We’ve played over 20 games, we need to find a way to perform better. »
Bellemare said he saw the same phenomenon happen with the Tampa Bay Lightning, who had a false start in 2022 after reaching the final.
“Expectations change after a year like that,” believes the French striker. I don’t want it to be poorly received, but you think ‘we’re going to go to the playoffs’ instead of ‘we have to work to get to the playoffs’. In Tampa, after the final, everything seemed complicated. »
The Lightning, however, quickly rectified the situation. In Seattle, time passes, but the situation is slow to recover.
Bellemare, again: “We have to get back into winning habits. […] In the playoffs, you have them naturally, because you know that if you play well, you win, but if you play badly, you are eliminated. Over a schedule of 82 games, the level goes down. It’s less stressful. The sense of urgency is more difficult to find. »
This “emergency” must indeed manifest itself quickly, because spring hockey already seems to be moving away from the American Northwest.
The journey that the Kraken concluded in the metropolis took on the appearance of a catastrophe. Three defeats in as many outings, which followed a scathing setback at home.
After 25 games, before facing the Canadian, the club was three points from a place in the playoffs, with games behind its pursuers. Overcoming the gap is not impossible, but neither history nor statistics inspire optimism.
“We’re not scoring enough goals,” summarized head coach Dave Hakstol. Before packing up, his troopers seemed to regain their confidence [swagger], he said, but that balloon seems to have deflated.
“We will need to work hard to make up for lost time,” he noted. It’s not a huge hole, but we can’t lose points unnecessarily. »
Like losing in Montreal against a team that is also struggling to score goals. So the hangover will continue. And it could hurt even more with a premature end to the season in April.