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One the Kraken's baby goalies got their first NHL start last night and I need to talk about it
* He won, with a .963% save average. He had a bit of a softball opponent, but that's a good thing for a first game. He made some insane glove saves, stopped play by throwing himself at the puck. He's still cooking, but that was a splashy debut.
* He made a lot of solid passes to our Ds, very active goalie.
* Kokko passed to Kakko. Our announcers had to mention both Kaapo Kakko and Nikke Kokko in the same sentence repeatedly, and man I've wanted that all season.
* Other team pulled their goalie, so Kokko went for it, he took a shot on goal in his debut. He didn't get it, but it was a solid try. Then...
* In his post game interview was like "I tried to score before Joey, that was it" Joey is our main goalie, who famously regularly practices shooting in full goalie gear because he wants a goalie goal. He has the most NHL points of any goalie, and has taken multiple shots in the same game. And the kid make a stab at beating him to the punch.
He got the start, the win, first star, fish yeet and the helmet. And then teased the face of the franchise. He had an insane night.
The other thing that is nuts is why *neither* of our goalies for yesterday's game had a single NHL start before last night. They are both call ups. The Kraken roster 3 goalies, which is unusual. We got criticized for it a lot at the start of the year, but people quickly shut up. Between it being an Olympic year, everything about the state of the goalie market and one of our goalies getting a serious injury and being out most of the season, it was clearly shown to be a good move. Other teams have had some drama and ongoing problems with their netminders.
But it gets worse. We've got an usual amount of contracted goalies overall, not just on our NHL team. Last night our AHL team had to dress one of their goalie coaches for the game. We've gone from an overflow of goalies to nabbing people from the support staff. It's not any one thing. Murray has an undisclosed family situation. LaFountaine is sick. Gru took an on-ice injury and got pulled mid-game and is still out. Joey took an on-ice injury and played through the pain to a win, but is now recovering from that.
Goalie is a very specialized position. Ds and Fs are in much larger pools, and you can always run one less D or make a D play F. 4 out across the franchise is insane. We aren't the only franchise with goalie problems right now, but in our case it's just... shit happens. And the good news is that the chaos lead to a goalie having an amazing debut. The assumption that Nikke will replace Gru in a few years, he's being developed to help anchor an NHL team. So, that debut and running an all-rookie line was a look at where things are headed.
* He won, with a .963% save average. He had a bit of a softball opponent, but that's a good thing for a first game. He made some insane glove saves, stopped play by throwing himself at the puck. He's still cooking, but that was a splashy debut.
* He made a lot of solid passes to our Ds, very active goalie.
* Kokko passed to Kakko. Our announcers had to mention both Kaapo Kakko and Nikke Kokko in the same sentence repeatedly, and man I've wanted that all season.
* Other team pulled their goalie, so Kokko went for it, he took a shot on goal in his debut. He didn't get it, but it was a solid try. Then...
* In his post game interview was like "I tried to score before Joey, that was it" Joey is our main goalie, who famously regularly practices shooting in full goalie gear because he wants a goalie goal. He has the most NHL points of any goalie, and has taken multiple shots in the same game. And the kid make a stab at beating him to the punch.
He got the start, the win, first star, fish yeet and the helmet. And then teased the face of the franchise. He had an insane night.
The other thing that is nuts is why *neither* of our goalies for yesterday's game had a single NHL start before last night. They are both call ups. The Kraken roster 3 goalies, which is unusual. We got criticized for it a lot at the start of the year, but people quickly shut up. Between it being an Olympic year, everything about the state of the goalie market and one of our goalies getting a serious injury and being out most of the season, it was clearly shown to be a good move. Other teams have had some drama and ongoing problems with their netminders.
But it gets worse. We've got an usual amount of contracted goalies overall, not just on our NHL team. Last night our AHL team had to dress one of their goalie coaches for the game. We've gone from an overflow of goalies to nabbing people from the support staff. It's not any one thing. Murray has an undisclosed family situation. LaFountaine is sick. Gru took an on-ice injury and got pulled mid-game and is still out. Joey took an on-ice injury and played through the pain to a win, but is now recovering from that.
Goalie is a very specialized position. Ds and Fs are in much larger pools, and you can always run one less D or make a D play F. 4 out across the franchise is insane. We aren't the only franchise with goalie problems right now, but in our case it's just... shit happens. And the good news is that the chaos lead to a goalie having an amazing debut. The assumption that Nikke will replace Gru in a few years, he's being developed to help anchor an NHL team. So, that debut and running an all-rookie line was a look at where things are headed.
