Dan Bylsma's Seattle Kraken (4-3-1) face a tough test on Saturday when they take on Rod Brind'Amour's Carolina Hurricane (4-2-0) at Climate Pledge Arena.

Lately, with the exception of the home win against Philadelphia where a huge second period was the key to victory, the Kraken have been an excellent first period team. The teams has been killing it from puck possession and chance quality standpoint. Oddly enough, the latter 40 minutes have not been as good as the first BUT the Kraken have been breaking through for goals in the third period.

In fairness to the Kraken, there's no shame in losing to the still-unbeaten Winnipeg Jets and the Kraken came away with a hard-fought regulation point in Thursday's 4-3 overtime loss. Matty Beniers scored twice to lead the comeback charge to force overtime and captain Jordan Eberle scored his sixth goal of the team's first eight games.

The Kraken's top line of Beniers, Eberle and Jared McCann (11 points) has been scorching hot but the Kraken need to get other lines contributing a little more consistently. If you contain or shut down the top line, which is bound to happen when the checking starts to get tighter, the Kraken haven't had much else to answer with to spread the offense around.

On Thursday against the Jets, Joey Daccord was peppered with 36 shots, making 32 saves. Finally, on a delayed penalty in OT, Nikolaj Ehlers beat Daccord from the deep slot to win the game. Connor Hellebuyck made 29 saves on 32 shots by Seattle.


Now, with Saturday being the final game of a five-game homestand in which the Kraken have gone 2-1-1 so far, it's important to close out with a win before the upcoming eastern road trip.

Heading into the season, some prognosticators said that the Hurricanes would have trouble matching their successes of recent regular seasons. That might prove to be the case eventually, but it doesn't look that way so far. Carolina is coming off 3-2 overtime and 4-2 regulation road wins in Edmonton and Calgary and are 3-1-0 so far with two games to on their current six-game road trip.

RELEASE THE KRAKEN!

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