Kraken Notebook – Seeking better chemistry with full roster healthy, Catton gaining confidence

At long last, the Seattle Kraken returned to Kraken Community Iceplex on Sunday for the first time in what felt like forever. With an intense cadence of home games to start the calendar year, followed by a nine-day, cross-country road trip, it really has been quite a while since the Kraken have had a regular practice at their Northgate facility.

It was still somewhat surprising that they practiced Sunday, the first day back after that long journey that ended 1-3-1, but Seattle will go right back to work against the Pittsburgh Penguins at home on Monday. The early 2 p.m. start time means the Kraken will not hold a morning skate, so getting on the ice Sunday was the team’s only chance to iron out some of the missteps that have sunk the team recently. As a slight reprieve, coach Lane Lambert made the practice optional, though only a few select players took that option with most in attendance.

Lambert is looking for stability from his team, which has seen a pendulum of results swing from very bad (1-9-1 in 11 games between Nov. 23 and Dec. 18) to very good (8-0-2 in the next 10 games from Dec. 20 to Jan. 8), and now appears to be swinging back toward the bad category.

“Take it one game at a time and be ready to play tomorrow,” Lambert said, when asked how to avoid having this recent cool stretch spiral into another four-alarm emergency.

To their credit, the players seemed upbeat after the trip and know they were close to having significantly better results.

“They’ve been higher highs and higher lows than generally you want. But at the end of the day, I think on every team, you go through that,” captain Jordan Eberle said. “It’s just the reality of an 82-game schedule is there’s adversity at some point.

“We’ve overcome some pretty big lows, which is impressive, and we fought our way back and got ourselves in a position… where we’re fighting to get to the top of the division, so that’s what it comes down to. For me, it doesn’t matter how you get there. If anything, this way, I’ve seen that we’ve been able to streak and put together wins, and that’s a sign of a really good hockey team.”

Veteran winger Jaden Schwartz, who rejoined the team at the start of the road trip after a 19-game injury absence, echoed what Eberle said.

“That’s a season for every team, right?” Schwartz said. “You’re gonna have ups and downs throughout the year, but it’s important to keep the belief. There’s games where you feel like you should have won because you played good, and then maybe there’s games that you win that the other team maybe thought they won. So, I think we did a good job of just being consistent. You know, when we come to practice or come to the rink, we’re always prepared and ready. And the games we lost on the trip, they were kind of right there.”

Kraken looking for chemistry again

With Schwartz and defenseman Brandon Montour both back from injury, Seattle now has its entire roster healthy—except for Matt Murray, who remains on injured reserve but has been practicing in full for several weeks.

On paper, that’s obviously the best-case scenario: having all your regulars available and playing. But it’s been interesting that things haven’t gone quite as swimmingly as one might have hoped with the vastly improved health of what was once an injury-ravaged roster.

It’s easy to assume that getting everybody back at once would immediately lead to positive results, but so far, it hasn’t worked out that way.

“It’s always sort of a great question. You’re going along really good, and then a couple guys come back, and it just puts everybody a little bit on a different seat kind of thing, when the rhythm is going,” Lambert said. “But at the same time, we need those players, and we need the depth, so we have to find a way to gain that chemistry back.

“I thought we played some really good hockey, let’s not lose sight of that. I thought we played some really good hockey on the road as well, but we just have to find a way to finish games off. We’ve had too many times where we’ve been tied or even leading with 10 minutes left to go in the game, and we’ve either gotten one point out of it or no points out of it.”

Lambert again mentioned how much he liked the Kraken’s outing against the Boston Bruins, in which they fell behind 2-0 early but pushed back and took control of long stretches before ultimately losing 4-2.

With the returns of Schwartz and Montour came a logjam that has forced a shakeup of the lines and squeezed gritty winger Jacob Melanson all the way back down to the Coachella Valley Firebirds. I personally think that’s been a killer to the team’s momentum, which—for a stretch—had an extremely effective fourth line going out and putting teams on their heels for about 10 minutes a night whenever Ryan Winterton, Ben Meyers, and Melanson skated together.

Now, with everyone back, Freddy Gaudreau has been moved to fourth-line wing alongside Winterton and Meyers. I’m not convinced that trio works as well as the Winterton/Meyers/Melanson line did, simply because Gaudreau is such a different type of player than Melanson. That’s not a knock on Gaudreau—I just liked him more on the line with Chandler Stephenson and Eeli Tolvanen. But I also don’t know where to put Schwartz if you elevate Gaudreau again, so it’s a pickle for Lambert, who did imply we could see some shuffling this week.

Of course, all of this is moot if Seattle had won a couple more games on the road trip. But the slight discombobulation could be related to multiple players returning at once who are working to reintegrate themselves into the lineup and get back to peak performance levels after long absences.

“Every situation is a little bit different,” Schwartz said. “Certainly, when you’re out a while, it’s gonna take a little bit to get the timing and just know where guys are and feeling 100 percent. Sometimes things click right away, and then later on, there’s a little bit of a lull. Usually, you want to try to get back up to speed as quick as you can, but it’s not always going to be perfect.”

When asked if he feels like he’s back to full speed with five games under his belt since returning, Schwartz said: “I don’t know about that. I mean, I was out for quite a while. It’s good to be back and get the game lights back, but timing [can be a little bit better], and just little things, I feel like I could be a little bit better. But overall, I think outside of maybe one game, I felt like my game’s been pretty good. I’ve just got to find a way to bury some chances and create a little bit more.”

Montour, the other recent returnee, has had a very start-and-stop kind of season. He missed most of training camp due to surgery to remove a bursa from his ankle, then took a leave of absence following the tragic passing of his brother, and most recently missed another 14 games because of a hand injury that required surgery.

“Injuries suck,” Montour said. “I’ve had a tough start to over half the season now, with two surgeries and things off the ice. [For me, it’s not] necessarily the confidence. I know how I play, and I know what I bring, and so it’s not necessarily hard to get back into it [from that perspective because] I’ve experienced quite a bit. It’s about me just feeling good and getting my touches and getting my reps in. It’s tough missing training camp and missing games early on. And when you miss a good chunk of the month, you just kind of [need to] get the feeling back. But I think for me, it’s whatever it takes to stay in the mix and be a part of close games and being in the playoffs. That’s what it’s it’s all about.”

Catton gaining confidence, getting more comfortable at “home”

You can tell the weight of the world is off Berkly Catton’s shoulders now that he’s scored a few goals in the NHL. He’s oozing confidence on the ice, and when you talk to him about scoring, there’s a noticeable tone of relief in his voice after posting four goals and one assist in his last seven games following a 27-game scoreless start to his NHL career.

“It was a while there. I didn’t know if I was ever going to score,” Catton said with a laugh. “It’s crazy how it can go like that. But I’m just so happy that first one went in, and then same game, another one, crazy how that works. And within three periods, or two periods, you’ve scored two goals, and then the rest of season you don’t score one, so it’s like… again… it’s the way hockey goes. Lots of learning within that experience of not scoring and stuff, but hopefully I can score a couple more.”

Catton has looked good for a while now, even as the schedule has compressed over the last month. One might assume a 19-year-old jumping straight from the WHL to the NHL would wear down as the rigors of an 82-game season really set in, but Catton said his junior experience prepared him well for those challenges.

“Yeah, 100 percent,” Catton said when asked if his junior days set him up for success at the top level. “I think those three in threes [three games in three days] you have on the weekends or long days on a bus, then playing, they kind of suck, but they do prepare you in lots of ways. So I think the long season and that stuff, having kind of gone through it a little bit—maybe not like this, this month’s insane—but it’s good to have gone through it a little bit already.”

And while he’s enjoyed some individual on-ice success recently, Catton also appears to be getting more comfortable on the “home” front as he continues to live with Stephenson and his growing family.

“It’s pretty funny, I was living by myself at the start of the year, so that part was a big change for me,” Catton said. “I wasn’t very good at it, so it’s nice to live with Chandler, and it’s basically like a billet family in junior, except you play with your billet; he’s on your team. So it’s pretty cool. They’ve been nothing but great to me, and they have a hectic household right now, obviously, with the newborn and stuff. And still, they’re just amazing. I can’t be more grateful and thankful for what they’ve done.”

What was it that Catton didn’t like about living alone?

“Obviously, the cooking and stuff, but it just sucks kind of being by yourself all the time, trying to kill time and stuff. So, I just like being in the house, hanging out with the kids, and having people to talk to all the time. It’s kind of just my personality, so I think that’s been great.”

Odds and ends

• The players we noticed absent from the optional skate Sunday were Matty Beniers, Kaapo Kakko, Chandler Stephenson, and Eeli Tolvanen. There’s nothing to read into here, since—again—it was optional, and even Lambert stayed off the ice. Instead, it’s notable just how many players did hit the ice after a long road trip.
• Monday’s game is Kids Day at Climate Pledge Arena. The Kraken Hockey Network’s Scott Malone asked some great questions about what Eberle and Lambert remember from their respective childhoods playing hockey, and both shared some great memories. I won’t spoil them here, because I’m sure they’ll come up in the arena and on the broadcast.
• The Kraken’s game next Sunday, Jan. 25, against the New Jersey Devils has been moved up by an hour to 12 p.m. (previously 1 p.m.) to make a little more room for the start of the Seahawks’ NFC Championship game.