DENVER — The Seattle Kraken can become the first NHL team to debut in the Stanley Cup Playoffs with two road wins by defeating the Colorado Avalanche in Game 2 of the Western Conference First Round at Ball Arena on Thursday.
The Kraken, who joined the NHL last season, can become the seventh team to win each of its first two playoff games. They won 3-1 in Game 1 on Tuesday.
“Flip the page,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “The next opportunity is Game 2. Our guys have done a nice job of being able to flip that page, be ready for the next challenge, and we’ll be ready.”
Taking a 2-0 series lead would further energize Seattle for Game 3 at Climate Pledge Arena on Saturday, the Kraken’s first home playoff game. But they can’t get ahead of themselves against the defending Stanley Cup champions.
“The biggest thing for us is not to get too high,” Kraken forward Jordan Eberle said. “I think we know our opponent over there. We know the team that they have, and obviously this is a new experience for us as a team.
“There’s a lot of individuals on this team who have been in long runs, who have won Cups, and I think that’s important that we have that experience. But it’s about getting back to ground level.”
Teams that take a 2-0 lead are 342-54 (86.4 percent) winning the best-of-7 series, including 5-2 (71.4 percent) last season.
Here are 3 keys for Game 2:
1. Avalanche lineup
Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said he would consider splitting center Nathan MacKinnon and forward Mikko Rantanen.
Including a goal in Game 1, MacKinnon and Rantanen have factored on the same playoff goal 38 times, the most by a pair of teammates in Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques history. But Bednar might want to spread them out on the top two lines at 5-on-5 instead of loading them up on the first line.
“We’ll see what the lineup is, but I’m ready either way,” Rantanen said. “Not going to change too much.”
Forward Artturi Lehkonen joined the first power-play unit at the morning skate. Colorado went 0-for-2 in Game 1.
“I think he’s relentless on puck retrievals,” Bednar said. “He’s good in the middle.”
2. Aggression
The Kraken were aggressive in Game 1, pressuring the Avalanche all over the ice, taking away the middle and winning races and wall battles. Hakstol said they had to continue to improve and become more consistent in doing so.
“It’s something that’s easier said than done against these guys,” Hakstol said. “You’ve got to win races against these guys, races back into the defensive zone, on the inside. And then if you’re just going to stand around on the inside and let them do their thing, you’re going to be in trouble. So from there, you’ve got to find your pressure. You’ve got to skate to check to try to take away some of that time and space against some of their elite players.”
3. Execution
The Avalanche feel they just need to play like they usually do, with better focus, more grit, smarter decisions and crisper execution.
“Execution on our end is kind of all we’re focused on,” said Avalanche defenseman Devon Toews, who committed a turnover that helped give Seattle a 1-0 lead in Game 1. “We feel like we’re a team that when we play our game, we’re hard to play against, and we made it way too easy on them in Game 1.”
The Kraken didn’t do anything the Avalanche hadn’t seen before or didn’t expect.
“It’s not something new to us,” Toews said. “We know how to create our space out of it. We didn’t move our legs. We looked slow and a little methodical. I think the big thing there was the execution was just a little bit off, so we shortchanged ourselves on the amount of time and space that we were able to create for our teammates.”
Kraken projected lineup
Jared McCann — Matty Beniers — Jordan Eberle
Jaden Schwartz — Alex Wennberg — Morgan Geekie
Eeli Tolvanen — Yanni Gourde — Oliver Bjorkstrand
Brandon Tanev — Ryan Donato — Daniel Sprong
Vince Dunn — Adam Larsson
Jamie Oleksiak — Will Borgen
Carson Soucy — Justin Schultz
Philipp Grubauer
Martin Jones
Scratched: Cale Fleury, Jaycob Megna, Jesper Froden, Chris Driedger
Injured: Andre Burakovsky (lower body), Joonas Donskoi (upper body), John Hayden (lower body)
Avalanche projected lineup
Artturi Lehkonen — Nathan MacKinnon — Evan Rodrigues
Valeri Nichushkin — J.T. Compher — Mikko Rantanen
Matt Nieto — Lars Eller — Denis Malgin
Alex Newhook — Ben Meyers — Logan O’Connor
Devon Toews — Cale Makar
Samuel Girard — Bowen Byram
Erik Johnson — Josh Manson
Alexandar Georgiev
Pavel Francouz
Scratched: Kurtis MacDermid, Brad Hunt, Keith Kinkaid
Injured: Jack Johnson (lower body), Darren Helm (lower body), Andrew Cogliano (upper body)
Status report
Seattle isn’t expected to make any lineup changes from Game 1. … Manson is expected to play despite not being a full participant during the morning skate. … Bednar had no updates on forwards Helm and Cogliano and defenseman Jack Johnson, each of whom is considered day to day.
