One: Schwartz Showing the Way to Younger Teammates
PITTSBURGH – With the Kraken off to the best start in the franchise’s five-year history, there are several candidates who could be regarded as the team’s best performer to date. The vote here is Jaden Schwartz with no slight intended for the likes of Jordan Eberle, Brandon Montour, Matty Beniers or Vince Dunn, among others. Schwartz simply contributes to so many facets of winning games. He’s delivering big goals (most recently Thursday’s game-winner) and small, unheralded but pivotal details in all games and all periods as Seattle reaches the quarter mark. Looking past the “best player” debate on the ice, Schwartz’s value might be even more momentous by how the team’s young forwards study the veteran winger who was a playoff star in 2019 when St. Louis won the Stanley Cup.
“When you look at our older guys, especially Schwartzy, just the way he plays, the way he prepares for the games and the way he's always ready to go,” said Tye Kartye in a victorious locker room at Chicago. “I think everyone can take a piece of that and include it in their game.”
Kartye even sounded like Schwartz as well when asked what “flipped the switch” for the Kraken to bust out in the third period in Thursday’s comeback win after four straight periods over two games in which Seattle recorded meager single-digit shots on goal: “I don't know if it was anything specific, we’ve got to start the game like that instead of waiting two periods. Obviously, there was a difference in our play. We’ve got to get to a full 60 minutes like that.”
Chicago broadcast analyst and former NHL goalie Darren Pang knows Schwartz well from St. Louis days, when Pang was working games for the Blues. He and Schwartz were enjoying a lively conversation outside the visitors' locker room post-game Thursday when Pang pointed at Schwartz, then asked an equally smiling Lane Lambert if “you know you have a treasure here?”
Lambert answered in the affirmative in the media scrum, fielding a question about what the veteran forward teaches younger wings and centers every game night and practice day.
“[Schwartz] shows them how the game is played,” said Lambert, “how the game is supposed to be played. The importance of the little details and winning battles in hard areas. Great goal by him to cap off our comeback.”
Two: Checking ‘Crazy’ NHL Standings at Quarter Mark
In deference to the NHL quarter-mark as the Kraken embark on Game 21 Saturday night in Pittsburgh, let’s take a quick look at the divisional and wild-card standings. Then file it away and focus more on staying above the .600 mark as the halfway mark hits in January. Going into Saturday's 12 NHL games, the Kraken lead the Western Conference wild-card race with 25 standings points in 20 games for a .625 points percentage. In the Pacific Division, the Kraken are just two points back of first-place Anaheim (27 points) and one point on the heels of second-positioned Vegas (26 points). Los Angeles is third in the division with 26 points, but needed 22 games to reach that total. The flip side is that five additional Western Conference teams – San Jose, Edmonton in the Pacific, and Winnipeg, Chicago, and Utah in the Central - have 24 or 23 points. OK, calculators down.
Lane Lambert was asked what “crazy” standings “are like for a coach?”
“Like, where you can be out of the playoffs or you can be in third or second place within a day or overnight,” said Lambert. “It’s demanding, it's fun because every game has an extreme significance. Aside from maybe one or two teams, there's nobody really separating themselves right now. There's just an emphasis on being ready to play every night. You use the word ‘crazy.’ I've used that word here over the last week, how tight it is. It's probably the tightest I've seen at this juncture in my whole time [behind NHL benches as an assistant coach, associate head coach and head coach].”
A better evaluation of the Kraken’s progress toward gaining a playoff spot might be at the winter holiday break starting Dec. 24. After facing Eastern Conference foes Pittsburgh and the New York Islanders to finish the road trip, Seattle will play 11 of 13 games against either Pacific rivals or Central Division squads angling for spots in the Western Conference postseason.
Three: Know the Foe: Familiar Faces Top Pens Scorers List
Earlier this week, Pittsburgh split the “2025 NHL Global Series Sweden,” beating Nashville in the second game behind Russian-born rookie goaltender Sergey Murashov, age 21, who earned a shutout in just his second NHL appearance. Pittsburgh lost at home, 5-0, to Minnesota on Friday with both Arturs Silovs and Murashov in the net. The Pens apparently were still finding their legs and shaking the lag from jetting home from six time zones away.
How that affects their performance against the Kraken is hard to predict. Some veterans say they feel better on the second night of back-to-back games in terms of soreness and stiffness. Speaking of veterans, 39-year-old Evgeni Malkin leads PIT in points with 23 (five goals, 18 assists) in 20 games, while 38-year-old Sidney Crosby has a dozen goals and nine assists for 21 points.
Projected Lineup (not official)
Marchment-Beniers-Eberle
Schwartz-Stephenson-Tolvanen
Catton-Gaudreau-Wright
Kartye-Molgaard-Winterton
Dunn-Larsson
Lindgren-Montour
Evans-Oleksiak
Grubauer
