The Montreal Canadiens will host the Seattle Kraken tonight at the Bell Centre.
Once upon a time, expansion teams were dreadful when they joined the league, but that's not the case anymore. Tonight's visitors, the Seattle Kraken, are the newest team in the league and have the exact same record as the Montreal Canadiens and six other teams.
Since the Kraken joined the NHL in 2021, the teams have faced each other six times, and the Canadiens have a slight edge with a 3-2-1 record. The Canadiens swept the season series last year, winning both games. Seattle's last win over the Habs was a 4-0 shutout on January 9, 2023. The visitors took to the Bell Centre ice yesterday morning for practice, and assistant coach Jessica Campbell was also made available to the media.
Campbell, a former player, played for Team Canada and won the World Championship in 2015. She also played in the NCAA and the defunct CWHL, capturing the Clarkson Cup with the Calgary Inferno in 2016. At the start of this season, she made history when she became the first female assistant coach in league history.
In July 2022, she was hired as an assistant coach for the Kraken's AHL affiliate, the Coachella Valley Firebirds, meaning she took her first strides in the organization just as 2022 first-round pick Sean Wright took his. Asked about the assistant coach, Wright said:
Jess is awesome. I mean Jess just wants the best for us. She just wants us to be better, she's always, you know, out there looking to help us out. She's always out there early on the ice and out there later you know, passing us pucks and you know, getting us whatever help we need. And you know, she's been a great help for me and she's really someone who I can trust and really someone that that's, you know really helped my game a lot.
Wright would know, having worked with Campbell over the last two seasons in Coachella. Like Campbell, Wright has now graduated with the Kraken and centers the team's third line alongside Eeli Tolvanen and Oliver Bjorkstrand.
Tonight could be a Wright vs Juraj Slafkovsky duel, as the power forward was back at practice this morning, skating on a line with Alex Newhook and Joel Armia. In his absence, Kirby Dach has filled in very well on the top line alongside Nick Suzuki and Cole Caufield, who are both red-hot at the moment, so it wouldn't be all that surprising to keep that combination going. As for Oliver Kapanen, he now finds himself back on the fourth line with Christian Dvorak and Emil Heineman.
Justin Barron and Kaiden Guhle are also back on the ice this morning, but as they are skating as a pair, they might not be returning tonight. Martin St-Louis' post practice media availability should tell us more.
Suzuki has a seven-game point streak going right now, and Caufield has eight goals to his name in nine games, the second-highest total in the league, tied with the reigning Rocket Richard Trophy winner Nikita Kucherov and Colorado Avalanche center Ross Colton who was injured in last night's game. Both Caufield and Jake Evens have scored in the last two games. As for Mike Matheson, he is running a four-game point streak in which he gathered five points. The Kraken's Jared McCann has 10 points in his last six games and will be worth keeping an eye on.
In six career games against the Kraken, the Canadiens' captain has got six points, which bodes well for his scoring streak. The second most productive Habs against the Washington state is Alex Newhook who has five points in the seven games he faced them. As for sniper Caufield, he's got a single goal in six duels and a 6.2% shooting percentage, but he's never scored against either of their two current goalies. Meanwhile, Dach has only taken on the Kraken four times and has two assists to show for it.
As for the visitors, Yanni Gourde is their most productive forward (as is often the case with Quebec natives) against the Canadiens gathering 15 points in 20 games. As for newly appointed captain Jordan Eberle, he has 12 points in 24 tilts against Montreal. Center Jaden Schwartz has also got a dozen points in 18 meetings with the Habs.
Both teams were off last night, it wouldn't be surprising to be a battle of the number ones, Samuel Montembeault and Phillip Grubauer. St-Louis did confirm this morning that Montembeault would be back in net for the Habs.
The Kraken's top netminder has faced the Canadiens eight times and has a 4-4-0 record, a 2.74 goals-against average, and a .900 save percentage. Backup Joey Daccord has taken part in two games against tonight's host and has a 0-1-0 record, a 1.78 GAA and a .930 SP.
On the Habs' side, Montembeault has a 1-1-1 record in three outings against the sea monster, a 2.62 GAA and a .925 SP. Meanwhile, Cayden Primeau has only faced it once, winning his duel with a 1.00 GAA and a .973 SP.
The game is set to start at 7:00 PM tonight, and if you are heading to the Bell Centre, don't forget to wear your costume, as the Canadiens will be celebrating Halloween tonight.
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