A high-energy, relentless style has led Tampa Bay and others to NHL playoff success. Will it work for the Kraken?

Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer had a shellshocked look on his face as he skated through the handshake line in June after his most recent NHL game that actually counted for something.

Same with teammate and winger Joonas Donskoi, who with Grubauer had just played his final contest for a Colorado Avalanche team that finished with the league’s best regular-season record, only to be dispatched in the second playoff round by the Vegas Golden Knights.

It was the same scene playing out in Tampa Bay for current Kraken winger Alex Wennberg and goalie Chris Driedger, whose Florida Panthers had fought all season to gain home-ice advantage over the in-state rival Lightning, only to drop the first two games of their playoff matchup at home en route to an opening-round defeat.

You could go on and on about new Kraken players most recently eliminated by teams playing a high-energy style with relentless forechecking and puck movement they will now try to emulate with Seattle’s expansion club.

Whether it was Mason Appleton’s Winnipeg Jets being crushed by underdog Montreal in the second round or Brandon Tanev’s and Jared McCann’s favored Pittsburgh Penguins suffering a first-round defeat to the New York Islanders, those players have firsthand recent playoff experience of how difficult playing against such unrelenting teams can be.

Now they’re being asked to replicate it for their fledgling expansion squad by Kraken coach Dave Hakstol and general manager Ron Francis. And that’s largely out of necessity, because the Kraken — much like the successful recent playoff clubs that used relentless forechecking and backchecking, a quick transition game and a fearless ability to go to the net — doesn’t have a lot of elite goal-scorers.

“We’re going to be a hardworking team,” Grubauer said. “We’re probably not going to score 10 goals (a game) like Colorado did, but we’re going to be a hardworking group for sure.”

Wennberg echoed those sentiments, saying: “We’re going to be a team that’s relentless to play. We’re going to play hard. We’re going to skate a lot. And that shows in practice — that we want to use our speed.”

Sure, but let’s face it: It’s tough for anybody to stick in the NHL without working hard or playing a fast-paced game. Thing is, there’s a difference between doing it strictly in the offensive and defensive zones and achieving that style in unrelenting fashion, as Kraken defenseman Mark Giordano expressed so well during his new team’s first day of training camp.

“Forechecks are pretty similar around the league,” said Giordano, a veteran of 16 seasons with Calgary, the past eight as Flames captain. “The main difference for me is that there are teams that play super-aggressive and teams that pack it in in the neutral zone and play a little less aggressive.”

Anyone watching the Stanley Cup playoffs last spring saw the “super-aggressive” teams reap dividends. The four conference finalists — Tampa Bay, Montreal, Vegas and the Islanders — were so aggressive that they effectively eliminated the neutral zone. 

And as a result, their opponents could barely generate any offense. Not only that, but the quick neutral-zone transitioning from defense to offense by the four conference finalists also left opponents vulnerable to lethal counterattacks.

With those elements combined, the system proved a demoralizing 1-2 punch that opponents struggled to withstand. 

Colorado had appeared unbeatable in a four-game sweep of St. Louis and then in a Round 2 Game 1 victory on a night Vegas rested top netminder Marc-Andre Fleury.

But the roof effectively caved in from there on the Avalanche, which after a somewhat lucky late comeback victory in Game 2, lost four in a row to the Golden Knights while being outscored 17-8.

Montreal’s second-round victory over Winnipeg was one of the more lopsided in recent NHL playoff memory. The Jets had just swept a favored Edmonton squad, only to have the favor returned by a Montreal side that outscored them 14-6 overall and outshot them 42-16 in the series clincher.

The Islanders upset Pittsburgh, then Boston and nearly toppled eventual Cup champion Tampa Bay in a seven-game conference final. Unfortunately for the Islanders — and the Canadiens in the championship round after that — the Lightning arguably played the up-tempo, unrelenting game better than any NHL team. 

Fortunately for the Kraken, it has one of the higher-energy Lightning players in center Yanni Gourde, expected back from shoulder surgery by November after being selected in the NHL expansion draft. Right after he was drafted, Gourde left little doubt that the forechecking style he became known for with Tampa Bay was something the Kraken would be adopting.

“I think we’re going to be a very hardworking group,” Gourde said. “And when you look at a hardworking group, there’s a lot of potential. That’s the first step to success. If you work hard, you’re putting yourself in a good position. 

“We might be one of the teams that plays playoff hockey during the season. Just hard to play against during the season. And that may be one of the things that leads us to the playoffs. We’ll see what happens.”

Alas, performing at such high intensity through a few playoff rounds — each lasting a week or two with some rest in between — might be easier than doing it for six months of an 82-game schedule.

The NHL, after all, hasn’t had a full regular season since 2018-19 because of COVID-19 shutdowns. So it isn’t clear how players will adapt to playing a more rigorous schedule this time around, or whether the Kraken can hold up physically attempting to play playoff hockey from October through April.

Cup finalist Montreal barely squeaked into the playoffs last spring. Two-time-defending Cup champion Tampa Bay was only third in its division.

The Islanders were fourth in their division.

So although the Kraken, with solid goaltending, physical defense and relentless forechecking, might be “built for the playoffs” as the saying goes, the team needs to get there first. That isn’t guaranteed, but playing in a Pacific Division in which Vegas and Edmonton are the only teams that appear markedly better might buy the Kraken time to perfect its style and get Gourde fully recovered. 

Hakstol, as an assistant in Toronto the past two seasons, saw his Maple Leafs drop three in a row and get eliminated by the Canadiens in May after going up 3-1 in their opening-round series. The knock on Toronto the past several seasons is that its high-scoring offense — led by young stars Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander — can’t succeed in the playoffs because of an inability to play that up-tempo, heavy-forechecking style.

And Hakstol delivered an early message to his Kraken players the first day of camp: He expects them to play that way.

“I think it becomes ingrained in your culture,” Hakstol said. “That’s one of the human characteristics, traits and things that can be brought out of every individual and improved. You might not be able to take it from the lowest bar to the highest, but you can be inspired by your teammates and by that atmosphere that’s in the dressing room.”

The Kraken loaded up on players known not just for offensive statistics, but also a two-way ability to defend. Even guys fighting for back-end roster spots come equipped with that relentless style, such as 6-foot-4, 205-pound forward Nathan Bastian. He tied for 25th in the NHL with 137 hits last season in 41 games for New Jersey.

The Kraken’s style relies on puck possession and generating shots. But Hakstol wants those shots to be dangerous, by fearlessly working the puck to heavy-traffic areas near the net.

And like Gourde, not all Kraken players got steamrolled last spring by opponents playing that tenacious style. Jordan Eberle, a top-scoring Islanders winger, saw it propel his team to within a goal of toppling Gourde’s champion squad and reaching the final.

“I think if you look at the makeup of our team, we’re going to be a hardworking, blue-collar team,” Eberle said. “A lot of guys who are going to play with grit on both sides of the puck, and then obviously we want to play with some speed and play with some grit.”