#Ron Francis

An unstoppable monster by the name of the Seattle Kraken meets its match with the deadly Buffalo Sabres. The visitors have won five straight and are unbeaten (4-0-0) in their current (mostly) East Coast road trip. The Sabres have won eight of their last 10, including their last three home games. The NHL odds are too tight for a good reason. Let's…

To mark the halfway point of the 2022-23 regular season, NHL.com is running its third installment of the Trophy Tracker series. Today, we look at the race for the Calder Trophy, given annually to the best rookie in the NHL as selected in a poll by the Professional Hockey Writers Association. Matty Beniers has been rewarded for a stellar start to…

Welcome to the first 2023 edition of Screen Shots, a THN.com regular feature in which we tackle a few hockey topics and analyze them in a few paragraphs. You know how this works by now, right? Onward we go: The NHL revealed most of the rosters for the league's upcoming All-Star Game in South Florida. The best news is the league has decided to give…

Raleigh, N.C. - The 2001-2002 version of the Carolina Hurricanes had no business being three wins from the Stanley Cup. At that point, they were just a few years removed from playing in front of sparse crowds at the Greensboro Coliseum, where a curtain regularly draped off much of the upper level seating. But the spring of 2002 brought the infancy…

WASHINGTON -- Alex Ovechkin already knew what was next before Mark Howe stated it clearly at the conclusion of a video congratulating him for passing his late father, Gordie Howe, for second on the NHL all-time goals list. "Now it's time to set new goals for No. 99," Howe said, speaking on behalf of the Howe family. As much as the Washington…

Evgeni Malkin, you're up. Since Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Mike Sullivan ruled out Sidney Crosby and Tristan Jarry for Game 6, the Penguins' second-line center will lead the team in an elimination game against the New York Rangers. The Penguins lead New York 3-2 and will advance to Round Two for the first time since 2018 with a win. It's could…

Or, well, he will be. Soon enough - possibly Monday night when the Detroit Red Wings visit the Washington Capitals - Alex Ovechkin will score for the 801st and 802nd time and pass Gordie Howe for No. 2 on the NHL's all-time goals list. Ovechkin already moved Mr. Hockey down one big list earlier this season; his second-period goal Nov. 5 against the…

The relationship between analytics and the hockey "eye test" (watching a game and taking a final score at face value) is a complicated one. After the Predators' 7-1-1 recent run, there may be no fan base currently more divided along the results versus analytics lines than the one in Nashville. After a close win like the game over the New Jersey…

None of this was a surprise to Nathan Curtis. He knew Seattle Kraken tickets would be expensive. After all, they are an expansion team playing in a city in which the only shade of green more emphatic than the evergreen trees themselves is money. Curtis saw ticket prices in the $200 to $300 range for that first slate of games at Climate Pledge…

Changes are coming to the Seattle Kraken this summer. General manager Ron Francis says he plans on being aggressive in free agency, he has draft capital to make trades, and with a slew of draft picks he is looking to stock the pipeline. Safe to say the roster will look different, and that includes the naming of a new team captain. The captain of a…

General Manager Ron Francis has done a solid job in the last two entry drafts, and with proper player development, the Kraken will have a scary team on the ice before long. Here, we've listed some of the top Seattle Kraken prospects. For the purpose of this piece, we're considering a "prospect" to be someone at or under age 23 entering the 2022-23…

The Calgary Flames are legitimate contenders for the Stanley Cup this season. Even so, their odds of winning are long, and to improve their chances, they should add another offensive, puck-moving defenceman. That will not be an easy task for general manager Brad Treliving, but it should be at the top of his to-do list between now and the NHL trade…

Hockey fans learned to "believe in miracles" 42 years ago when the U.S. men's hockey team upended the Big Red Machine and iced the USSR in the 1980 Olympics at Lake Placid, New York. The 4-3 USA victory has justifiably reached mythic status. The all-amateur American team had been assembled just a few months prior. The Soviets were a full-time unit,…

The Seattle Kraken headed to Anaheim, Calif., Tuesday afternoon to prepare for Wednesday's season opener against the Ducks. It's always an exciting time of year as every team is in playoff contention. Seattle has improved its roster and will be a better team in its second NHL season. What should you be watching for? Who will be the captain? What…

After looking like a traditional expansion team in the 2021-22 season, the Seattle Kraken enters the new NHL season with significantly lower expectations. Sharps bet online on the Kraken's outright odds last season to deflating effects. Seattle finished with 60 points, which was the worst in the Pacific Division and second-worst in the Western…

A defenseman has won the Calder Trophy in two of the last three years, but prior to 2020, forwards had won the award in eight of the previous nine seasons. Coaches don't usually trust blueliners to log heavy minutes in their rookie seasons leading to better odds for scorers to take freshman honors. Towering Sabres rearguard Owen Power has been a…