One: Keep the puck out

Overlooked somewhat in the Kraken’s 2-0 defeat against the New York Rangers was that they limited a Stanley Cup contender to just two goals. It marked the fourth consecutive game in which the Kraken have allowed two goals or fewer. They’ve also allowed three goals or fewer in five straight games and in seven of the last eight.

And that’s key for a team that’s had trouble scoring.

The Kraken have quietly moved up to the league’s 12th-best mark with 2.90 goals allowed per game after an uneven start in which they yielded four goals or more in five of their first 11 contests. But the flip side to that is they’ve scored three or fewer in 11 of their last 14 – and two goals or fewer in half of those contests. That means some 3-2 and 3-1 victories seen this homestand might have to stay the rule rather than the exception – at least until Vince Dunn and Jordan Eberle return from injury.

Two: The best defense…provides good offense

Kraken defensemen have accounted for 12 of the team’s 55 goals this season – a 22% rate. A season ago, the defense accounted for 16% of their 214 overall goals.

While that jump is impressive in its own right, what’s even more noticeable is that defensemen not named Vince Dunn last season accounted for only 11% of Kraken scoring. This year, the non-Dunn defenders have nearly doubled that rate to 20% of the team’s overall goals.

And that’s helped keep the Kraken winning games with two-way offensive threat Dunn limited to just four games thus far due to injury.

“Our team success is going to come from that support,” Kraken coach Dan Bylsma said Tuesday of his team’s balanced approach. “It’s throughout our lineup. Our D is scoring. We’ve got 12 or 13 goals right now from our defense and it’s coming from throughout our (defensive) lineup.”

Jamie Oleksiak has two goals already, equaling last season’s output after scoring the winner against the Islanders last Saturday. Ryker Evans is second in scoring among defenders with three goals – triple his output of last season over 36 contests.

Brandon Montour leads all Kraken defensemen in scoring with four goals.

Three: Know your foe

The Nashville Predators are looking like one of those weird science experiments in which you add two top-scoring stars to a mix of existing ones and somehow – the beaker explodes. Or something to that effect.

Nobody can really believe the Preds are just 6-10-3 – and that’s after beating the Canucks in Vancouver the other night. After all, they stormed into the playoffs last spring, then arguably “won” the off-season by adding free agents Steven Stamkos and Johnathan Marchessault, among others, to a group that already included stars Roman Josi and Filip Forsberg.

But they’d lost six of seven prior to the Canucks game and scored only eight goals in those defeats. So, something hasn’t meshed all that well just yet.

Sure, things looked a little odd when the Kraken trounced them 7-3 in Nashville last month — with six goals coming against Juuse Saros. But other than a five-goal night allowed to Edmonton, Saros hasn’t yielded more than three in any start since, and his .914 save percentage and surface numbers are about what we’ve come to expect.

Nope, this is mostly about the offense. The Preds have the third-worst goals per game, scored at 2.42.

It didn’t help that Stamkos only had a goal and two assists in his first ten games, though he’s started to produce more lately. Marchessault’s three goals have all come on the power play, with none at even strength. The Kraken will need to hope that holds and that they can reprise their scoring feats against Saros.