GM Ron Francis remains encouraged 10 games into Kraken’s second season

Kraken general manager Ron Francis feels there is plenty to like about his team 10 games into the season, given a tough early schedule and an injury to his No. 1 goaltender.

The Kraken practiced Monday before flying to Calgary, Alberta, for Tuesday’s game sporting a 4-4-2 record that’s three points better than a year ago and could be five or six ahead had they not twice blown multi-goal leads. Francis said in an interview Monday he doesn’t expect goalie Philipp Grubauer to return from a lower-body injury for at least another two weeks.

“It won’t be this week,” Francis said. “He’s probably not going to get on the ice until later this week. So a return might not be until the third week of (November).”

That said, Francis remains generally pleased with work by Grubauer and backup Martin Jones, noting they’ve produced a .912 save percentage in five-on-five play.

“We have internal stats we use that we don’t really discuss, but with (public) NHL metrics I think our save percentage last season was around .879, .880 at five-on-five,” Francis said. “And this year it’s around .915, so that’s better there. The area I’d like to see improvement is in penalty killing. It’s kind of hurt us the first 10 games and on some nights, it’s been the difference between winning and losing.”

The Kraken’s penalty kill is tied with Vancouver for second-worst in the NHL at 73.9%. That’s been largely responsible for lowering the team’s save percentage in all situations to .870 – which is also 31st out of 32 teams.

The advanced stats show Grubauer allowing 3.54 more goals than “expected” but having saved 0.4 more than expected at even strength. Jones has allowed 3.93 more goals than expected but stopped 0.26 more than expected at five-on-five.

“It’s shown some signs of progress,” Francis said of the penalty-kill unit. “The Buffalo game was good, then it gave up two against Vancouver and then the Pittsburgh game was good again. So we need to keep moving in the right direction. There’s some new personnel trying to learn how to work through it, but hopefully we can get that squared away quickly.”

The team is scoring more than last season and outshooting opponents on a consistent basis.

“I know we’ve got more skill in our lineup, so we seem to be not only able to possess the puck and create more in the offensive zone, but score more goals this season than we did last year at this point,” he said. “I think that shows on the power play as well. So a lot of positives so far.”

The Kraken’s power play has produced at a 27% clip, seventh-best in the league.

Francis is also encouraged that the Kraken had two of the NHL’s top-eight lines for productivity, with trios centered by Matty Beniers and Alex Wennberg. He hopes a top-line combo with Andre Burakovsky at left wing, Wennberg at center and Oliver Bjorkstrand on the right produces bigger numbers once they develop greater chemistry.

Francis is well aware that 18-year-old rookie Shane Wright has played fewer than seven minutes per game and been sidelined the past three. He also doesn’t expect Wright to play Tuesday, because coach Dave Hakstol will likely stick with Saturday’s lineup that beat Pittsburgh.

Fourth-liners such as Daniel Sprong, Morgan Geekie and Ryan Donato have played well when given opportunities. Also, the Kraken playing in plenty of tight games late has limited opportunities for Wright when he does suit up.

And Francis wants to ensure that Wright – one of only two 18-year-olds in the NHL – is fully ready when he does play. That’s been difficult.

“We just went through a stretch of 10 games in 18 days, which is a bit of a crazy way to start your season,” he said. “As a result we weren’t practicing between games, because we wanted guys to have as much of an energy level as they could for the games themselves.

“So for a young player you’re not getting to practice, and then when you’re in the lineup you’re not getting the 10 to 12 minutes a night. So it’s hard.”

The Kraken survived one of the NHL’s toughest opening schedules with a .500 record and looking for more. Francis knows the team has given away games but is generally positive about how things have gone, including a 3-1-1 record against playoff teams from last season.

“I think we easily could have a better record, and unfortunately it is what it is,” he said. “But there are a lot of positives.”