By: Maeve Hushman, Staff Writer

On September 26th, the Kraken took on the Vancouver Canucks for their first game, a preseason game, in franchise history. The Seattle Kraken are the 32nd and the newest team to be added to the NHL. They held their expansion draft this summer and while the team they’ve built doesn’t seem to be the dominant, “win-now” roster people speculated that Ron Francis (the General Manager) might pick after the success of the Vegas Golden Knights, they will still draw eyes from hockey fans far and wide. There are huge questions surrounding the team, the first one being scoring and offensive prowess and the second concerning the issue of who will be the starting goaltender. Both former Florida Panthers goaltender, Chris Drieger, and former Avalanche goaltender Philip Grubauer are locked up in multi-year contracts after terrific 2020-2021 seasons. However questions remain if Drieger can repeat his performance with the Panthers or if Grubauer can continue to play the way he did in Colorado without the Avalanche’s talented defensive core in front of him. While a preseason game can’t necessarily provide all the answers, it can give us a glimpse into who the newest NHL team is going to be.