The Kraken are in the middle of a road trip, so host Piper Shaw is calling in this week from her hotel room Ottawa before the Kraken's game against the Senators. Special guest host and Kraken radio color commentator Al Kinisky joins her as they talk about the fun of living the last week out of a suitcase. The pair break down the Kraken's performance so far on the trip and what to expect before they head home on November 8th. Piper also sits down with Tye Kartye, Andre Burakovsky, and Brandon Tanev to learn what they do to make life away from home a little more fun.

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Hello everyone and a big warm welcome to Signals from the Deep, the official podcast of your Seattle Kraken. This week's episode of Signals from the Deep is coming to you from the road.

I'm currently out in the Great White north of Canada, so I'm joined virtually by our diligent and delightful producer Grant Beery back in Seattle. How you doing Grant?

I'm doing well. I'm actually at home right now. Since you guys aren't in the office, I don't have to be either.

So I'm enjoying this from my little condo here in just north of Seattle. So creature comforts from home while I get to see you guys on the screen.

Well, it's still lovely to connect with you. I wish we were in person of course, absolutely have that shared energy. But I am not alone in Canada. I am joined.

Our co host this week is the commanding color commentator from the Kraken Audio Network. We have Al Kiniski here.

Hello, how are you doing

Al, uou are fresh off of Krakt- Kraktice. As some refer to it, I did not coin that term optional practice. Any news or notes that you took away from optional....

A very well attended optional practice. As you can probably probably imagine with a recent loss, few guys out of the out of the practice, but very few.

Oddly enough it was one from each line, each forward line, plus Ryker Evans. So I thought that was interesting.

As we are recording this, of course we're about to embark on a back to back portion of this road trip. So we'll get into some of the hockey of it all in a little bit.

But Al, I wanted to start by, you know we get to spend a lot of time together chatting on the bus and at morning skate and everything. But just for our listeners, I wanted to talk just a little bit about, you know, your background in hockey, your connection to The Pacific Northwest?

Just briefly, yeah.

I mean, I grew up in the Vancouver area. My parents and brothers still live there. My sister's in the Okanagan, and I've been in Seattle for 30 years now.

Originally moving down there to play hockey. And that's where I spent most of my time playing junior hockey.

Drafted to the Flyers out of Seattle and spent a little more time back up in Canada and ultimately married my high school sweetheart in the Seattle area.

I love it. And in case you missed this, Al was on a previous episode of Signals from the Deep with Nick. That is episode nine.

A lot more into your background in your story on that episode. So please go back and listen to that one in case you missed it.

If you would like to get to know Al a little bit better, more as a person and a personality of your Kraken. But Al, since we're on the road, I wanted to talk a little bit about that life on the road.

Last episode we had Fitzon and we were fresh off this road trip and we were riffing about, you know, coming home at 2 in the morning and being on the rainy tarmac and all of that. Do you have a favorite road city as it relates to. To like food or shopping or entertainment or just vibe of the city?

Food is probably what drives me to my favorite cities the most. I really like Nashville. I like the barbecue scene.

So any city that's got good barbecue or good steakhouses, I tend to move to the top of my priority list. But I like Nashville a lot.

What about for Arena? Like visiting Arena?

Yeah, I mean, there are definitely a few and it's easy to maybe look at Vegas as one of the favorites. But I also, in Fitz and I were talking about this earlier today.

I like LA's Arena a lot because you literally walk down an aisle that you would take to go to your seat, but you hang a right just before you get to the seats and that's where our booth is. So it feels like we're sitting in the stands, which is always a lot more fun for us than kind of being at the top of the building.

Where are you guys in Dallas? Because they have kind of a platform situation for. For media too, I think.

Right, right. Yeah. Dallas.

Not quite as close as you are in la, but Dallas is also one of those fun locations where you know you've got a great point of view, but you're not that far. You can hear the fans cheering right below you.

Grant, you are also a big hockey fan. Do you have any bucket lists like arenas that are on your list that you want to go to?

I do. LA is obviously one of them. I hear kind of the same thing, is that you really get good seating.

I have been fortunate enough to go to quite a few arenas. XL Energy center is one of my favorites. Just because of how steep.

Yeah, it is.

It's so steep. Like, you feel like you're right on top of everything. I really enjoy that also. You know, it is such a celebration of hockey.

You know, from peewees up to professional. Every single part of that arena, you. You have, like, all the high school jerseys from all over the state. And in there, Montreal is the same way.

I actually convinced my wife to go to a Leafs and a Canadiens game on our honeymoon. So that was the start of our. And Montreal is basically just a giant muse where they play hockey, and that is a lot of fun. And the food.

I think Vegas was probably some of the best food I've had in an arena. So.

Yeah. Yeah. Montreal is like that. Detroit is like that as well.

When you walk around the bottom of Detroit, you forget that there's so much memorabilia down there.

Oh, yeah.

That the fans never get to see. So that's kind of. Kind of cool.

Very, very cool. Yeah. I mean, I just. I want to go to every arena, so just say if it's. If it's a place where they play NHL hockey, it's on my bucket list.

So, yeah, Little Caesars arena is cool. I never got to go to the old one in Detroit. That was so.

Joe Louis, yeah.

Yeah. That was so iconic. But Little Caesars arena is very nice, Very high tech. Actually.

There are certain elements of it that actually kind of remind me of Clement pledge in a little bit, but I think it's mostly just that it feels like they have a ton of LED screens in that place. It's like a common denominator.

Yeah. Is it Calgary that has the press bridge where you're basically in the rafters?

Yeah. Yeah. So what's kind of cool about Calgary? And I would probably put that in my top five.

And it's not because it's modern, but because it's the only arena that we go to where you can actually walk across the top of the scoreboard that's above center ice.

Oh, terrifying.

So everybody wants to take a picture straight down to the dot at center ice, which is kind of cool. And if you're afraid of heights, it's probably not your thing. Looks like it's not for you, Grant.

Deathly afraid of heights.

But then when you get into the booth, there's a beam right above your head. So you're either sitting or you're standing, leaning in front of the beam.

But if you're sitting and something exciting happens, you jump up, you got a big goose egg on your forehead. So it's. It's not the most friendly booth, but I think the history behind the building is kind of cool.

Wow.

A few years, when they build their new building, there'll be no walking across the scoreboard anymore.

I would imagine that's particularly a problem for you and Fitz because you're both so tall. Maybe in a little bit more of a risk of hitting your knife.

Yeah, no, the over. Under is about five. Over the course of a game, five times, you're going to hit your head on that beam.

Wow.

How does life for you, Al, on the road change when it comes to, like, your preparation and your work application versus being at home?

Yeah, I would say it's. It's got its pros and cons. I think that on the road, you tend to have a lot more downtime.

And so as long as you're not eating during that downtime and you're using it productively, either for prep for the next game or exercise or things like that, I think it's good. But, yeah, it's usually sitting and watching either highlights or full games of the team that we're playing next, doing some research on the players.

There's fewer distractions when you're on the road, so you can get a lot of that done quickly. I like it a lot. I like the downtime.

Yeah, definitely. I have on this trip, I've had a lot of projects that I've been working on on these off days, so I haven't had as much downtime.

It's been like other things, but it's been very good, too, and very rewarding, like we're doing right now.

Yeah, I think. I think the, you know, as far as off days go, one of the best parts of off days is, for me, I don't have to shave.

You know, you spend so much time in a suit and tie and trying to look presentable, it's nice to have an off day where you don't have to worry about that as much. But, you know, one of the hard things about road trips, and I don't know if you ever faced this, Piper, but we're in our third hotel in six days.

I literally came back to my room after lunch and went, oh, no, what room am I in? Oh, my gosh, what room am I in?

Write it on your hands.

Yeah.

And constantly with the room keys, like the number of times they demagnetize my room key or I lock my room key in the room and then they're like, well, I need an ID to give you a new one. I'm like, wow, my ID is in my room.

Right, right.

Like you just come with me. I promise that's. That's the kind of thing that tends to happen to me a lot though I encounter those minor, unfortunate setbacks, I feel.

Yeah, it's the things that like happen to, you know, most folks who travel every once in a while. And when it does happen, you're like, oh, it's such a disaster. But I mean, kind of par for the course for you guys with traveling.

Every couple of weeks.

Yeah, well, so this is an excellent appetizer, if you will, for what's coming up later in the podcast because I went around the Kraken's locker room and asked some of these same questions to a handful of the Kraken's players. So you will hear from Tye Cartier, Brandon Tanev and Andre Burkovsky later in the pod about their takes of life on the road.

And then we also had a great question from a listener for Tye Cartier about the story behind his number change. So we will get to that in a bit. But for now we got some cracking news and notes to catch up on since our last signal.

A lot has happened since we had fits on two weeks ago, the entire home stand. We're going to start with where we are though, in the middle of this road trip since it is fresh on the mind.

But before we get to kind of game recaps, there's a couple of big highlights including of course this shouldn't be news to anyone at this point, but Vince Dunn is on long term injured reserve. You know, we've been out with without him for a couple games.

So the soonest that he can return would be November 12th when the Kraken play the Blue Jackets. But Al, you know, we have seen a handful of those games without him.

Yeah, Vince Dunn, he's a defensive zone monster out there. He logs a ton of minutes so you can expect a lot of things from him, especially in front of the net in the corners.

He's got that heavy shot power play. You know, he's the quarterback out there and he's missing from that standpoint right now.

I think there's a lot of statistics that go down when Vince Dunn isn't in the lineup. So the team's definitely missing him there.

And along similar lines, but different, it seems to be that there's been a shift in the current, in the goaltending ideology that's been happening. Joey Daccord got the first back to back starts for a goaltender for us this season. Now he's had four starts in a row.

I would imagine at the time of recording this. We're coming up on a back to back with Ottawa and Boston. I would imagine he's probably not going to be playing in Ottawa.

I would think Philip Grubauer does. However. I am not a fortune teller, but what's the significance of Joey really kind of getting the call as that starting goaltender?

Yeah, I think you're starting to see Joey Daccord break out a little bit in the sense, in the sense that, you know, his save percentage numbers are going up, his goals against are going down. He's starting to make the saves that he's not supposed to make in the game.

And again, you know, you give a team enough of those, they're going to eventually put them in.

But if it's just a couple of the court over the course of 60 minutes and he's stopping both of those and then he's making all the saves he's supposed to, you start to look at him as maybe this is the guy that can steal a few games here and there. So he tends to get more starts. So I'm not surprised. I see it. I am expecting to see Philipp Grubauer tomorrow night, so we'll see how he responds.

But Joey is definitely earned a few few starts in a row and we.

Saw the Kraken's first hat trick of the season earlier this week. Brandon Montour earning the first hat trick of his career and a natural hat trick at that as well.

Just to add like the cherry on top Sunday there, you know, we've been talking about this player, Brandon Montour so much since, you know, Seattle acquired him and so much anticipation. But now we have actually gotten to see a little bit of kind of the body of work and maybe the impact.

What, what is it that you see in his game that's maybe something that Seattle was really missing before?

Yeah, if I look at Brandon Montour and I compare him to events Dunn see above, I see a very similar defenseman.

Plays physical, big shot, but he's such an efficient skater that he can jump up into the offense very easily and be a part of those rushes and then get back and not necessarily hurt his defensive partner in the process. So he's. He's. He's someone who can help you all over the ice. I think that his demeanor is also valuable as well.

It fits very well with coach Dan Balzma, you know, his loose approach to the game, if you will, in the locker room. I think that Montour's personality aligns well to that.

So he's definitely somebody that doesn't wear an A or a C, but acts as a team leader out there regardless. And so, yeah, he, too, is a miss with the lineup right now.

Yeah, definitely. His. His personality. I think that his talent on the ice is so obvious and so much fun to watch. I mean, he's just fun.

He's just fun to watch, even if it's not about hat tricks. But that personality is also fun, and I really think it brings some juice to the room.

He's one of those guys where in a.

In a point in a game where you can be a little bit, I don't know, stressed about the situation or you just had a bad shift or you're down by a goal you got scored on, you can look at him and go, hey, bud, it's just hockey. Yeah, it's just hockey. And you just go, yeah, you're right. And you go out and have a good shift after that.

Not taking that pressure with you, Grant, has it been. What have you thought of Brandon Montour from watching afar?

It's. It's such a refreshing presence to have in our locker room, I think, and on the ice. So obviously we get.

We get to see him not only around the office, but, you know, even from my interactions with him, however limited they are, it's. He's such a.

I don't know if laid back is the right word, but somebody who's very enthusiastic and just really happy to be playing hockey and seems to really enjoy it here. And that really does translate on the ice.

You see somebody who is, in my opinion, very creative when it comes to how he plays and fits in well with all the other players. And so it's just a fun player to watch on the team.

Well, Brandon joins Jordan Eberle and Jared McCann in the hat Trick hall of Fame for the Kraken. And one thing that I love about this is that it's actually not even the best thing that happened to Brandon Montour this week.

Yes.

Because although it was very unfortunate for all of us and the team to be without him in Toronto for the second game of the trip, There is absolutely no better reason, and that is because he had to head home for the birth of his second child. Him and his wife Ryan welcomed a baby girl named Mason into their family, who joins her big brother, Kai.

So, so much love and good vibes to the Montours on their new addition. So Coach Bilesman didn't have a timeline for when Brandon may return, but, Al, I feel like it's safe to say that we miss him.

We do.

And I think that Coach Bylsma will be asked daily when he'll be returning, understanding that a big event has just happened in his life and he needs that time to enjoy that. And I too saw the announcement of baby Mason, but having just come from Montreal and Toronto, I read it as Maison. Maison Montour.

That's a very nice name. Maison.

It is spelled. So it's spelled M A I S.

O S O N, which is the French word for house. Maison.

Yeah. I like it's Mason, Maison and Kai, you know, little unique, unique choices there. So congratulations to the Montours.

We do miss you, but I'm very happy that everybody is happy. Very happy and healthy and doing well. So let's get into talking about some of the games in a little bit more detail.

Beyond the hat trick in Montreal, there was a lot to like from that game. Of course, the big story of it was goals from the back end. It was four goals, fastest four goals scored in franchise history.

So there's that little notch.

Was it on four shots to the first four shots of the first period?

I believe so. But I would have to fact check.

At one point, Sam Montbo had a 0% save percentage. It might have been the first two, maybe two.

I don't think it was the first four, but I do think it maybe six or something. Four goals on six shots or some, something around there. I'd have to fact check that.

But it was also the most defenseman to score in a game in Kraken hockey history. So that's very exciting. But what did you see from them that was allowing them to generate offense from the back end like that?

I mean, you don't really see darts from the blue line just going in as often.

Yeah, it seemed like Montreal was struggling from the net all the way out in that game. And you know, Sam Montba didn't look great, but he wasn't getting a lot of support from his defensemen or his forwards as well.

And Seattle took advantage of that with not just putting the puck on that, having that shoot first mentality, but their, their, their quick break, fast Break offense was taking advantage of that kind of broken Montreal defense a little bit and they weren't able to keep up. So was not surprised at the outcome based on the struggle that Montreal was clearly going through.

Yeah, definitely.

It's one of those things where when you look at a result like that where it's 8 to 2, it's like how much of this is the cracking playing the best hockey of their lives or Montreal giving them way too much. They should have been probably moments of a little bit of both. But Montreal wasn't they. I mean, they weren't given much pushback.

They hit a couple of posts and you know, J.T. brown and I were talking about that what happens if they score on those versus hitting the post? Is it still an 82 hockey game?

So when you look back over 60 minutes, sometimes you think, what if, how would that have changed the outcome? But yeah, 82 didn't really seem representative of what you would expect in games against other more high powered teams.

Definitely. And with that in mind, before the Toronto game, I asked head coach Dan Bilesma what he kind of takes away from the game, given that context.

You know, you score eight goals, but what are the lessons while you're trying to turn the page? And this is what he had to say.

But the message really is like how we got those goals is what we want to keep trying to do to keep this thing going, to keep scoring goals going. And you know, the benefit of getting those eight goals is they came and they came in positive ways.

They weren't, you know, fluke offs, they weren't once overs. They came because of certain reasons. And how we're trying to, and how we're trying to execute and we want to.

They say you can't take goals with you, but you can take the. How you got them and how you played with you. And that's what we're trying to bring to tonight's game.

Well, speaking of tonight's game, the one that he's referring to in that sound bite was the game against Toronto. It was a 3:1 loss. It's kind of fresh on the mind. Al, as we record, what did you think of the way the Kraken played? Positives and negatives?

Well, two very different first periods. Montreal, obviously, we just spoke about Toronto. You're down a goal after the first period, you're 0 and 1 on the, on the, on the power play.

You just weren't able to get any offensive production. So two very different first periods. I think how the goals were scored in Toronto against Seattle was a little frustrating.

A set play at the end of the period off of a face off, and then two defensive breakdowns leading to William Nylander goals where you were a little bit too focused on the puck and not Nylander kind of hanging out behind you.

Well, and also the guys talking with the guys after the game, too, they felt like if you look at the shot count, it seems like, oh, well, that maybe could have been enough.

But they didn't feel like they were getting inside, they weren't getting traffic, they weren't getting the kind of quality that they really needed to beat the Leafs.

And it seemed like Toronto maybe was anticipating that fast break style of hockey that Seattle likes to play in, that if There was a 50, 50 battle and Kraken players started leaning a little too quickly to the far blue line looking for that offense. If Toronto came up with a puck, they knew they were going to have guys behind them open.

And like I said, two of the three goals were scored just like that.

Well, at least Ellie Tolvinen was able to get the Kraken on the board late in the third period. Pulling the goalie with, with six minutes left.

That's something that I asked Coach Bowsma about as well, is like, how has your philosophy evolved on pulling the goalie? At what point? And he was like, well, the numbers. The numbers say that the sooner you pull it, if you need that goal, the better chances you have.

And it did work. It just wasn't enough.

Yeah, that was a little frustrating. I'm always nice to see Tolvin and get that goal, though.

Yeah.

Always a fan of pulling the goalie early, especially, you know, when, I guess it was Patrick Waugh, when he was first started coaching the Avalanche, you saw, you know, the numbers start creeping up to five minutes left, six minutes left, and now it's become just so much more common that it's not even really a thing. You know, it used to be two minutes. At two minutes, you pull your goalie right, and it's just. It keeps going up. And I love it. I love the chaos of it.

The first time I saw it happen was doing color commentating with The Everett Silvertips 15 years ago, where it was Kevin Constantine and he would pull the goaltender down by two goals with five minutes left. And I remember the first time I saw it looking down, going, what's happening right now? What is happening? He's going to lose his job.

Of course, if they do get that goal in the first couple of minutes, you kind of reset and go, okay, now we have three and a half minutes to get that tying goal. So, yeah, it's definitely a part of the playbook now.

Yeah, well, and it did, it did work, but just not quite enough. But at least, at least Ellie was able to get. To get one there and break a potential shutout.

Yeah, 100%.

That's good stuff. So those are the first two games of the trip that we're on now. But there was an entire homestand since our last recording.

We don't want to go through every single game because that would just be a lot of games that are, you know, the moment has passed a little bit, but we thought we'd do a quick little recap on that. So it was a five game homestand. The Kraken earned five of 10 available points. Big win over the Flyers, which, that.

I felt like that one was really promising because it was right after that Nashville win where they scored a ton of goals and then they played the Flyers and they score a ton of goals. But again, I don't know that the Flyers were executing at their best either. And they were playing a little bit of frustrated hockey in that one.

Yeah, I think over the five game stand too, there were lessons in each of the game. And you know, you mentioned the Flyer game to me.

One of the lessons that came out of that was the closing out of games in terms of not giving the other team a sniff. But I think Seattle gave Philadelphia a little bit of a sniff there. Late, late. And obviously pulled out the win.

But maybe they took that lesson and applied it in Montreal to an 82 game, not letting Montreal get back into it. So I think Carolina, there was a bit of a lesson lesson there.

And hey, when you face a team that clogs up your neutral zone, you're going to have to come up with another way to get into the offensive zone besides the way you've been doing it against other teams. So lessons along the way, even though some of those games resulted in wins.

Yeah, that, that Carolina game, that was the playbook of how the Hurricanes want to play hockey. They did everything as advertised. When you talk about Carolina, Hurricane, hockey, hockey game, that was exactly how they want to play.

And clearly that was too much of a task that evening for the Kraken, but definitely a good lesson there.

The Winnipeg game, I thought they had a chance to win it. They played well enough to win that game, so. So I was happy with the effort despite the outcome.

Yeah, so. So the Carolina game was a 4-1 loss, in case you missed that one. But yeah, the Winnipeg game.

So the jets came in undefeated and unfortunately the Kraken were not able to defeat them, but they did take them to overtime. So it was a 3, 2 loss, no T. But one big bright spot from that Winnipeg game was Maddie Beniers getting his first goal and second goal of the season.

Al, what have you thought about kind of his game this season so far? A lot of people were expecting, you know, this a bounce back perhaps with that new contract. And how would you evaluate where he's at?

Well, I think because of the down year last year, everybody's expecting him to come out of the gate with big games right away. And it took him some time to get to get on the score sheet, at least on the G side. And those were two big goals for him.

One being a great shot from the top of the circles, the other being a great deflection. Two goals that a guy like Matty, Matty Beniers

needs to think about scoring every single game.

Yeah, it's nice to get breakaways and stuff, but in the end I think it's going to be his shot and deflections are going to be two of the most common ones. Yeah, you might come through the slot once in a while and pick up a rebound or get those breakaways.

But I think what Matty is realizing is that his work in the offensive corners leading to the front of the net are going to result in goals much more often than just his straight out speed.

And since they put him back together with Jared McCann and Jordan Eberle, because we've seen almost every line combination I think that we could see from this forward group so far this season. But they put that line back together and they've definitely been, in terms of production, the best line for the Kraken when they've been.

When that Trio is.

Yeah, 100%. 100%. And I think that that's what you're trying to do with a guy like Matty Beniers is hope that Eberle and McCann can help unlock him as well.

And then you have three guys all at the top of their game.

Another game that I want to touch on really Quick was the 2 to 1 win over the Calgary Flames. That was an overtime win, but it was the first time that the cracking of beat Calgary at home and it ended their undefeated season.

So it was a bit of a. Bit of a grind of a game. That Calgary game, maybe not the most fun one to watch.

And you know, I hate to be a downer about a win, but a little bit of a bummer to give a Pacific Division opponent a point in that matchup, but still they get the extra one. And good to see the, you know, OT work out for them as well and sort that out.

I think. I think winning at home against Calgary, the OT win big.

And I think another theme, a common thread over all the games, but specifically I remember with that Calgary game was the play of the fourth line for Seattle. Car Chan of Engor. They've brought energy to every single game. And Fitz and I talked about this in the broadcast last night.

There are just some stats that you just don't see tracked. Like goals and assists are tracked, like, you know, drawing penalties and things like that. Yeah, block shots are one. But sometimes it's.

It's just the little things that happen behind the play that that line does so well that you could see in that home stand that the fourth line was having a big impact on the outcome of the games.

There's no analytic for momentum. Right, right.

And hockey or energy, you know.

Absolutely.

And speaking of that, Toronto, the Toronto game, when I talked to Ellie Tolvin at the first intermission, it was unfortunately right after that set play goal against. But when I asked him what he did like about how they played in that first period, he. That's what he said. He said Gordo's line.

He was like, I think that they're our best line right now, and they're. They're giving us the juice. So that seems to be a consistent theme that the players really feel and appreciate as well.

Yeah, they all play very physical, lots of high energy. Tie car Ch. Shea has realized that hitting has to be a part of his game. I think he had.

Well, last time I looked in the Toronto game, he had seven, and I think he was showing third in the league for hits so far this season. So, you know, he's.

He's getting himself into some rarefied air for the way he plays, but I think that that whole line plays that way, and it can make a huge impact on the outcome.

And then last but not least, the one game that we haven't touched on yet of the home stand was a 32 loss to the Avalanche.

It's been a tough go for the ABs at the beginning of the season, so I know that the guys were definitely expecting Colorado to be playing some desperate hockey and be bringing their best. Grant, I know that you are historically a longtime Avalanche fans. I figured I would check in with you on how you felt about that one.

Yeah, I mean, former ABS fan.

I'll say there. So the, the thing that really stood out to me was Cale Makar in that game. He looked like a man possessed on the ice out there.

And I think he is absolutely.

The reason that they won that night is it was just the Kraken could not seem to contain him the way that, you know, during the playoff series that, you know, the Kraken won against the Avalanche, that they really seem to be able to really, you know, keep Makar off the score sheet. And that just wasn't the case that night. The, the crowd booing Makar is probably incredible.

Not to be petty, but to be petty.

Time does not heal all wounds, does it?

Rivalries are fun that way. And that's what, that's what playoff series do is they.

Is they give you those fun rivalries and those fun reasons for fans to get a little more involved. And, you know, it's just a little, a little bit of fun. You know, I don't think it's anything Makar cares about, but for the fans, it's.

It's another reason to come to the game.

Definitely.

Yeah. And I would add to that, too.

Not just Makar, but Nathan MacKinnon, just, just a force on the ice that can be a game breaker, if you will, much in the same way that Connor McDavid can. So, yeah, honestly, I look forward to the end of this road trip, stopping by Denver on our way home.

That's what I was just going to say.

I was like, well, at the time of recording this and maybe depending on when you are listening to this, there may be another Colorado game for you to sink your teeth into. But yes. So we have a back to back Ottawa, Boston and then to Colorado just to round this trip out.

Because that geographically is what everybody thought made sense with this road trip.

Yeah.

So we'll see the AVs in due time.

Very nice.

So while the Kraken voyage on, be sure to join us on the Kraken Hockey Network or on the Kraken Audio Network with Al and Fitz for radio coverage. But for now, we turn to our community compass. Well, November is, Of course, the NHL's Hockey Fights Cancer Month.

This is an initiative that has always been very important to the National Hockey League as well as to your Seattle Kraken as well. So the Krakens Hockey Fights Cancer night is on November 20th versus the Nashville Predators.

There is a Hockey Fights Cancer beanie giveaway that night as well, presented by Virginia Mason, Franciscan Health. So that is always a night of a lot of great storytelling and honoring survivors and fighters of cancer. So looking towards that.

And then on November 12th is Military Appreciation Night versus the Columbus Blue Jackets.

But let me tell you, Grant, if there is one thing that I am very much looking forward to in the month of November, it is Buoy Bobblehead night, presented by Alaska airlines. That's on November 27th versus the duck. So it's a little bit of a while away, but Buoy bobblehead. This is the bobblehead made for me personally.

Oh, yeah.

I love Bowie.

It is. I haven't seen this one yet. I have no idea what it looks like. I don't know if you have either.

Usually we kind of get a little preview of what the bobbleheads are going to look like, but they've kept this one under wraps, even in the office. So very, very excited to see what. What pose they have for Bowie.

Yeah, I like. I like anything Buoy related. I know he's controversial for some. Not around these parts, I imagine. But I still love Buoy and I don't care.

I like that he's the way he is. Oh, yeah. Moving along in our community compass, we want to highlight a hero of the deep on this episode.

So for that, I'm going to hand it over to you, Grant.

Thank you. At every Kraken home game, the Kraken recognize a hero of the deep, which you've all probably seen.

The in arena presentation is something we have, but for the folks that don't come to the game, we wanted to share some of those stories of these incredible heroes on our show as well. On this episode, we're going to salute Chris Adams.

After being diagnosed with Crohn's disease at age 13, Chris found inspiration when he learned that his favorite guitarist, Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, also had Crohn's.

Over the last 21 years, Chris has run 36 half marathons, organized benefit concerts, helped create Camp Oasis, which serves thousands of kids, and helped raise awareness and funds for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation. Chris has impacted patient support and helped bring in over $2 million. Find a cure. And the Kraken Unity fund has donated $32,000 in his honor.

So the Kraken Unity Fund that donates that money was created in part by the One Roof Foundation.

And obviously their work is at the heart of really everything that this organization stands for when it comes to having that focus on making an impact in the community. So I did also want to take a moment to highlight a couple things, just like a quick thing with the One Roof Foundation. As well.

So the three pillars of the One Roof foundation are access to play, youth, homelessness, and environmental justice. So those are their three focuses of their work.

And one of those, one of the programs with those kind of pillars in mind that they're very proud of, as they should be, that is really having a great impact is the REWA program.

So the Kraken kicked off their third year of their REWA program program, which is a partnership with the Refugee Women's alliance, to get kiddos that, you know, might not otherwise have access or the financial ability to get on the ice, to try hockey, to try figure skating. So it's an opportunity to teach them how to skate, get them, get them on the ice, you know, just get, get them out there.

So it's a 32 week program and it's a really nice, strong foundation for kids to just start to build a love of being at the rink, being around the game, or even, you know, figures skating. So stick taps to all those kiddos in the REWAB program and to the third season of it as well.

Absolutely.

And you can go to OneRoofFoundation.org to learn more about One Roof and all the different programs that they have going on around the state and beyond right now.

All right, well, to wrap things up for our first Kraken road trip episode of Signals from the Deep, I figured that I would conduct a few raw, unfiltered, more casual interviews with some of the guys about what life for them is like on the road. So we have had some listener questions as well. We had one that was about the story of Tye Cartier's jersey number change.

So I did throw that in for Tye as well. So without further ado, please enjoy some commentary from Tye Cartier, Andre Burkovsky, and Brandon Tanev.

So starting with this, Tye, obviously when you're on the road, you have different kind of acc to, like, resources.

How does your preparation and your priorities when it comes to taking care of yourself and getting ready for the game vary when you're on the road versus at home?

I think the goal is not to try to change things too much. The staff does a really great job of bringing everything that we have on at home on the road.

So it's pretty easy when you have all the access to everything to keep it the same.

What about when it comes to, like, sleep and, like, food and what you're kind of eating versus versus, you know, when you're at home maybe cooking more meals yourself?

Yeah, food's definitely different. My girlfriend cooks a lot for Me at home, so I really like the home cooked meals.

And obviously on the road you're going out so you know, just trying to keep as healthy as you can while still enjoying yourself.

Do you have a favorite road city for food or vibes or shopping, entertainment?

I don't know. I've always really liked Dallas with that Nick and Sam's restaurant down the street from the hotel.

We always go there and whenever somebody asks me that question, that's always, I always stay there. That's my go to.

It's very walkable over there and usually warm.

Yeah, and sunny too.

What about. Obviously when you're coming in as the visiting team, the buildings can be hostile. People are not there to cheer you on necessarily.

But are there any buildings that are fun to come in even as the visit team and play?

Yeah, you know, all the buildings that you kind of grew up watching teams play. So for me it would be Toronto here was really cool last year.

And then places that you don't know where they have like the traditions and stuff, like Chicago, how they do the anthem I thought was really cool last year. So kind of seeing all the places like that that you've never really been.

To, what's the best way to spend an off day on the road? No practice.

Definitely sleeping in and then probably just going out to lunch with some of the boys and hanging out and then just relaxing. Maybe nap, a lot of sleep.

How do you like to kill time on the plane?

I'm either watching movies or I'm sleeping. It's kind of one of the two.

Comedies or like movies you've seen or do you watch new ones?

No, actually I hate watching movies twice.

Oh, I'm kind of the same way, honestly.

Yeah, I don't like watching movies twice. I don't like to know what's coming.

I don't know.

I like, I like thrillers and kind of stuff like that. Comedies too, on the plane is always good. But I'm not really too picky with movies.

If you had to pick a teammate that you had to bunk with for a long road trip, you had to share a room, who would you pick?

Uh, oh, probably. Probably Rach. I mean we did done it before.

I'm sure that has nothing to do with the fact that he's sitting right here looking at you.

No?

Nothing.

I also have a question from one of our podcast listeners here. A season ticket member asked us, what was the story behind your number changed this year?

Honestly, it's not that much of a story. I kind of was just always 12 growing up since I was really young.

So when I had the opportunity to change to 12, I was 12 in the American League, 12 in junior, 12 growing up. So I thought, might as well just do it again.

Definitely. Well, Tye, thank you for doing this.

Thank you. See you later.

So life on the road is obviously different at home when it comes to actually playing. How do your priorities shift when it comes to taking care of kind of your body and your preparation when you're on the road versus at home?

No, obviously on the road, you can. You can rest up a little more. Kind of spending as much time as possible to just relax and be in your room and just take it easy.

It's kind of what I do. Head home, it's a little bit more play with my daughter and hang out with Johanna at home.

And so on the road, it's a little bit more just relaxed time and a little bit more my own time.

What's the best city on the road for, like, food, shopping, vibes?

There's a lot of good ones, I think, like, obviously, New York is pretty good. I don't care so much about, like, the city. I care about more how good the hotel is. If it's a nice hotel.

I just like to just stay there as much as possible and just relax.

What about the building? Obviously, when you're coming in as the visiting team, it can be kind of a hostile environment.

But are there any buildings that are kind of fun to play in as the visiting team?

I think every. Most of the buildings are a lot of fun. Montreal here, it's a very fun one. It's a pretty big rink with a lot of fans, and it's pretty loud.

Yeah, Montreal is definitely one of the best, I think.

How do you like to kill time on the plane?

We play. We play games. Me, Jani, Borgi and Maddie, we. We're playing a board game.

Super talk.

Super talk. Yeah, we're competing. So the flights, they go by pretty quick when we play.

Are you good at it? We've talked to Jani about it a little bit on the podcast.

Yeah, I'm pretty. I'm all right. Yanni think he invented a rule so he always has something to complain about.

If you had to bunk with one teammate on the road, if you had to share a room with one of your teammates, who would you pick?

I would pick Schwartzie. We bunked together in the preseason when we went on a golfing trip to Gossett Ranch, and we. We. We're bunking out of there. It was nice.

He had A cute pajamas.

Cute pajamas, yeah. What were they? If you could share.

Oh, yeah.

Like a set?

Yeah, he has a full set and he has a lot of them. He always brings extra on the road, and I've tried it, man. Very nice.

Oh, all right. Very professional. All right. Thank you, Andre.

Thank you.

So when you are playing on the road, how does your kind of priorities and your preparation vary versus when you're at home?

I mean, I don't think it necessarily changes.

I mean, obviously not at home, different environment, but you're still around the same group of guys excited to come to the rink, and your routine and what you do stays the same. So necessarily, I don't think anything changes except maybe being in a different setting or city.

What about for, like, your food and your sleep and kind of prioritizing those things?

Yeah, time change sometimes happens, especially when we're on the east coast, like this road trip, but for the most part, food with the guys, you know, try to stick to what you know or what you like.

You know, you've been to the same cities kind of, you know, throughout the years, so you kind of know and have an understanding of where you want to eat dinner or where you want to be.

So I think, you know, as you go to different cities, you get an understanding of that, and I think more or less, things kind of stick to the same thing.

I know that you're a foodie. Do you have a favorite road city for food and entertainment or shopping?

I mean, New York City is tough to beat.

That's a good point.

It has kind of everything you need, but, I mean, every city offers something really unique and different, so it's great to be able to experience that.

What about when you are the visiting team coming into these buildings? Is there a particular arena that you like to play in, even when you are maybe not the person with a whole bunch of fans in the building?

I mean, you know, tomorrow night will be a great, you know, one. Montreal is always a fun place to play.

I think anytime you're playing against, you know, original six teams or teams that, you know, their fans are great, you know, for me, you know, always going back home to Toronto is nice. That's one of those special moments.

But I think for the most part, we've got great fans across the league, so it's nice and exciting to play in different buildings.

Other than Toronto, what cities do, kind of like your friends or family or people in your life like to come watch you playing?

Buffalo's pretty close to home, so that's an easy One. I've got some friends from college back in Boston, in New York, so it's nice to see them when we're out East.

Always nice to play against my brother and, you know, my old college roommate plays for Calgary, so it's nice to go out and see him and play against him.

How do you like to kill time on the plane?

We play cards.

Any particular game that you like?

It's called 13 up. 13, 13 down. Wow.

Very topical for you, number 13.

Yeah, it's a trump game. So a lot of fun, a lot of arguments, but it's all in good fun.

If you had to pick one teammate to room with, if you had to bunk with someone for a long trip, who would you pick?

Maybe Vince Dunn.

Any reason behind that? Just a good vibe. Yeah.

I think Dunner and I both get along pretty well and know each other, so it's one of those things where it could work or it might not.

All right, thank you, Brandon.

Yeah.

Oh, man, there's so much to digest. There's so much to digest in there. Grant, I need to start with your knee jerk reaction.

What stood out to you about what we just learned from these guys?

Pajamas.

I need to say there's only one right answer here.

Yeah, the. The idea that. That multiple sets of pajamas are coming on the road is.

And I assume it's to share with others, or is it, you know, what is my mood tonight that. That dictates what kind of pajamas I'm wearing? I mean, that is. I. I have so many questions about, you know, the pajamas on the road.

Are they silk? Are they flannel? What's the pattern, you guys?

It's just. That is such a good example of what, like, talking to Burky is like, because every time I'm talking to him, I'm like, wait, what did you just say?

But, like, it's not the point of the conversation. So, like, you need to keep it moving. But you're like, wait, what? You know, and there's just always something.

It's like, I shared on the broadcast earlier this year this story about Burky. Oh, no, we shared it on the podcast as well, about Burky, quote, unquote, actually showing up to Jared's wedding.

And I'm like, what do you mean he actually showed up? But it's like, it's just such a good encapsulation of his energies.

Yeah.

Such a silly goose sometimes. But, yeah, we need to ask Jaden about the pajamas, because I guess they're very nice and he's got Full sets, right?

Exactly, exactly.

Yeah. Well, anyway, you know, just Burky being Burky and Tye just getting to have his number. So that is why he's now 12.

And Ryker giving him the stink eye when asked about his roommate too. 10ft away from him when Piper was talking to him. Yeah, that's answer better be me.

Yeah, Al was actually standing very nearby while I was talking to Tye and Ryker, like came in and he was, yeah, like three stalls down and he was just glaring at Tye.

Love that of that.

Yeah, yeah, it was good. All right, well, Al, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for doing this. It was such a pleasure to have you and get your insights, so.

Especially in the middle of a very busy road trip.

Yes, well, this was a nice break.

Well, I'm glad that I could take up your time on your off day with this, but thank you. You're the best.

Thank you.

Thanks, Al.

And thank you to all of you out there listening as well. Sending us tweets and questions and comments. It means a lot and you know, we put a lot of heart and a lot of effort into this podcast.

So thank you so much for listening. If you haven't already, share it with a friend to leave us a review on Apple podcasts. Perhaps maybe a five star rating if you are so inclined.

It would mean a lot to us and maybe even to the other Kraken fans in your life if you send this their way. So, Grant, do you have any last words before we terminate our signal, if you will?

I love it. Just one quick note.

As far as programming and producers producing goes, we are now on YouTube and YouTube Music, thanks to a wonderful suggestion from a fan. So that is a new place to catch our signals from the deep.

I love it. All right, everyone, thank you for listening. Fight on. Be well.

Go Kraken.

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