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DALLAS -- Philipp Grubauer was having a tough time figuring out his favorite thing about Seattle.

"There are so many," the Kraken goalie said. "The fans are incredible. You have the water, you have the mountains, the food scene is incredible. There's just so much to explore and so much to do. Summers are incredible. I love it."

He's also loving the Kraken's second season in the NHL, and why not? They made the Stanley Cup Playoffs after finishing 30th in the NHL standings during their inaugural season. They knocked off the defending Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche, Grubauer's former team, in seven games in the Western Conference First Round.

Now they're tied 1-1 in the best-of-7 second round against the Dallas Stars, and Grubauer has been a big part of getting them here.

After splitting time with Martin Jones during the regular season, Grubauer has started every game for the Kraken during the postseason, going 5-4 with a 2.74 goals-against average and .917 save percentage in nine games.

He made 33 saves in Seattle's 4-2 loss to the Stars in Game 2 at American Airlines Center on Thursday. Game 3 is at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle on Sunday (9:30 p.m. ET; TBS, TVAS, SN).

[RELATED: Complete Stars vs. Kraken series covergae]

"'Gruby' was good. He made big saves, getting us through the (penalty kills)," Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said after Game 2. "Go through the goals: I mean, he's done a nice job for our hockey team. He did that again tonight. We didn't give him enough support tonight."

Grubauer has faced 303 shots during the playoffs, the most of any goalie. The next closest is Stars goalie Jake Oettinger, who has faced 254 shots.

"We've always had a belief in him in the room and through the season. We know the kind of goalie he can be," Kraken forward Morgan Geekie said. "He's shown that in the postseason for sure. Especially Game 7 (against the Avalanche), he kept us in that game ... the whole series for that matter, but Game 7 especially when they had their push and things like that."

Yes, Grubauer was certainly familiar with the Avalanche, with whom he played from 2018-21. He said that helped, to a degree, in the first round.

"There are five or six guys that you know their tendencies, you know what they're looking for, you know their game, you've seen it, you've played with them. So obviously that helps," he said. "But just because you know it doesn't mean they're going to do it and execute those plays. So a little tricky for both sides."

In his final season with Colorado in 2020-21, Grubauer was 30-9-1 with a 1.95 GAA, .916 save percentage and seven shutouts (tied for most in the NHL with Semyon Varlamov of the New York Islanders) in 40 games (39 starts). He finished third in voting for the Vezina Trophy, awarded to the best goalie in the NHL.

When the Avalanche didn't re-sign him, the unrestricted free agent signed a six-year, $35.4 million contract ($5.9 million average annual value) with the Kraken.

Upon arriving in Seattle, Grubauer said he didn't really feel pressure, but wanted to continue where he left off in Colorado.

Philipp Grubauer Game 7 Saves

"It didn't work that way," said Grubauer, who went 18-31-5 with a 3.16 GAA, .889 save percentage and two shutouts in 55 games (54 starts) last season. "We played a different system, have different guys on the ice, right? Everybody was new, so it was a little bit different.

"The core of that team wasn't really established. It takes a couple of games to kind of settle in for everybody. Last year in terms of the last 20, 30 games, we saw the team come along and we played the right way. That made it exciting too."

This season, Grubauer went 17-14-4 with a 2.85 GAA and .895 save percentage in 39 games (36 starts). Overwhelming numbers? No, but Hakstol said not to judge Grubauer solely by them.

"He's been more consistent than all of you think," he said. "The numbers maybe don't show it, but 'Gruby' has had a pretty darn good year. His numbers are now reflecting that and showing that. So I see it a little bit differently. I see him having had a year that has ramped up toward the playoffs for sure."

Grubauer has found a home in Seattle in more ways than one. The 31-year-old believes in the Kraken, and it's been reciprocal.

"He's awesome," Geekie said. "He's kind of our rock back there so we have someone to rely on. It makes it a lot easier to play when you know you have someone reliable back there you can count on."

Syd Suntha knows a thing or two about stunts. The chef behind the Sri Lankan food truck Kottu, he’s probably most famous as the guy who put together the 36-course Wu Tang dinner, which went viral for fairly obvious reasons. After that event, which Suntha calls “the wildest ride of my life,” he’s slowing down — oh no, wait, we’re being told that he actually runs an I Think You Should Leave–themed dinner series, and is holding his second I Think You Should Eat event Friday, June 2, at Madame Lou’s.

If you don’t know about ITYSL this article probably isn’t really “for” you, sorry. Here are some other good articles. It’s the show where Tim Robinson plays a variety of different angry guys trying to navigate absurdist, dreamlike sketches. Famous bits include Bob Odenkirk lying to a child about his classic car collection, corpses falling out of coffins, and a pair of men who will replace your toilet bowl with one with a tiny hole that can only suck down farts. It’s an “if you get it, you get it” sort of show, and if you don’t get it, you probably are confused about why people love to post the hot dog “we’re all trying to find the guy who did this” response meme online.

ITYSL is not really a food-centric show, but there are enough food references to build a menu out of. For the previous I Think You Should Eat dinner, held last year, Suntha and his co-conspirators made inside jokes like room-temperature gazpacho, “chicken spaghetti” (chicken formed into spaghetti-like strands), and of course, sloppy steaks, which involved a version of demi-glace that became saucy when water was poured over the meat.

Sloppy steaks are back on the menu this time around, as well as a dish referencing a big baby duck getting his head caught in a stewed tomato. Suntha is going to cook something inspired by the show’s third season — he’s not sure what yet, because the new season isn’t coming out until May 30, days before the dinner. He’ll be joined by chefs Demond Thomas, Cara Nado Bannwarth, and Nate Fieldson. Jessica Dobson of Deep Sea Diver is going to be performing some songs from the show, and there will be flash tattoos, among other activities. The event is 21-plus, and you can say whatever the hell you want.

To buy tickets, go here. They cost $100, but you’re getting some quality food — this is a joke, but Suntha takes food seriously. “We come from fine dining,” he says. “So we won’t put it out if it tastes like shit.”

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A two-story canopy path lined with treetops where endangered Matschie’s tree kangaroos and red pandas will make their home is coming to Seattle.

But you’ll have to wait until 2026 to explore the immersive forest at the Woodland Park Zoo.

Officials broke ground Thursday for the exhibit that will also feature a habitat gallery housing keas, forest reptiles and amphibians.

The Forest Trailhead Exhibit, at its core, will allow zoogoers to see up close how their everyday decisions affect endangered species, with the hope they leave inspired to take action and support conservation efforts, said Anders Brown, chair of the zoo’s board of directors.

“It’s going to remove barriers between humans and animals, and open up the extraordinary, yet quite often hidden, work of our animal care teams,” he said.

The initial phase of design and site development is expected to be completed by September and construction is set to begin next year. When the exhibit opens in 2026, it will be the first time in about a decade that the public will get the chance to get close to a tree kangaroo at Woodland Park Zoo.

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The exhibit will take over the building that formerly housed the Day and Nights exhibits, which closed in 2016 after a fire led to the massive evacuation of about 200 animals, including tortoises, lizards, amphibians and snakes.

Sixty-eight percent of the estimated $35 million cost for exhibit has been raised. The exhibit, designed by Seattle-based LMN Architects, is partly funded by the insurance settlement from the extensive fire damage, $19.5 million in Forest For All campaign contributions and $8.3 million from donations.

According to Nancy Pellegrino, former zoo board chair, the new exhibit will be the greenest and most sustainable space in the zoo, as officials plan to recycle 90% of the previous exhibit. Aside from the canopy path, the exhibit will feature a pavilion along with educational materials to inform people about conservation efforts and the communities leading them.

The exhibit, like many others at Woodland Park, aims to build an empathic relationship between people and animals, as well as a sense of coexistence with nature, President and CEO Alejandro Grajal said.

The name was chosen because it stands as the zoo’s trailhead, and a “trailhead” to its future, he said.

It will shine a light on Indigenous-led conservation efforts, as it will highlight village communities in Papua New Guinea — the real stewards of tree kangaroo conservation, said Lisa Dabek, senior director of the zoo’s Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program, which she founded in 1996.

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“I believe in my heart that zoos play a really special role in biodiversity and community-led conservation,” Dabek said.

The vision for the initiative arose after Grajal and Dabek visited Papua New Guinea.

Matschie’s tree kangaroos only live on the Huon Peninsula of northeastern Papua New Guinea, with an estimated wild population of less than 2,500, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species.

Logging, unsustainable mining practices and exploration are destroying the habitat of the animals, which play an important role in the culture and diet of the Indigenous people in the region.

Woodland Park’s existing Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program works with local communities in rural Papua New Guinea to protect the folivorous endangered animals and their home. The program helped establish the country’s first and, to date, only nationally recognized conservation area.

Red pandas, native to Nepal, Northern Myanmar and Central China, are endangered due to deforestation, among other human caused threats. The IUCN Red List endangered species classification considers them facing “a very high risk of extinction in the wild.”

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Hilary Franz, state commissioner of public lands, spoke Thursday about the importance of preserving forest lands.

“Healthy forests help us tackle climate change and strengthen communities,” Franz said in a news release shared by Woodland Park. “The future of forests is inextricably linked to ours.”

For the first time, the state forest land is down to less than 50%, Franz said. From increased wildfires to the more than 2 million acres of forest land that is dead or dying, the challenges are huge, she said, describing plans to restore 1.25 million acres of forest in Central and Eastern Washington by 2037.

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“But if we are not raising the next generation to care about it and to experience and understand it. … all the work we do, all the investments, all the policies will be for naught,” she said.

During the pandemic it became crystal-clear how important nature is for our mental and physical health, Grajal added.

The idea of creating forest as a theme in this exhibit, and how critical forests are to the well-being of humans, animals and habitats, couldn’t be more central to what Woodland Park does, he said.

Daisy Zavala Magaña: [email protected]; on Twitter: @daisyzavv. Daisy Zavala Magaña is a staff reporter for The Seattle Times.

It can be too easy for public artwork to fade to the background of the mind, to be glazed over like a smell that’s become too familiar. That’s the feeling I got as I stood looking at a mass of arms and torso perched outside of the Rainier Beach Public Library. How often have folks, in the (as I now know) 60 years since the installation of Ray Jensen’s “The Pursuit of Knowledge,” paused to think about this work or the artist who brought it to dynamic life?

Walking around the Rainier Beach area, there were a number of sculptures that caught my attention, and digging into their stories highlighted the way each of these artists worked to tie their artwork to the land and community where they reside. Whether you’ve lived in the neighborhood for years or are simply visiting, these seven sculptures should be on your list of stops as you venture around Rainier Beach. You can view these artworks in any order, but here’s a suggested path, totaling around a mile, that starts at the Detective Cookie Chess Park and ends at the Rainier Beach Urban Farm and Wetlands.

THIS CITY BLOCK: RAINIER BEACH

An afternoon at Rainier Dance Center, where people become dancers

Rainier Beach residents create ‘galvanizing moment’ for the arts

‘It has informed my worldview’: Reader memories of Rainier Beach

Rainier Beach’s city-best aquatic facility is more than just a pool

New high school could be a ‘crown jewel’ for Rainier Beach

What moving to Rainier Beach taught me about community

In this series, The Seattle Times highlights stories from across Seattle’s unique neighborhoods, a block or two at a time. This edition of This City Block focuses on Rainier Beach.

Jerald Pierce: 206-464-2549 or [email protected]; on Twitter: @TheJRPierce. Jerald Pierce is The Seattle Times arts and culture writer.

Whoa, check this out: A “groundbreaking and innovative pop-up dining experience” is coming to Seattle that, according to this email we’re quoting, will provide “an unparalleled dining experience.” Yes, they used “dining experience” twice in the same sentence, but we can’t blame them, the “playful and delicious dining adventure” they’re telling us about is pretty exciting: It’s a burger place... where the burgers are shaped like Legos.

Called Brick Burger, it’s a novelty event from the company Explore Hidden, which specializes in made-for-the-Gram experiences. This promises to be a feast for the lens, with square burgers in block-like buns and a venue filled with Lego-esque furniture. There’s also going to be a place for you to play with Legos.

This is a pretty kid-friendly event, though at a price point of $47, it’s likely going to attract a lot of adult brick artists as well as people who never really got over that infant urge to eat Lego blocks. The pop-up will run October 14 and 15. For more information and tickets, go here.

Baseball and beer go together like baseball and hot dogs or hot dogs and beer, and in recognition of this, the Mariners are offering a special ticket package for the May 25 game against the Oakland Athletics. For $34 or $44 (depending on your seats), you get admission to the game and also six drink tickets, each of which is redeemable for an eight-ounce pour at several ballpark beer stands and bars. That’s a pretty good deal, especially since T-Mobile Park serves some solid craft beers. Tickets and more info here.

Maggie Trujillo, the culinary director of la-di-da waterfront spots Aqua by El Gaucho and Aerlume, has been honored as the best fine dining chef in the country by the International Fresh Produce Association after being nominated by wholesaler Charlie’s Produce. The award highlights how a chef uses produce in their menus. “This award is especially meaningful to me because I am always inspired by the variety and abundance of locally grown produce in the Pacific Northwest and love centering my dishes around seasonal fruit and vegetables,” Trujillo says in a statement.

Local poke chain Just Poke announced this week that it was opening three new locations: one downtown, one on Mercer Island, and one in Sammamish. That brings its total number of poke shops to 27, and it’s not done yet: It plans to open eight more by the end of 2023. According to its website, upcoming expansions may include West Seattle, Olympia, and even Richmond, British Columbia.

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