With a 3-0 loss to the Minnesota Wild Sunday night, the Kraken pushed their losing streak to eight games. This winless stretch is the second longest in team history, just one short of the record set during the team’s inaugural season from Dec. 15, 2021, though Jan. 15, 2022.
Sunday’s game followed a pattern now painfully familiar to Kraken fans over the last few weeks. The Kraken allowed the opponent to score first and started chasing the game. They looked competitive in stretches but ultimately couldn’t squeeze out enough offense to come back and win.
“We have to start better, and… once again, we came out tonight, chasing the game, even down by one,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “Early in the season, probably 10 of our first maybe dozen games, 10 of our first 15 games for sure, we scored first and that’s something that’s… important.”
Forward Oliver Bjorkstrand agreed: “I think it’s just the starts to the games. [We need to] come out hot and maybe get that first goal. Obviously, we struggle a bit in that area, so try to get the first one.”
Seattle’s 23 standings points through 29 games is 12 points behind the 29-game total of last year’s playoff team. And, perhaps even more revealing, it is the same exact total the team had through 29 games in its inaugural campaign.
Here are our Three Takeaways from another frustrating night for the Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena.
Takeaway #1: Kraken scoring woes continue
The Kraken were shutout at Climate Pledge Arena for the first time in more than a year. The last opponent to blank the Kraken in Seattle? The Wild.
This is not necessarily a coincidence. When the Wild are going well, which they are right now (5-2-0 in their last seven under new coach John Hynes), the team chokes off high-danger chances in the center of the ice and forces their opponents into low-danger outside looks. Minnesota’s scoring defense has been pedestrian so far this season, but shot quality metrics suggest the Wild have deserved a better fate. According to Evolving Hockey, the Wild are third best in the league in expected goals against at five-on-five (2.37 xGA/60 minutes).
The Wild defense frustrated the Kraken’s game plan, particularly through the neutral zone. And Wild goaltender Filip Gustavsson played very well.
“Credit to them, they are a good box-out team,” Adam Larsson said. “They’ve got big [defensemen] and block a lot of shots, and that’s what you have to do to win.”
Good defense or not, the Kraken offense is wandering in the darkness right now and can’t seem to find its way back to the light. Seattle has scored just six goals in its last five games, including two shutouts.
On Sunday, Seattle struggled to generate any sustained pressure five-on-five. The Kraken had just 15 shots and four high-danger shot attempts all night at even strength.
The team managed to create a push on the power play against the Wild’s league-worst penalty kill unit. In particular, the Kraken repeatedly exploited soft coverage on the goal line to generate high-danger shots and cross-slot passes. But they couldn’t get one across the line, and that may have been the decisive point in the game.
“We weren’t able to capitalize on some outstanding opportunities on the power play,” Hakstol said. “Each one of the power plays, we had some great opportunities. It felt like that kind of a night [where we needed that] against a team that defends really well five-on-five. So the opportunities five-on-five are hard to come by.”
Takeaway #2: The Kraken don’t have an answer for top Wild line
The Wild top line of Matt Boldy, Joel Eriksson Ek, and Kirill Kaprizov carved up the Kraken defense all night, generating 11 high-danger scoring chances and driving a Wild offense that generated 71.39 percent of the total shot quality when that line was on the ice.
The line’s most important contribution came at 7:14 in the first period. Boldy won a puck battle with Jared McCann in the Wild defensive zone, scanned the ice, and fed Kaprizov. Kaprizov navigated through center ice and into the Kraken zone, drew the defense to him in the middle, and fed a trailing Boldy on the left wing. Boldy walked in unchecked and beat Daccord with an elite finish.
On this night, one goal was all the Wild needed. Boldy’s highlight was the game-winner.
Takeaway #3: Mistake-riddled set breakout ices the game
Midway through the third period, Seattle was still trailing by only one goal. The Kraken needed just one bounce to go their way, and they’d find themselves in a new game.
At 12:19 in the final frame, Adam Larsson had unchallenged possession behind the Seattle net. While he paused for a moment, the Kraken orchestrated a set breakout. Unfortunately, he was not on the same page with his teammates when he launched a long pass in the direction of Yanni Gourde.
Marco Rossi pressured Larsson while Mats Zuccarello and Marcus Johansson loomed at the Kraken blue line. Gourde and linemate Eeli Tolvanen streaked up ice and past these two Minnesota forwards, leaving the Kraken outnumbered in their own end and making a stretch pass a high-risk proposition. Perhaps they expected Larsson to use the support of his defense partner Vince Dunn to advance the puck toward the neutral zone. But Larsson was looking to pass all the way, and likely expected Gourde to stop short of the forechecking pressure.
As it turns out, Larsson’s pass was easy pickings for the Wild. The turnover allowed an easy controlled zone entry and a sequence of offensive pressure the Kraken never broke. Bjorkstrand gained possession momentarily but quickly turned it over, leading to a scramble of disputed possession at the net front. Rossi corralled the puck in the slot and sent it into an empty side of the cage behind Joey Daccord at 12:34 in the third period.
“Their second goal, we made two mistakes on the breakout,” Hakstol said. “The first one was a mistake, the second one, we were under pressure and turned it over.”
These mistakes sealed Seattle’s eighth straight loss.
Curtis Isacke
Curtis is a Sound Of Hockey contributor and member of the Kraken press corps. Curtis is an attorney by day, and he has read the NHL collective bargaining agreement and bylaws so you don’t have to. He can be found analyzing the Kraken, NHL Draft, and other hockey topics on Twitter and Bluesky @deepseahockey.
Would have like to see Hakstol call a time out immediately after that second goal rather than waiting until the game is over.
Eberle gets better than a full expected goal for uselessly stuffing the puck into Gustavsson’s pads three times. Without that, the team is under two expected on the night. Ugh.
If I have to watch another Kraken defenseman stand behind the goal, wait 10 to 15 seconds to start the breakout, and then they fire a lazy pass that’s picked off or completely misses everyone for an icing… I may lose my mind.
The post highlights the Larsson giveaway last night (which was definitely the worst due to the ensuing goal), but Dunn had at least three or four of his own (three that went for icing, if I recall correctly), along with Oleksiak having at least several instances the last few games where he completely missed on passes out of the zone (although we wasn’t doing the behind-the-net breakout).
The blue line is just atrocious this year on breakout. They take way too long to decide what to do with the puck and then, invariably, make a bad pass. Yeah, the offense stinks but the blue line is basically a zero in helping to start a rush.
They need to actually play Driedger to see what he can do at the NHL level right now. If he actually turns out to be good — which is always possible, goaltending is weird — then he would be a GREAT trade chip with all the good teams (Edmonton, Toronto, Carolina, New Jersey…) desperately needing goaltending this year. And it goes without saying that they need to trade Eberle, Wennberg, Schultz, Gourde, Larsson, Dumoulin and Tanev as soon as they can get anything reasonable. And they need to send Beniers back to the AHL to find his confidence and his game. Their odds of making the playoffs this year according to the Athletic are down to 5 percent. It’s over. This year and likely next year are a total write-off, they need to continue building toward a contention window 2-3 years from now. If they don’t, and just keep making tiny moves, they’ll just keep wavering between mediocre and terrible indefinitely. It’s painful to say as a season ticket holder because it means watching many losses for the next 1.5 years minimum, but with the reality of the way this roster and the league rules are set up, it’s just the right move.
Moving Gourde is especially urgent. Yeah they have him signed for next year too, but he is in decline and I’m worried that decline is steepening. He still plays incredibly hard every night but he’s just lost a couple steps this year. He still has a great reputation, and he’s considered a great “playoffs-type” player, but to my eyes his line’s relative success this year is being driven mostly by Bjorkstrand and Tolvanen. They should trade him ASAP before the league notices.