For the second game in a row, the Seattle Kraken showed resiliency to battle back for a late tying goal, only to come up short in overtime, this time falling 4-3 to the Dallas Stars.
Seattle got off to a terrible start to the game but then turned it on in the second period and began their long fight to get back into it. The uphill struggle culminated with Eeli Tolvanen finding a loose puck with 21.8 seconds left on the clock and snatching the Kraken another loser point in similar fashion to Saturday’s 3-2 shootout loss to the Kings.
Tolvanen’s goal came with Joey Daccord pulled for an extra attacker. The Kraken got extended pressure after Vince Dunn kept the play alive at the blue line, and Oliver Bjorkstrand eventually got the exact same look in the top of the slot that allowed him to tie the game against Los Angeles. This time, his shot didn’t go in the net, but it did create chaos at the net front, and that eventually turned into Tolvanen’s equalizer.
“I think it’s a big point for us,” said newcomer Tomas Tatar, who scored his first goal as a Kraken. “At the end of the day, we battled back from a few breakdowns in the first period, which cost us a few goals. But then we battled back, and I think we played well. I think we deserved the point. In overtime, we hit the post, and that’s how thin is the line between winning and losing.”
The injury-ravaged Kraken suffered a couple more blows Monday, with two key players missing the third period. More on that in Takeaway #3.
Here are our Three Takeaways from a 4-3 Kraken overtime loss to the Stars.
Takeaway #1: An ugly start
Seattle’s execution in the opening 20 minutes was not good, and some bad reads by defensemen got the Kraken behind the eight ball very early in the game.
“The first period was really sloppy,” Tolvanen said. “A lot of misreads, I don’t think we were ready to play today. We gave them some odd-man rushes, 2-on-1’s, half-breakaways, that’s not a recipe against this team.”
The first shot the Kraken allowed against Daccord was a Grade-A scoring chance off a 2-on-1 rush between Matt Duchene (who had two goals and an assist on the night) and Tyler Seguin.
It started because Will Borgen pinched at the offensive-zone blue line without high support from his forwards. That led to the odd-man rush and an easy goal to get things rolling for the Stars.
Borgen was involved in the second goal against as well, although this one was a little harder to pin on the defenseman. On this one, he tried to cut off a stretch pass to Roope Hintz in the neutral zone, but the two got tangled up and fell. From his knees, Hintz was able to keep the puck moving north, and that sent Joe Pavelski and Jason Robertson on another 2-on-1. Robertson got the goal to make it 2-0.
On the second goal, we didn’t like the way all three forwards were drifting up the ice.
“We fed them with four or five real good out-numbered opportunities in the first period,” coach Dave Hakstol said. “That’s not the way you want to start in this building against this team, for sure. There were a couple of guys tonight that didn’t start on time and it leads to some of those plays.”
Takeaway #2: Tatar / Beniers / Eberle forming chemistry?
Hakstol has wasted no time in getting Tatar top-six minutes. With Jordan Eberle surprisingly missing from the Saturday game with a lower-body injury, we didn’t get to see how Hakstol would deploy the new winger with Eberle in the lineup. We thought Eberle returning could bump Tatar down, but instead, the coach put the two wingers together on a line with Matty Beniers.
It’s no secret Beniers and Eberle have struggled tremendously for the first (nearly) three months of this season. They entered Monday’s game with just seven combined goals through 32 games, but both looked more dynamic against Dallas, skating on a line with Tatar.
Beniers ended up with a goal and an assist and also had two good looks in overtime that he created all by himself. The first was the one Tatar mentioned earlier that rang off the post, and the second was a wraparound that Scott Wedgewood just barely caught up with in time to thwart Beniers.
“There was a little instant chemistry there,” Hakstol said. “And between those three guys [with] Ebs, what you saw tonight is Matty playing with some speed and his linemates being able to find him with some of that speed from underneath… They had a good night. They worked hard, they generated some offense.”
Both goals scored by the line came off 2-on-1 rushes. Beniers perfectly executed the “pass off the pad” play 30 seconds into the second period, giving Tatar a prime rebound opportunity that he just squeezed through Wedgewood.
Later in the second, Tatar went for a home run pass that got partially intercepted, but Eberle stole it back and slid it to Beniers. Matty showed some of the finish that has been lacking throughout the season and scored his first goal since Nov. 28.
“He’s a very smart centerman,” Tatar said of Beniers. “He can distribute the puck, Ebs helped us a lot today. I think us three, we were close, supporting each other, and that was a lot of fun to play with those two.”
While Beniers and Eberle seemed to enjoy playing with Tatar, he too has looked good since joining Seattle. Interestingly, it took him 26 games to score his first goal as an Avalanche this season but only two games to score his first goal as a Kraken.
Takeaway #3: McCann and Bellemare injured
For a team that is already without Andre Burakovsky, Jaden Schwartz, and Philipp Grubauer, and a team that just had Eberle miss a game, and a team that has seen Brandon Tanev miss significant time, the last thing the Kraken wanted to see was injuries to two more players on Monday.
But neither Pierre-Edouard Bellemare nor top goal scorer, Jared McCann, played in the third period, both suffering lower-body injuries.
The Bellemare injury happened on this shot block on Thomas Harley:
The McCann injury is a bit more mysterious. He was out for a power play with a few minutes left in the second period and looked like himself. He took one little cross check before leaving the ice, but it didn’t look like much. There really was nothing obvious in the shift that screamed “injury” to us.
After the game, Hakstol didn’t give much of an update on either, but he did say this about Bellemare: “Lower-body, again, not available [for the rest of the game]. We know a little bit more there [than on the McCann injury], but we just want to make sure we get it right before we disclose what it is. Looks like [Bellemare] might be a little bit longer period of time.”
So, if we’re correctly reading between the lines there, it indicates to us Hakstol thinks Bellemare’s injury is somewhat serious and will cause him to be out for a while, whereas McCann’s doesn’t sound as significant. Still, the Kraken can’t afford any more injuries, and especially not to their top goal scorer.
Bonus Takeaway: A “learning” moment for Ryker Evans
We have loved the play of Ryker Evans since he got called up on Dec. 5, but we would have liked to see him play the game-winning goal a bit differently. He stuck right with Harley to the far post, but with Harley a left shot and Evans positioned on his right, there wasn’t much he could do to take Harley’s stick away. Evans should have gotten to the other side of Harley and gotten underneath him to lift his stick.
“[Harley] was able to get his stick down and get it available,” Hakstol said. “And in those situations, the guy passing the puck—in that case, Duchene—is just looking for an opportunity when a stick is available on the ice. For sure, there’s a learning and a teaching moment there, and those are experiences that you have to go through.”
Indeed, these are things Evans has to pick up over time, but it’s a shame this lesson had to come on a game-winning goal.
Worth noting, the Kraken now lead the league with nine OT or shootout losses. A few more winners here and there would be swell, but we’ll take the standings point on this night. Since breaking their eight-game losing streak, the Kraken now have points in four straight.
Darren Brown
Darren Brown is the Chief Content Officer at soundofhockey.com and the host of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast. He is a member of the PHWA and is also usually SOH’s Twitter intern (but please pretend you don’t know that). Follow him @DarrenFunBrown and @sound_hockey or email darren@soundofhockey.com.
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