A big game and a big road trip ended Thursday with a big thud in Edmonton. The road-weary and still unwell Kraken are thankful to be back home after their longest journey of the season, but the second half of the trip left fans, players, and coaches alike feeling disappointed.
“As you get into these trips, obviously, [3-3-0] is not what we wanted,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “You get one of these last games, either in New York or tonight, and you walk away feeling like it’s a really successful, good road trip. But we weren’t able to do that, and that’s disappointing.”
Alas, after winning the first three games of the jaunt, Seattle got sick and hurt and went from a nine-game win streak to a three game losing streak.
Here are our Three Takeaways from a 4-2 Kraken loss to the Oilers.
Takeaway #1: Good start, but then…
We were convinced after the first period that Seattle was going to run away with that game and that the Oilers’ 11-game win streak would come to an end.
Seattle jumped out to an early 2-0 lead, taking advantage of poor transitional defense from Edmonton and converting with pretty goals by Eeli Tolvanen and Jared McCann.
The McCann goal, especially, was a quick-strike banger created by tic-tac-toe passing from Yanni Gourde to Jordan Eberle to McCann, who finished with a perfect shot into the very top corner of the net for the second consecutive game. While the team has floundered the last few games, Seattle’s top goal scorer is heating up.
There were also a couple missed opportunities, which we will discuss in Takeaway #2, but once the second period got underway, the game went sideways.
“The first 20 was good,” Hakstol said. “The first 10 minutes of the second period is what would cost us. We weren’t as sharp as we needed to be and gave up too much in that time, so we had to push back after that. But we weren’t able to capitalize on what was a good start.”
By the 8:00 mark of the second, Warren Foegele had scored twice, Leon Draisaitl had banked one in off Joey Daccord on the power play, and suddenly the Kraken had gone from being in the driver’s seat to chasing the game.
“We gave them too much,” McCann said. “We’ve just got to realize that sometimes you’ve just got to play D, and especially against a team like that. So, it’s a learning experience for us.”
Hakstol called a timeout to settle things down, but Seattle was never able to tilt the ice back in its favor, and high-flying Edmonton rolled to its 12th consecutive win.
Takeaway #2: Missed chances
There were two key plays at the offensive end of the ice that stand out as killers for the Kraken’s momentum in this game. The first came at the end of the opening period, when Brandon Tanev had a breakaway opportunity, Seattle’s third such rush of the frame. With a chance to send Seattle to the room with a 3-0 lead, Tanev flubbed the shot and missed wide, which kept the game within reach for Edmonton.
Then in the second period, with Seattle trailing 3-2, Daccord showed off his incredible puck-handling abilities for the umpteenth time and hit Alex Wennberg in stride at the far blue line with a perfect stretch pass, catching the Oilers in a line change.
Wennberg glided in and scored, but a challenge showed Kailer Yamamoto—making a line change of his own and completely uninvolved in the play—had inadvertently drifted over the blue line ahead of the puck. Edmonton won the challenge and negated the tying goal.
It’s not in the spirit of the offside rule to negate a goal because a guy on the opposite side of the ice is not paying attention, but the rule is the rule, and Yamamoto made a bad mistake there. There’s no reason for him to cross the blue line to exit the ice; he just has to be more aware of his surroundings in that scenario.
Of course, there are no guarantees Seattle would have come away with a win had Tanev scored or Yamamoto stayed onside, but those were crushing mishaps in retrospect.
Takeaway #3: Tough way to end the trip
This game was always going to be an uphill battle for the Kraken, who we knew were still dealing with injuries and illnesses coming in to face the hottest team in the NHL. We also knew Seattle was closing out a dreadfully long two-week, six-game trip, with an odd stopover in Edmonton after spending 12 days on the East Coast, and the players were surely looking forward to getting home to their loved ones and their own beds.
But this was also a huge game against a divisional rival that the Kraken needed to win to come home feeling positively about the trip. Instead, they let an early two-goal lead evaporate in a matter of minutes, and they came home with an uninspiring 3-3-0 record.
Now, there are two pieces of good news for the Kraken. 1.) The team is getting marginally healthier. Andre Burakovsky returned and played 14:16, though he was -1 on the night and did not register a shot on goal. Our friend, Piper Shaw also reported that Vince Dunn skated separately from the team Thursday morning, so hopefully he too is on the mend. 2.) Seattle finally gets a day fully off and at home Friday to recuperate.
“We’ve got to get home,” Hakstol said. “We don’t have a lot of time, but we get a day off [Friday], and we’ll try to get some bodies healed up and feeling better. And then we have to get back at it at home.”
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.
I really liked what I saw from Evan’s he was without a doubt the best of the defense creating offense and played defense very well often matched up against the best offensive player in the world. Great performance for a rookie. I have to say I was very disappointed that he was getting second line pp time and really was getting around 30 seconds of pp time when he was running the pp much better. Please trade #4 and make him a permanent kraken.
Daccord was fantastic in this game even though that stats might not show it.
Unrelated to this game did anyone else notice and find it interesting that in the letter to season ticket holders for ticket renewal there was a very nice photo of Joey Daccord? The only kraken player to have a picture in the renewal letter, I kinda feel this is an indicator of the direction they are looking.
I hate that offside review so much, I even hate it when the other team loses a goal. This one was especially ridiculous. They need to eliminate this.
Three game losing streak… I blame Grubauer…
The missing ingredient… if only the Kraken had Grubauer. That guy’s amazing… worth every penny.
Other than the three that found the net – I’m counting the overturned goal – it was a lot of “throwing the puck at the net”. Eddie O would’ve loved it if he’d been on the broadcast. I think that type of play is over… that game doesn’t lead to the playoffs anymore. It doesn’t wear on the defense and it doesn’t get past the blocks and the goaltenders anymore. There’s been a ton of talk on here about limiting “high-danger shot”… well, what’s up with relying on low-danger shots? I was happy to see Hakstol call a time out after giving up three unanswered; unfortunately, I think he used it to tell them to just start throwing pucks on net. Again, that game is over. If this team is just going to “shoot the puck”… they’re not going anywhere. They don’t position for the rebound and they don’t have the finishers to take advantage.
I can understand the logic – when you’re outmatched, luck is a better bet than skill – but just “throwing pucks at the net” sucks.
Agree. Their xG-for has been in the 2s most nights for a while now. Getting great goaltending and playing good defense has kept them afloat, but they no longer have the meteoric shooting% to prop up their offensive numbers. Need to change the strategy.
Fine line between throwing pucks on net and taking a poorly timed and executed shot. Pucks on net… yes if we can get traffic to the net to make it challenging. It’s like the dump and chase, doesn’t work if it’s a dump and watch.