Phew! The Kraken made that one harder than they needed to, but they escaped with a 4-2 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Sunday and got themselves back within two points of a playoff spot with one game left before the All-Star break. 

“We were disappointed to lose the point the other night [against St. Louis], but we came back and got the two points tonight that were critical,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “Anything less, we’d be walking out of this building tonight not feeling very good about ourselves.” 

Thanks to two goals and an assist by Jordan Eberle and a goal and an assist by Jared McCann in the first period, Seattle was able to squeak through a nerve-wracking third.

Here are our Three Takeaways from a 4-2 Kraken win over the Blue Jackets. 

Takeaway #1: Nice night for the top-line players

Since Matty Beniers got hurt the last time these two teams met, Jared McCann has been centering the top line between Tomas Tatar and Jordan Eberle and continues to do so now that Beniers is back.

That trio connected for the second goal of the game Sunday, after Tatar took advantage of a pinching Damon Severson at the defensive blue line, then hit Eberle with a stretch pass to create a 2-on-1. 

MCCANN CAN! 🚨

It started with a steal inside the D-zone blue line by Tomas Tatar, who hit Jordan Eberle with a stretch pass to spring the 2-on-1. Jared McCann with a great finish.

McCann had two goals last time these teams played each other.

2-0 #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/Z3ycLlkY31

— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) January 29, 2024

Eberle had the other two goals of the first period, both on the power play, with one of the two coming off a McCann rebound.

TWO FOR EBERLE! 🚨

Remember how we said Tarasov looks shaky? Pucks are just bouncing off him left and right.

Here, Eberle picks up the loose puck and dekes around Tarasov for the goal. Two goals and an assist in the 1st period for Eberle.

3-0 #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/rvIsav8ww4

— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) January 29, 2024

Tatar and Eberle have been great together ever since Tatar’s acquisition from Colorado, and Hakstol seems to really be liking the combination with McCann in the middle. 

“They’re continuing to produce, especially on the offensive side,” Hakstol said. “They’ve  done a pretty good job defensively, so we’ve liked the line and stayed with the line.”

In their last six games together (they’ve played seven in total, but we’re excluding that miserable 3-0 loss in Pittsburgh on Jan. 15), Eberle and McCann each have four goals and five assists, and Tatar has four points (2-2—4). 

Now, with his hot streak continuing, McCann again has 20 goals on the season after scoring 27 in 2021-22 and 40 last season. Remember, the most he had ever scored in his career prior to arriving in Seattle was 19, so he has now topped that in all three seasons with the Kraken. It’s amazing what opportunity can do for a skilled NHL player.

“[Goals] come and they go, right?” McCann said. “You’re going to be hot one minute, and the next, you’re not. I’m just trying to be as consistent as possible, whether it be… do something defensively, or… it’s not always about scoring goals.”

As for Eberle, he too has heated up nicely after a dismal start to the season in which he notched just three points in his first 12 games. The veteran forward has been producing in spurts since then and has found the scoresheet more frequently of late. 

“We need that offensive spark and production that he’s providing for us,” Hakstol said. “We would have loved to have it a couple of months ago, but we’re real happy to have it right now from him.”

Takeaway #2: Things got hairy

Here’s how the game played out: 

• First period, Kraken are in control.
• Second period, Kraken are getting a little lackadaisical, but whatever, it’s still 3-0.
• Third period, Kraken are no longer in control, and oh my God, what are they doing? They’re going to give this away, aren’t they? 

Thankfully for Kraken fans, that last bullet didn’t quite play out in full, but there was an uncomfortable familiarity to this game after Yegor Chinakhov scored his second goal of the third period at 15:58 and pulled Columbus back within one goal. 

“We kind of let the game slip away a bit,” McCann said. “We got on our heels and kind of let them take control of the game, and we can’t do that.”

Of course, this was one game after the Kraken dominated most of the second period against St. Louis and grabbed a 3-1 lead, only to fritter it away and ultimately lose 4-3 in overtime. So, alarm bells were ringing when the Blue Jackets got it to 3-2. 

“I just thought we got a little sloppy,” Eberle said. “We started to give them pucks in the middle, and they started transitioning on us with great speed. That’s a good hockey team over there. I know that obviously everyone looks at the record, but they’ve got some healthy guys who’ve had injury problems all year. And they got some guys back and they’re rolling, and we gave them an opportunity to get back in this game.”

Indeed, there were mistakes made that led to the goals, like Vince Dunn sending a stretch pass onto the tape of Severson, which eventually gave Chinakhov his first goal (comically, we could hear Dunn yell, “F***!” after he turned it over). On his second, the Kraken won a neutral-zone face-off, but then Alex Wennberg and Jamie Oleksiak seemed to both think the other was going to pick up the loose puck, and instead, Chinakhov took it, cruised to the slot, and sniped. 

Seattle got away with the letdown in the end, but Eberle was right that things needed to be tighter down the stretch of this game. 

Takeaway #3: Holding on for dear life

The last few minutes of a one-goal hockey game are always so beautifully dramatic. In this one, Daniil Tarasov went off to give Columbus an extra skater with 2:26 remaining, and the next 2:13—until Brandon Tanev hit an empty-net goal to seal it—were hold-onto-your-butt intense. 

With the 5-on-6 disadvantage, the Kraken did well to keep any shooting opportunities to the outside, despite Adam Larsson breaking his stick. And with the game on the line, Yanni Gourde came up with a massive, loud block on Severson. 

“Yanni made a great play, obviously, to block that shot, and he’s been doing that for a long time,” McCann said. “So, yeah, he does the little things right.” 

Added Hakstol on how the team closed the game, “We did a good job in that sense… 30 minutes before that, you’d like to affect the game so you don’t have to put yourself in that situation. But when push comes to shove, at the end of the day, the two groups that we used in the situation at 5-on-6… they did a good job. They did the things that we needed to have done.”

Now, with the All-Star break dancing in the heads of the players, the Kraken will head to San Jose for a game they simply have to win. 

“The reality is we have one game left before a long break,” Hakstol said. “So we have to get our heads completely focused on that job, make sure that we’re ready to go for a real competitive 60 minutes.”