It’s easy to pin a loss like the one the Seattle Kraken took Saturday on rust, with the Philadelphia Flyers looking sharper and more structured throughout. But now that Seattle is finally back from its long break, the time is nigh to start racking up points.
Sure, there are still 32 31 games remaining in the season, but general manager Ron Francis is down to 11 contests before he will need to make his final decisions on whether this team is a trade deadline seller. Every loss at this point pushes Francis and his staff closer to that end of the “stand pat or sell” seesaw.
Seattle didn’t get an easy draw for its first game back, facing a good Flyers team that had jumped out to two impressive wins over Florida and Winnipeg since returning to action on Tuesday. Still, this game felt significant for the Kraken, who needed to get off on the right tentacle. Instead, they stumbled out of the break and missed another opportunity at valuable points.
Here are our Three Takeaways from an uninspiring 3-2 Kraken loss to the Flyers.
Takeaway #1: A rotten night for the power play
Not only did the Seattle power play fail to score in three opportunities on this night, it also gave up a short-handed goal at an ill-chosen moment. Tomas Tatar had just tied the game 1-1 at 17:09 of the first period, taking a pass from Vince Dunn in the slot, turning and wristing it through Cal Petersen.
Replay showed that when Seattle entered the zone, Tatar—at that point not involved in the play and crossing the blue line on the opposite side of the ice from the puck—was within an eye-lash length of being offside. Flyers coach John Tortorella challenged and lost, earning his team a delay-of-game penalty.
This should have been the big turning point in the game for Seattle, but the opposite happened. Chasing the puck in the offensive zone, the Kraken got too aggressive and left only Dunn back to defend after Garnet Hathaway pitched it down the ice. Ryan Poehling got to the puck first, drifted toward Joey Daccord, and fired it through the wickets to regain a 2-1 lead.
The Kraken PK was ok in this one, allowing the game’s opening goal but also getting some important kills. But it was also forced into action at problematic points in the third period. Will Borgen launched a puck over the glass at 5:39 of the third, just nine seconds after Sean Couturier’s eventual winning goal, and Jamie Oleksiak hauled down Travis Konecny at 9:10.
Philadelphia didn’t score on either of those chances, but those penalties cost the Kraken four precious minutes at a point in the game when they could not afford to be down a man.
Takeaway #2: Face-offs do matter sometimes
There have been some healthy debates around the Sound Of Hockey community in the last month about whether face-offs matter. Our best friend, Alison Lukan, eventually convinced John Barr that face-offs, in fact, do not matter. Speaking about the face-off percentage statistic, that is likely true. The team that wins more face-offs doesn’t necessarily win the game, and one could argue it really has no bearing on the outcome.
HOWEVER… And this is where the trusty eye-ball test comes into play…
There are moments in a game where you look at the situation and think, Man, these guys need a face-off win here. Every time we thought that on Saturday, the Kraken lost the draw, with a few key losses coming in the waning minutes of the game when Daccord was off for an extra skater.
And then, of course, there’s the case of the game-winning goal. With 14:32 left in a tie game, Matty Beniers lost a defensive-zone draw to Couturier, who pulled it straight back to Konecny. Konecny nudged it to Travis Sanheim, who blasted it toward the net for Courturier, who was able to get a piece of it and deflect it by Daccord.
The Kraken could have used a face-off win there, too.
Takeaway #3: TWO LOUSY SHOTS?!
No issue in this game was more glaring than how ineffective Seattle was at getting pucks through to Petersen. The team got worse at this as the game went along, and Tortorella’s well-coached skaters clogged up shooting lanes and built a bunker around their goalie.
But what we’re about to tell you is jarring. Jared McCann scored 36 seconds into the third period, getting a good bounce off a Philadelphia defender. He also took Seattle’s next and only other shot on goal, 19:04 later. Two shots by McCann in the third period, more than 19 minutes apart. That was it. No other Kraken player got a puck on net while the team was chasing in a one-goal game.
Meanwhile, Daccord got peppered with 38 Philadelphia offerings and did everything he could to keep his mates in the game, despite a 70-30 split in shot quality. Joey deserved better. The Kraken did not.
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We’re getting into must-win territory here. The Kraken have lost seven of their last nine since their nine-game win streak ended on Jan. 13. If they lose a few more before they can get going in the right direction, their veterans on expiring contracts will be out the door.
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.
It is pretty clear that the team will not make the playoffs, giving the negative momentum. If not for Daccord, it would be worse. Perhaps Francis already knows this and Schultz’s absence from the trip means a trade for a 2R pick is forthcoming. No worries with that, same should happen for Wennberg, with Wright replacing him. Wonder if they can squeeze a 1R pick for AW, given the dearth of centers and how defensive centers like him are what most playoffs team want and are missing.
Los Angeles, St. Louis, Nashville, Calgary, and Minnesota all won their first game coming out of the break.
Horrible game. We were trying over and over to run the same plays, the devils knew this and were cycling a man to the area we were putting the puck often before made the play. just about zero offensive and breakout creativity, the devils looked better coached in the game.
Why did we scratched Kartye, that was a huge mistake. He’s exactly the type of person you want in your lineup, very effective on the forecheck and creates turnovers. Yamamoto turned the puck over almost every time he touched it but he’s not even the player that really deserved to sit. Burakovsky was very bad and almost isn’t deserving of a roster spot, I think we actually play better when he’s out of the lineup.
Joey played well again, should have had the shorthand goal but that was a very sneaky shot. He sold the pass very well and got Joey second guessing. I am wondering when we see Gru?
We need to sell regardless if we want to take a run at the playoffs.
They don’t play the Devils until tomorrow.
Adding to this just because I’m that frustrated… Burakovsky 1 goal 5 assists and is -3 in 20 games this season. He’s one of our least productive players but gets substantial ice time and on the PP to make his stats even worse. I’m almost certain our record is better when he’s out of the lineup although I haven’t gone through the stats to compare. He looks terrible out there, almost always making poor decisions with the puck and bad reads. But H scratches one of our best forechecking players that by the way has more points per game than Burakovsky, a better plus minus, and he’s doing it with less ice time and no PP time. WAKE UP H!!! Why is H so reluctant to scratch the players that deserve to be scratched!!! It’s like he has a little note pad in his pocket with three names on it.
Let it out bro….
With many going to Mexico and other place shows a lack of commitment. If they were serious about winning they would have stayed home and practiced. It is time to clean house.
1.04 xGF, a season low, and it honestly seems generous. What’s concerning to me is Hakstol talked about the rust coming out of the break, and they came out worse than rusty. Really terrible preparation by the coaching staff and execution by the players. Sell! Sell! Sell!
Darren, you left out that STL, NSH, and CGY all won. Seattle’ playoff odds were cut in half in one day. Then STL won again today. Now SEA is 6 points back with no games in hand and 2 other teams to pass. Realistically, it’s over. They’re mind-numbing to watch now as well with the dumps-and-chases and boards passes and blocked shots from the blue line. No rushes or zone entries or skilled plays in the middle. I tend to think they just have an aging, mediocre roster and they just need to trade away the vets and develop the kids. The only current roster players with a role in the future are Dunn, McCann, Beniers, Tolvanen and Evans, and maybe Kartye. Bjorkstrand and Oleksiak have 3 years left and are good enough value. (But boy that Burakovsky contract is looking brutal.) Everyone else has got to be shopped. And if this is what Hakstol’s “system” is now, he’s gotta go in the off-season too.