If you were feeling down after that soul-crushing 5-4 Kraken overtime loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday, we’re here to tell you that you’re not alone. Seattle’s players were also devastated after the defeat, which ended miserably with the Golden Knights rallying back from two down—including scoring the tying goal with 16 seconds left—and winning it on a Jack Eichel breakaway in overtime.
With the context of where Seattle sits in the standings after the loss, nine points behind Vegas for the last wild card spot, it definitely felt like a season-killing loss.
“It’s been tough sledding,” goalie Joey Daccord said. “I think this whole year, I feel like we’ve been taking two steps forward, one step back, you know? We kind of had a good run there, won a couple games in a row, won two huge games on the back-to-back [against Calgary and Winnipeg], and it’s like everything’s going the right way. And then we lose a couple in a row, and it feels like the end of the world.”
What the Kraken and their fans are experiencing now is the consequence of inconsistent play earlier in the season. By allowing losing streaks to pile up all the way into the beginning of February, and by failing to close out a slew of in-the-bag games during the course of the campaign, now every missed opportunity for a regulation win could be the last straw. The Vegas loss on Tuesday was another one of those missed chances.
“When you’re leading 4-2 with… I don’t know, what was it, five minutes to go? And you end up getting only a point?” Tatar said. “This is disappointing.”
**Author’s note: The response goal from William Karlsson to make it 4-3 came with 7:37 remaining, but still, it was a two-goal lead in the third period that should have stood up.
The team knows it was a bad hit to the postseason chances, which have now dwindled all the way down to 10.1 percent, according to MoneyPuck. Even so, after chatting with several Kraken players on Wednesday, we do genuinely believe they are far from giving up on this season.
“This is all up and down,” Tatar said. “Like, we won those two games in a row, and then things all of a sudden look very reachable. Now we lose, it kind of slips away. I mean, at the end of the day, we know how many points will get you in, and we’re still in that race. There are two big games [ahead against Washington and Nashville], you just have to do the job.”
“The next one”
From speaking with Daccord, Tatar, and Andre Burakovsky, we got a consistent message that the group still believes it can make the playoffs, even though it would take a minor miracle for that to happen. (Some back-of-the-envelope math tells us the Kraken would need to win about 14 of their last 18 games and get some help from at least one of the teams they’re chasing.) They also all indicated that the focus for the team needs to be on what is happening right here and now.
“We focus on the next one,” Burakovsky said. “We can’t look ahead at where we’re playing in a week or whatever. We need to focus on the next one, win that one, and move on to the next one. Take the good parts from the next game, and move that into the next one.
“There’s a lot of games to play, we’ve got 18 left or something [like that]. We just need to win. I think overall, [Tuesday] was a good game, and we should have had that one, for sure. Unfortunately, we only got one point, but there’s a lot of points to work for, and that’s what we’ve got to do.”
Daccord added that getting too caught up in the standings and scoreboard watching can get in the players’ heads, especially when they see those teams they’re chasing continuing to find success.
“The next game, the next period, the next shift, whatever it may be, you’ve just got to stay focused and stay present with the task at hand,” Daccord said.
Not throwing in the towel
Of course, a professional hockey player would have to say all these things, because that’s what they’re expected to do in these scenarios. They can’t answer a question about how they feel about a team’s playoff chances with something like, “Oh, we have no shot,” or “There’s no way we’re getting out of this hole.”
With that in mind, it’s easy to question how wholeheartedly the players believe their own words when they talk about their drive to stay in the race. Even so, there was a certain sincerity in the sentiments of the players, especially from Daccord, who always makes you want to run through a wall.
“We’ve been through a lot of adversity this year, and it hasn’t gone our way as much as we would have liked, but I think we’re never going to give up, no matter what,” Daccord said. “And we’re just going to keep fighting as hard as we can, and at the end of the day, when all the chips are down, we’ll see where we end up… We’re a very competitive group, and we’re going to work our tails off to the very end.”
Burakovsky producing
Last week, our own Blaiz Grubic wrote an article on Burakovsky’s struggles this season. In it, he indicated that the winger’s play had improved in the last 10 games or so, and that his goal last Tuesday in Winnipeg that got him off the schneid could open the floodgates.
It’s hard to say if the floodgates are officially “open” at this point, but Burakovsky did score his second goal in three games Tuesday and said he could sense that he had been playing better hockey well before finally breaking his 18-game goalless streak.
“I have been making plays for a while and skating good and just being a little bit [unlucky with a lof of] posts and out for me,” Burakovsky said. “I want to help the team win games, and like I said, I’ve been feeling great for a while. And I mean, I don’t think because I’m scoring in the last three, it doesn’t reflect that I’m playing better. I’ve been feeling confident and playing good hockey for quite some time now. The goals have started going in for me now, and that’s basically the only difference.”
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.
Let’s talk about Geoff Baker’s Times article on Francis and his lack of risk taking.
This is it, isn’t it. Seem like his Carolina years redux.
This may be why Vegas makes the playoffs nearly every year while the Kraken have no such trajectory.
Does anyone see the Kraken in the playoffs next season? Any of their prospects making the jump?
The trade deadline again showed the GMs that can (Zito, etc.) and those who pretend (Dubas, etc.). Which camp do you believe Francis is in?
It seems to me that most NHL teams way overvalue prospects and draft picks, which usually only have a small chance of turning into the player a team is trading for. It’s a market inefficiency that Vegas and a few others are consistently taking advantage of. I don’t think even one of the elite/core players on Vegas is “homegrown”. Makes ya think….
And now they have Tomas Hertl. Like, for real? Why do teams keep falling for it? Honestly, Vegas has been making the rest of the league look foolish since its expansion. The accepted formula of stockpiling draft picks and prospects over the course of several losing seasons in the hope that a few of them will turn into NHL players is not wisdom–it’s mindless convention. Eventually, other teams are going to have to wake up to the fact that the draft just doesn’t produce enough top-level performers to justify building a franchise around it. Until then, Vegas will keep winning.
I thought that the Baker story was complete rubbish, does he really think that we should be buying players to take a run at the playoffs? That would be the absolute worst thing that we could do. Unfortunately we are in a position that we need to take a few years depending prospects and most importantly opening up roster spots for them. If anything I feel that their focus has been too much on the playoffs and keep bringing in aging vets grasping at straws. There is a time to buy and a time to build, we’re not in a position to buy.
I’m not by any means saying that Francis is doing a good job but I’m glad at last trade deadline he didn’t do anything stupid anyway.
The expansion draft he was way too safe and should have been way more expensive. The Gru signing was just incredibly stupid, term was way too long and handcuffed us for six years…. 🔥H was a huge risk, all he had proven was that he had difficulty coaching in the NHL.
We have had some great drafts (he’s done a great job of that), I could see 🔥H being let go possibly next season. Francis getting the ax shorty after and another GM coming in buying out Gru and having the luxury of building with a decent prospect pool in place.
We could have been more like Vegas but that ship has sailed.
Look back at more than a decade of Stanley Cup champions… the Golden Knights are the exception. I tend to agree with something Elliotte Friedman said not too long ago… “people tend to focus too much on the exceptions”.
Or, I suppose it could be that “this time is different”, and Vegas has “discovered” the new normal. Unfortunately, time and time again, when people treat the exception as the rule, it’s a subscription for disaster. What Vegas has done should be admired – mostly – rather than emulated.
But more importantly… like most commentary… Geoff Baker offers plenty of criticism followed by vague prescriptions. Ron Francis needs to make some “smart”, “aggressive” moves to make the Kraken better sooner rather than later. I’d love to hear some more thoughts on that. Baker himself says, “it probably would have been ‘stupid’ for Francis to attempt more at the trade deadline”… so there’s that. And then there’s the off-season… a UFA class led by Sam Reinhardt… who is very likely re‐signing in Florida… unless some other team does something “stupid”. I don’t think it takes a lot of analysis to realize that if the UFA class is led by Sam Reinhardt… it’s pretty thin out there.
I would love to see Francis be aggressive and package up a haul of picks and prospects to take a run a Trevor Zegras or maybe move up in this very “top-heavy” draft… but it’s almost impossible to find counterparies to make those deals. I agree that teams overvalue their picks and that stasis isn’t a strategy… but just saying, “be like Vegas”… please, give me some specifics.
Go Kraken!!!
What i see Vegas do is this: when the team is having success, they act aggressively to sustain and improve on that success. So last year for the Kraken, it would mean make some moves to improve the roster at the deadline instead of just getting Megna. In the offseason, try to offset the impending offensive regression by doing more than signing the borderline useless duo of Bellemare and Yamamoto. Instead, they kept their first round pick which turned into Sale, who looks awful in the lowly OHL as a 19 y/o. Evans has looked good imo, but Hakstol favors the washed-up duo of Schultz and Dumoulin over him, which says a lot. Wright might end up being something, but he might not. Heck, even our prized second overall pick looks like a 3C this year. Francis made the right move by not buying this deadline, but only because the team isn’t good enough to contend because he didn’t do anything to improve it since the previous deadline.
So who should the Kraken have gone after at last year’s trade deadline? Also, keep in mind, on March 3rd last season this team could just as easily have been trading away a lottery pick rather than No.20.
So, lottery protect the pick! Both Chychrun and Timo Meier went for conditional 1sts plus some prospects. They would’ve needed to make the salary work, which takes some creativity, but Francis isn’t exactly known for his aggressiveness or creativity when it comes to trades. Chychrun is affordable for 2 years, only 24 y/o, and is way, way better than Dumoulin. Re-signing Meier would’ve taken some more creativity, but instead RF shelled out millions to the likes of Yamamoto, Bellemare, and Dumoulin, who could all be easily replaced with minor league, minimum contract players (and yes Bellemare is also making the minimum, but he is bad and barely playing anyway). The reaction to this is usually “but that’s so expensive and complicated!” which is why most GMs just whine about how hard their jobs are and sit on their hands. Meanwhile, the few winning GMs go home and **** the prom queen.
Timo Meier?
What this team is missing is $8.8m x 8 for 34 points in 52 games and a -34? I know +/- is a suspect stat, but when your minus and your points match… I think that’s bad.
Ironically, I would point at Timo Meier as one of the pitfalls of “being aggressive” at the trade deadline.
Jakob Chychrun?
Are you gonna pay $4.6m for a third pair left D? Even if you demote Oleksiak… it’s still $4.6m.
Or
You could’ve somehow punted on Schultz, had Chychrun play on his off-side, and paid an extra $1.6m for a guy who scores at almost exactly the same 1.3 P/60 and be stuck with him for another year. If you want him for his “D”, that isn’t this teams problem.
I don’t think trading – especially a first – for something you don’t need just to “do something” is a good idea.
“Until then Vegas will keep winning”.
This is the Vegas team that earned twenty-one of a possible twenty-two points in it’s first eleven games… and is now clinging to wildcard number two? This isn’t 80s Oilers… they’ve won ONE Stanley Cup.
Yes, just one title in seven years. Also two conference championships, three division titles, and six playoff appearances. In SEVEN YEARS in the salary cap era. How many off-seasons has it been since experts started predicting that all their aggressive moves would finally result in a total meltdown that would herald the beginning of a ridiculously long rebuild?
The NHL has been mired in conventional wisdom for a long time–recycling the same coaches, GMs, and theories over and over and over again. While the NFL has adapted to their salary cap, the NHL has never done the same. Everyone is still trying, like your example, to be the 80’s Oilers. I would like to see some college or European coaches and some GMs who maybe do not have a history with the NHL get brought in and shake things up a bit. Even if it turns out to be a disaster, it would be worth it just to get some new ideas circulating.
My example of the 80s Oilers was to point out a team who was an absolute juggernaut and won title after title. Vegas is not the first team to “knock on the door” and then break through for a Cup. They’re the first team to do it so quickly, and yes, they’ve done it by being aggressive. But the Sharks are also a team that enjoyed a long stretch of success and were, I would say aggressive – traded for Thornton, Burns, Karlsson, Kane – however, they never won a Cup.
But as you seem to be also saying, there are different ways to win. Last season, NHL retread Steve Yzerman pointed at the success Seattle was enjoying as a “new” model worthy of emulating… and sure enough… who scooped up Daniel Sprong?
Fortunately, I think there’s a lot less panic from ownership than there is from a segment of the fan base. Just chasing what last season’s champion has been doing doesn’t seem like good management to me.
The players aren’t going to lose fans by cutting their own throats, but I appreciate their enthusiasm.
Vegas won because they wanted it and were willing to really dig. Kraken will never be that kind of team until the leadership also becomes that type of leadership. It’s not who is running the show. I think going into the 4th season some movement needs to happen at the upper level.
Looking at Francis’ moves last offseason, he jettisons Geekie and Sprong, who sign for a collective $4 million and have produced 31 goals so far this season for Bellemare and Yamamoto, signed for a collective $2.3 million and have produced 11 goals so far this season.
What is the AAV for each goal? $129,000 for Geekie/Sprong and $209,000 for Bellemare/Yamamoto. This seems like a mistake by Francis.
Yes definitely and you have to understand the reason why he needed to reduce the salary of the 4th line. First off our goaltending cap hit was way too high due to one of Francis’s biggest mistakes. His eyes lit up when he saw a bright shiny ball and didn’t have the patience to follow his own path he’d already set. Second because of our goaltending was looking so bad he felt the need to invest heavily into Dumoulin who killed our ability to retain Geekie or Sprong. Some big mistakes there cost us a lot and hindered our ability to get Evans into the lineup as he should have been.
All that being said when you look at how well our team can play when motivated I believe the fault firstly falls on H…. Again Francis’s choice.
Good discussion here with a lot of valid points.
Francis has done a great job positioning us with some very solid prospects. If just 2 of these guys can be kept in the club long enough to turn into Mark Stones, Adam Foxes or J Marchessaults (Rehkopf, Evans, Firkus, Goyette, Nelson) we will be laughing.
It would be nice to show some creativity at the deadline and build rather than waiting for the offseason. We probably could afford to part with some 1st and 2nd round picks. If we could have unloaded Oleksiak, Dumo or Schultz in the process, even better.
I was really behind Hakstol in the first two seasons, but this season really exposed his limitations. He has basically floundered and tripped his way through 50+ games by not playing McCann at center, trying to build around Matty when he’s clearly struggling, and stubbornly relying on Oleksiak when he should be getting scratched and benched on a regular basis, and at the expense of playing Ryker who looks phenomenal. He looks like Adam Fox, but bigger and faster.
I want to watch a team that is contending AND building, and there’s no reason that couldn’t have happened this season.
The good news is Bylsma is doing a great job with CV, and maybe he can take the Kraken job someday soon. I still have faith in Ron.