If the Kraken were going to win that one against the Dallas Stars, it would have had to happen in a rope-a-dope, frustrate-the-pants-off-them kind of way. That’s an even better club than the one that knocked Seattle out in Game 7 of the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season and a true championship contender this season.
The Kraken hung in there for a while, but budding star (not “Star,” as in “Dallas Star,” but “star,” as in “star player”) Wyatt Johnston broke the ice late in the second period, and then Joe Pavelski took advantage of a five-minute power play to give Dallas breathing room.
“In order to generate against this group, you have to be willing to really… you’ve got to be committed to get to the bottom,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “If you don’t have an out-number situation, it has to go to the bottom, and you have to do the work.”
What Hakstol is saying is that if Seattle isn’t creating anything off the rush, which it wasn’t in this game, then the group has to be willing to win battles deep in the offensive zone to create opportunities, and that clearly didn’t happen enough.
Here are our Three Takeaways from a 3-0 Kraken loss to the Stars.
Takeaway #1: The Stars are really good
Down to the last minute of the series between the Kraken and Dallas last postseason, we thought the Stars were beatable. This year, they’ve added some depth scoring in guys like Matt Duchene that has allowed them to rise to the top as one of the few teams that might have a real claim for the Cup in a couple months.
Interestingly, Dallas coach Peter DeBoer said at morning skate on Saturday that this version of the Stars is built a little more like last season’s Kraken team, though their higher-end talent is better than that of Seattle’s.
To get a win on this night and end Dallas’ six-game streak, Seattle needed some opportunistic scoring to go with a stout defensive effort. The Kraken did play well in their end and got solid goaltending from Joey Daccord, who made 27 saves on the night.
“Joey played a good game,” Hakstol said. “The first goal is a face-off goal, it’s a high tip, and that’s a real tough play for a goaltender, with where that’s tipped from. Obviously, the power-play goal against, we’re in our right spots, but unfortunately we give it right to the guy that’s very good in that area.”
But while the defense and goaltending was decent, the offense never came alive at the other end, and the Kraken managed just 0.95 expected goals, good for 24 percent of the shot quality.
Jake Oettinger has been rolling pretty well over his last five games, and when an all-world goalie like him is on, it’s going to take more than 17 shots to beat him.
Takeaway #2: Really? A game misconduct?
Adam Larsson’s hit on Chris Tanev 19 seconds into the third period earned him a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct. The initial call on the ice was five and a game for boarding, and after the officials reviewed it, they changed the call to five and a game for elbowing.
Now, call us crazy, but we’ve watched this several times, and we really don’t see contact between Larsson’s elbow and Tanev’s head, which—to us—would be the only thing that would have warranted that steep of a penalty.
Tanev hustled down the tunnel after, clearly favoring his right arm or shoulder, which got pinned awkwardly between Larsson and the boards. But that doesn’t make it a major penalty. It’s especially puzzling because the referees reviewed the hit with video replay and still made that call, so clearly they saw something that we don’t see.
Hakstol was asked about the call after the game and declined to comment. It was an important moment in the game, though, because Pavelski quickly scored to pad the Dallas lead.
Once the officials made the initial call and reviewed it, they could have knocked it down to two minutes, but being that Pavelski’s goal came just nine seconds into the manpower advantage, the length of the penalty didn’t really matter in the end.
On the plus side, there’s no way Larsson gets supplementary discipline for this, right?
Takeaway #3: Oliver Bjorkstrand with the save of the game
Since there was no offense to speak of in this one for the Kraken, we’ll take this opportunity to admire this incredible save by Oliver Bjorkstrand, which earned him a rare “Save of the Game” honor for a player (i.e., not a goalie).
“I was just kind of there, and it bounced to the left of the goal,” Bjorkstrand said. “[It was] just kind of a desperation save, so yeah, lucky it hit me.”
Sure, it’s kind of lucky, but that’s also a great read by Bjorkstrand to recognize that Joey is beaten and to slide perfectly into the far post to rob Jason Robertson. That’s an outstanding save.
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.
What a pathetic offensive effort, their worst xGF of the season, and the 5th worst of any team in over 2,300 total NHL team-games this year (Red wings 1, Anaheim 1, Sharks 2 under 0.95 xGF).
It’s probably a combination of things — the Stars are great at blocking shots and keeping things to the outside, but it also seemed like the Kraken were not willing to put in any effort above what it took to beat an awful Anaheim squad. I know it’s probably best for the team to lose going forward, but it’s the lack of focus, skating, and “compete” that’s so disheartening to watch, especially after facing some adversity (the team seemed to totally give up after the 5 min major). The only line that was consistently trying was the kid line. It’s no wonder this is the only NHL team without a multi-goal comeback. To me, that seems like a coaching issue — Hakstol is not exactly the “light a fire” type of coach. It’d be one thing if Hakstol were even keeled when the process was good and the results weren’t, but the process is awful right now, so staying steady is not what the team needs. Again, I don’t care if this team keeps losing this year, but this lackluster, losing mentality just better not bleed into next season.