It was a fun night at Xcel Energy Center, where the Seattle Kraken jumped on the coattails of captain Jordan Eberle and rode his two goals, plus the deciding shootout tally, to their first win of the season—a 5-4 victory over the Minnesota Wild.
The Kraken trailed by two, erased that deficit, and then trailed by one twice more but continually fought back.
“I don’t think you want to get into the habit of having to do that,” said head coach Dan Bylsma, who also earned his first victory as Kraken head coach. “But it was the story of the game. We got it back 2-2, they got another one, we got a great goal by the [Tye Kartye] line, and then they scored again, and we had to come up with one late to claw back into it.”
Indeed, it was a resilient performance by Seattle, which did not always look like the better team on this night but found a way to earn two points in the end.
Here are our Three Takeaways from Seattle’s 5-4 shootout win over the Wild.
Takeaway #1: A big night for Captain Ebs
Seattle was fortunate to reach the first intermission trailing just 1-0 after the Wild appeared to score a power-play goal at the horn. However, the green light (indicating 0.0) appeared behind the net just before the puck crossed the line, and the Kraken briefly avoided that two-goal deficit. With plenty of penalty time left, Minnesota’s potent power play went right back to work at the start of the second, and Matt Boldy struck to officially make it 2-0.
At this point, it felt like things were heading in the wrong direction for the Kraken, but Eberle sprang into action. Just 40 seconds after Boldy’s goal, Eberle went hard to the net and kept pounding away until the puck snuck through a sprawled Marc-Andre Fleury and trickled over the line to make it 2-1.
“It’s getting to the blue paint and having a presence in the blue paint,” Bylsma said. “It took two or three whacks to get it in the back of the net, but Jordan Eberle gets his 300th career goal right where it should be, right in the blue paint.”
Then, six minutes later, the Kraken power play connected on its first opportunity of the night. After hitting multiple posts and keeping Minnesota on the ropes for a bit, Andre Burakovsky sent a hard shot-pass toward Eberle at the far post, and the puck caromed in off his skate.
Boom. Two-goal deficit erased.
“We were kind of snapping it around, which was great,” Eberle said. “The power play, in my opinion, is all about momentum and confidence, and hopefully we can continue that.”
As if the two goals weren’t enough, Eberle followed Oliver Bjorkstrand’s beautiful equalizer in the shootout with a well-placed snapshot of his own, the eventual shootout winner after Boldy fired his attempt wide of Joey Daccord.
Takeaway #2: Big shots from big shooters
Before the season, I hypothesized that Kartye could be ready for a bigger role and more production. He has a huge shot and was a prolific scorer at the AHL level, so with almost a full season of NHL experience under his belt, my theory was that he would find more ways to put his shot to work. He did that Saturday to give Seattle another response goal just 1:06 after Kirill Kaprizov made it 3-2.
With linemates Brandon Tanev and Yanni Gourde battling in the corner, Kartye went to the left circle and did well to find just a little area of quiet space. The Wild defenders were puck watching, and by the time they realized Kartye was unmarked, the puck was on and off his stick and into the back of Minnesota’s net to tie the game 3-3.
Not to be outdone, Jared McCann notched another equalizer for the Kraken at 16:34 of the third. Eberle (who else?) had gone hard to the net and drawn a penalty. On the delayed call, McCann slid down the wall, took a pass in his wheelhouse from Ryker Evans, and launched a heat-seeking missile that whistled past Fleury’s ear and under the bar.
“It’s just Jared McCann being Jared McCann on a great shot there,” Bylsma said. “It allowed us to get to overtime and allowed us to get to the shootout, and it’s great to claw out a win that way.”
Takeaway #3: Vince Dunn injured?
One negative from this game was Vince Dunn taking a heavy hit into the endboards from Marcus Foligno near the end of the third period and heading to the bench hunched over and furious. He stayed on the bench for a bit in visible distress before trying a “test-it-out” twirl at the last stoppage of the game. After just a couple seconds on the ice, Dunn went down the tunnel and did not return for the overtime period.
When asked if Dunn would play Sunday in the Kraken’s back-to-back game against the Dallas Stars, Bylsma said, “That’s a wait and see. We’ll see. He was smiling after the game, so we’ll see what it is for tomorrow.”
The fact that Dunn is being considered for Sunday is a good sign, but I’ve been fooled by these kinds of signs before. Dunn missed significant time last season and is one of the cornerstones of this team, so Kraken fans will be holding their breath to see if he emerges with the team in Dallas.
Another angle here is that Seattle is cap-strapped and only has space for one extra player, Josh Mahura, who is on the trip. If he gets pressed into action, the decision to keep Mahura (a defenseman) over John Hayden or Ryan Winterton will prove to be a good one. However, if Dunn misses time, and then another player has to leave the lineup for any reason, things could get very interesting.
For now, just keep your fingers crossed that Dunn is okay.
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.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download