Tuesday’s Seattle Kraken loss to the Colorado Avalanche showcased what happens when early opportunities aren’t seized. Seattle dominated most of the opening frame, even getting an open net for what seemed like a sure Yanni Gourde goal just nine seconds into the game.
[PING!] Yanni Goirde hits the post 9 seconds (!!!) into the game. #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/2iRdiIwwDA
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 23, 2024
However, the Kraken failed to convert on that and their other chances in the opening frame, leaving them chasing by the time the first horn sounded.
“It was maybe our best first period of the year, the way we came out, the way we played,” Kraken coach Dan Bylsma said. “We had a number of chances to get a goal in that period, but it capped off by their late goal at the end of the first that forced it into a response game from us.”
Here are our Three Takeaways from a 3-2 Kraken loss to the Colorado Avalanche (that was really a 3-1 game, but Seattle got one with three seconds left to make it a one-goal difference in the end).
Takeaway #1: Missed opportunities early
You knew the Avalanche were going to score late in that first period, didn’t you? With 1:28 left, after Seattle had tilted the ice for most of the period, Joel Kiviranta cruised across the blue line, sniping one off the post and in behind Philipp Grubauer.
#SeaKraken largely dominated the first period, but Joel Kiviranta sniped one off the post with 1:28 left.
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 23, 2024
SEA hit two posts and had a couple other near misses, but nothing doing.
1-0 #GoAvsGo, shots: 12-5 Kraken pic.twitter.com/NfXG1hNVLv
I’ll talk more about that one in Takeaway No. 3, but it certainly sapped the momentum that the Kraken had built en route to a 12-5 shots-on-goal advantage in the first 20 minutes.
The Kraken haven’t been strong in most first periods this season, typically improving in the second. That script flipped Tuesday, and after the Avalanche took a 1-0 lead to the dressing room, they came out and tilted things the other direction with a whopping 17-5 shots-on-goal advantage of their own in the middle frame.
Aside from Gourde hitting the post on a clear-cut 2-on-1 right after the game’s opening face-off, Tye Kartye also hit the post in the first, and several other players had near misses that made Justus Annunen’s stat sheet look better than it really was.
“It was a tough pill to swallow,” Jared McCann said. “I thought we played well in the beginning there. And we’ve just got to find a full 60 consistent minutes.”
Takeaway #2: Penalties proved costly
For as much as the Kraken had momentum in the first period, they somehow didn’t draw any power plays until the final two minutes of the game. Ryker Evans did get the Kraken within one on said power play, but not until there was just :03 left in the game.
On the other end, the Avalanche got three chances, with two of those coming in the second period. It wasn’t an outrageous number of infractions, but the penalties in the second helped turn the tide of the game.
“They have good players, and they can be a handful in the offensive zone, which their power play allowed them to be,” Bylsma said. “And [there were] a couple shifts there in the second that turned the momentum in their favor.”
Nathan MacKinnon scored a beauty of a power-play goal in the closing seconds of the frame, dangling across the tops of the circles and firing it against the grain behind Grubauer.
Yuck. 🤢
— Sound Of Hockey (@sound_hockey) October 23, 2024
MacKinnon made that look so easy, although Colton may have gotten a piece of it. Either way, PPG, 3-1 #GoAvsGo, as we head to the 3rd period. #SeaKraken got outshot 17-5 that frame. pic.twitter.com/hkwQaqHJq0
It was a backbreaker, too. McCann had tied it with his 100th goal as a Kraken at 11:57, but after Kiviranta got his second of the game at 14:56 to regain the lead, MacKinnon gave Colorado insurance with just :08 left in the second.
Going to the dressing room seconds after taking a two-goal deficit almost always spells defeat, and then—facing a big final-period mountain—Seattle came out for the third, and Jamie Oleksiak took another penalty just 29 seconds in and made things even harder.
Those penalties really put the nail in the Kraken’s coffin on this night.
Takeaway #3: Should we talk about the goaltending?
I’ve been a little gun-shy to talk about goaltending in Three Takeaways so far this season, because it’s often been hard to say definitively if the goalies have played well or not. If you look at the games holistically, I think it would generally be fair to say that the goalies have been mostly good, but not lights out, and on several occasions, there have been specific goals allowed that have tainted my view of the performances.
**Editor’s note: Plus, it’s a divisive topic, and every time I bring up the goalies, somebody yells at me in the comment section.
Here’s what I’ll say about this particular night, though, and then I’ll turn it over to Bylsma to give his thoughts.
There were parallels in this game to the one Seattle lost 2-0 to the Dallas Stars on Oct. 13. There was a goal in that game by Wyatt Johnston in which Grubauer got beaten cleanly off a rush on an unscreened shot that hit the far post and went in. The goal scored Tuesday by Kiviranta to make it 1-0 and sap the momentum out of the Kraken had a similar look to it.
In both games, I thought Grubauer bounced back and made some great saves as the game went on, but the context of getting beaten cleanly by those two shots impacted how I viewed the performances on the whole. The opening goal against the Avalanche on Tuesday and the goal by Johnston in Dallas were stingers for Grubauer to allow. Yet in both games, more scoring from Seattle would have also swept those under the rug, and on both of those goals, the Kraken could have been better defensively.
So, I find myself feeling oddly conflicted about this game as well.
Worth noting, against the Avs, Grubauer stopped 25 of 28 shots and had a positive night in terms of analytics, saving .24 goals above expected, according to MoneyPuck. I think that aligns with how I see the performance too. It was… mostly good, and he made some tough stops, as indicated by that positive number.
But if we could just erase that one goal against…
Ok, now here’s what Bylsma said about Grubauer’s outing on Tuesday: “I think we’ve probably given up the most chances tonight of any game that we’ve played to this point. A lot of those came on the power play, but he made the breakaway save, he made a couple east-west saves that were really big for us, gave us a chance. And when it was 2-1, two big saves to keep us in the match, keep us in it. And we need to come up with a little more run support for Grubi.”
I also asked Bylsma before the game about his goalie usage and what might have to happen for him to lean on one or the other, and here’s what he said to that: “I think we started this off believing that we have two good goaltenders that can get the job done for us. And I think they’ve each had some success in the start of the season. Joey had won two games early on, but Grubi’s numbers were better. And through those first four games, they each played two. I think Grubi was able to get the win in his last start and have the ‘W’ column success in that game.
“Joey probably played his best game against Nashville. I think really after the 5-on-3, really starting there was when Joey probably got to his best goaltending so far this year. And the number of games that are coming and the frequency of them kind of sets up for each guy getting an opportunity to be in the net. But their play will also dictate the kind of rotation we have going forward.”
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.
I hope this doesn’t come off too harshly…but Burakovsky was complete dogsh*t that whole game. He can’t win battles. He can’t pass. He can’t shoot. He is literally just in the way, and really helping the opposing team. This is going to be a big problem for The Kraken, unless he and the coaches can figure out how he can help the team.
Bjorkstrand also had the worst game of his Kraken career. He was awful. It’s like he forgot how to play hockey. I don’t think he made one decent play all game.
Yes, Gru may have been able to save a couple of those, but he also made some awesome stops to keep us in the game. That’s the “Gru factor.” One moment he’s letting in a stinker, and the next he’s looking like the best goalie to put on the mask. I’m not sure he or anyone else knows why.
I’m sure we will learn a lot from this loss. I was really expecting we’d win this one.
Positives…there were some bright spots. The young guys were great. Evan’s especially looks awesome. Shane and Matty have also been very consistent. Mahura also continues to show he’s reliable.
Oh…Burakovsky also can’t hit. He literally refuses to lay a check on anyone. It’s like he’s playing beer league hockey.
Karts also looked good. Forgot to mention him.
I agree with your comment about Burakovsky. I had wondered if he was suffering from a confidence problem and now I’m wondering if he’s also worried about getting injured again. But he has been a big nothing so far this season.
Is there any Kraken player more than Shane Wright who starts/makes plays that end up in the net but he gets zero points credited? This game was another example of that. Both goals started with Shane.
There should be another category for plays started resulting in goals. He was done this several times in previous games this season. His actual point totals should be much higher. The guy is impressing me.
I had noted, somewhere, that with the style of play that the Kraken are wanting to play, under Bylsma, “just okay” is not going to cut it with the goalies. This is a high risk, high reward style. For that the goalies cannot to have 1+ goals, every game, that they would, “want back”, but, alas, that has been the case in every, single, game. This is not bashing either goalie, they both must be better. Period.
I, ultimately, walk away from this game thinking we just ran into a team that has that top end talent that the Kraken just don’t and, likely, won’t for a while. It was good to see some resiliency, though, as we all know last year’s team would have likely rolled over after going down 2-1. Good loss, as losses go.
Yes Grubauer needs to be better, another typical game for him… great saves bad goals. I was hopeful he could dig in and get the playing my old team motivation but it didn’t happen.
I’d agree with everything Seattle G said especially about Burky but also add in Oleksiak, wasn’t a strong game on his behalf.
I wasn’t crazy about the ref’s last night, I found it very annoying that at CP they were often showing the crowd instead of the replay everyone wants to see. It looked like a lot of soft calls and a few missed calls the other way through, anyone watching on TV that could verify that?
As to the calls, I really, really hated the tripping call against Stephenson that give Colorado and the Cheap Shot Artist the game-winning goal. They did show the replay of that on the jumbo-tron, And it was clear that Stephenson dropped his twig before the guy tripped on it. At least there weren’t a bunch of egregious non-calls going the other way on the night like there were against Calgary.
First game attended, it was more of the same — a good period, and two very meh periods. This loss is not on Grubauer, but it was a very typical Grubauer first period — totally dominate possession and SOG, but still be down 1-0 because he is incapable of having a significantly positive game in terms of actual vs. expected goals, and of getting big saves in those types of situations. His “good” games are about even, and this should be expected at this point.
But the Kraken offense looked very ordinary after the first, when Colorado decided to start playing defense and blocking shots. This is the first game Montour also looked just ok. Oleksiak had another bad game, couldn’t seem to stick handle, at all. Beniers and Wright looked great though, especially Matty.
You mentioned the key word of my main complaint about Grubauer: momentum. The timing of when he lets in goals kills the team – especially the ones like last night at the end of the first, which was totally on him.
The advanced stats can’t show the psychological aspects of the game. That goal energized Colorado and deflated Seattle and the momentum of the game entirely shifted at that point. And this has been the story of Grubauer since day 1.
The bottom line is that Seattle is 3-0 when Joey starts and 1-3 under Gru. Give Joey the net.
Also agree with the above on Bjorkstrand…he didn’t look good in his first shift and I wondered then if he was possibly ill or injured.
With Dunn on LTIR, doesn’t his cap space come off the ledger while he’s out? If so, maybe use it to bring up Winterton or another forward to either give some relief to anyone who isn’t at 100% physically, or to bench Burakovsky.
We have lots of heated hockey discussions in my house and have come up with the same conclusion; the team plays differently when Joey is in net. I feel like their confidence is much higher and they think more about scoring. Which means confidence in themselves and also their goaltender.
What stood out to me about this game was all the passes to empty spaces where other guys should have been. How many times did you see Kraken forwards toss the puck to a dangerous place in the offensive zone only to find that the guy who should have been there was instead somewhere on the perimeter? Sure, some of that was good defense by the Avs, but there was also a certain hesitance on the part of the Kraken. You could tell that it sucked a lot of the energy out of the crowd as well, as the timid on-ice performance was in marked contrast to the fearless, furious performance against Calgary. Maybe that is unfair, but that is what it felt like.
By the way, somebody from ECH ran the numbers on how often the team scores in games with Vince Dunn as opposed to games without Vince Dunn. The tally is a full goal per game difference. It’s not even just an expected goal per game but an actual goal per game. Ouch. It’s the difference between a win in a game like last night and the loss that we got. I am afraid that this month or so is going to hurt. All we can do it is bounce his bobble-head and hope that it has good healing magic.
On the positive side, there were a couple stand-out performances last night. McCann played gutsy as he always does. He was great on the PK. Tanev wreaked havoc. That man knows no speed other than full-speed. Mahura may not be Vince Dunn, but he has been playing with surprising competence and responsibility for a scratch guy. Evans made some good plays at both ends and generally seems like a tough guy. Grubauer may have given up an easy one, but he was otherwise awesome, keeping the team in the game in the second when it felt like they were out of it. I will also say that the Kraken’s neutral zone play was excellent for most of the game, as it has been all year.
Passing in the first period was amazing. I have never seen Seattle passing better than that. Ever.
Second and third periods were the total opposite and also very similar to the Calgary game. Way way, way too much not looking to make sure there was actually a guy in blue to pass to before sending it off and far too often straight to an opposing player.
I also heard that ECH tidbit… problem is the bulk of Dunn’s missed time came last season and coincided with the departure of Wennberg as well… which is also when they started giving more playing time to the guys from Coachella. Furthermore, he only missed one game the entire season they were one of the top scoring teams in the league. Comparing the team to him on the ice versus him off on the ice just isn’t that straightforward.
I’m not saying he’s not an important piece of the Kraken scoring goals… I’m just saying that use of “statistics” was completely misleading and simplistic. They weren’t even using his actual “on ice” time, just games he played in. If you ran the same numbers over the last two seasons with Wennberg they’d come out almost identical… who by the way has zero points in seven games and is a minus seven with the Sharks. Enjoy that new contract and those higher taxes.