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Three Takeaways – Kraken try to rally but come up short in 2-1 loss to Kings

Darren Brown

Bummer. In the midst of a string of games that the Seattle Kraken should win, Saturday’s matchup against the Los Angeles Kings was the one we’ve had circled. It was always going to be the toughest test in this stretch against a divisional opponent that could be battling with Seattle for one of the final playoff spots in a few months.

It was a predictably tight-checking contest, with two second-period goals by Los Angeles being all the offense needed for the Kings to slide by the Kraken.

“They’re a really good, structured defensive team, and they can force you into playing a slower type of game,” coach Dan Bylsma said. “We got lulled into the game that way.”

The Kraken had a big push late in the third, and Joey Daccord came up big on several occasions, but the Kraken couldn’t muster enough offense to level the score.

Here are Three Takeaways from a disappointing 2-1 Kraken loss to the Kings.

Takeaway #1: Tough sledding

The Kings changed coaches in February, firing Todd McLellan and elevating Jim Hiller initially on an interim basis, but then naming him full-time head coach in the offseason. Under McLellan, the Kings became notorious for their suffocating and boring 1-3-1 neutral-zone trap. With Hiller at the helm, the Kings have changed tactics, but they are still very much a defense-first club.

The first period Saturday was one of the lowest-event periods we can recall in a Kraken game this season, with a 0-0 score and just a 5-4 shots-on-goal count through 20 minutes.

The Kings connected on a couple of passes over a two-minute span in the second period, and—with the help of a bogus goalie interference call on Yanni Gourde—found themselves in the driver’s seat with a 2-0 lead.

The Kings’ first goal came despite relatively sound defensive-zone coverage by Seattle. Alex Turcotte made a perfect pass behind the skates of Daniel Sprong and weighted it perfectly to catch Adrian Kempe as he got to the slot. Kempe then flung a perfect shot off the post and in, making it 1-0 at 4:19 of the second.

Gourde drove to the net and got the lame goalie interference call at 5:03, and on the ensuing power play, a little give-and-go passing play between Quinton Byfield and Kevin Fiala also ended up in the back of Seattle’s net.

In the below clip, when Byfield sends the puck to Fiala at the top of the slot, and then Fiala sends it back to Byfield, you can see that Daccord’s first movement is not to slide with the pass. Instead, he leans left to look around the screen, indicating he lost sight of the puck at the exact wrong moment when Fiala was sliding it over. That caused him to delay slightly in moving back to his left, and by the time he got over, Byfield had already found the short side.

Takeaway #2: Not enough offense generated

The pushback in the third period was pretty good by Seattle, especially late when Bylsma pulled Daccord for an extra attacker. Brandon Montour did get a slap shot by David Rittich with 1:34 left in the third, but the Kraken needed one earlier in the frame to really give themselves a chance.

The best looks of the game all came in the third when the Kraken were trying to claw their way back. Adam Larsson, Daniel Sprong, and Montour all had good opportunities, with Montour’s rebound, which he rang off the post, causing Kraken fans everywhere to slap their foreheads in disbelief.

On the Larsson shot, JT Brown was saying on the broadcast that he would have liked Sprong to stay in front to create a screen for Rittich. Instead, he drifted off to the side of the Kings netminder, hoping for a shot-pass to redirect into a yawning cage. That might have worked if Larsson had gotten the puck away quickly, but it seemed like he and Sprong weren’t quite on the same page. An immediate shot-pass to Sprong had a lane, but when Larsson wound up, the Kings closed off that lane, so he tried to blast it through Rittich without the help of a screen. That did not work.

“I think both on our power play and at 5-on-5, we passed up opportunities to shoot the puck to the net,” Bylsma said. “There weren’t a ton, but you have to take them when you can get them.”

Takeaway #3: Not much support for Daccord

It’s normally games when Philipp Grubauer is in net that the Kraken struggle to create offense at the other end. Other than the two minutes in the middle of the game, Daccord stood tall in this one and shut down some Grade-A chances when he was completely hung out to dry, including a baffling 2-on-0 rush allowed by Seattle during a power play in the second period.

“Especially in the third period, when we were pressing… he had to come up with three or four awesome saves,” Bylsma said. “And you can’t not talk about the 2-on-0 penalty kill/power play chance that we gave up where they got two behind. With the knob of the stick, it was a great save and kept us in the match.”

It certainly wasn’t the highest volume Daccord will face this season, but when Seattle started to sell out to create offense, that meant he was facing some prime rush opportunities, and he turned them all aside. The result was a loss, but another strong night for him with a .905 save percentage and .41 goals saved above expected, according to Natural Stat Trick.

The Kraken came up short in this one against the Kings. A win would have been nice, but assuming they continue to play tight defensively, they should be able to rack up a bunch of points over the next week.

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.

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