Site icon Sound Of Hockey

Three Takeaways – Two killer plays cost Kraken in 3-2 loss to Devils

Darren Brown

Heading into the third period on Friday, it looked like the Seattle Kraken were poised to pull off an unexpected win over the New Jersey Devils, one of the NHL’s top teams, under challenging circumstances. Seattle was on the second night of back-to-back games, had Philipp Grubauer in net for the first time since his worst performance as a Kraken, and got outshot by a 2-to-1 margin by a high-flying New Jersey team. Still, Seattle had a chance to win.

Despite a big push from the Kraken late in the game, the 3-2 loss came down to two killer plays in the third period.

Andre Burakovsky remarked that the puck just wasn’t bouncing Seattle’s way, and Eeli Tolvanen added, “That’s part of hockey. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

Here are three takeaways from this 3-2 Kraken loss to the Devils.

Takeaway #1: The first killer play

With the game tied 2-2 in the opening minute of the third period, a calamitous miscue unfolded in front of the Seattle goal. On a night when Grubauer bounced back, stopping 33 of 36 shots and looking sharper than he has in quite some time, he still had a hand in a goal coach Dan Bylsma described as “just unfortunate.”

I won’t hang the entire goal on Grubauer, because Chandler Stephenson threw a pizza to the blue line a few seconds earlier, and Vince Dunn could have helped by sweeping the puck out of danger rather than fumbling it off his own post, which set Timo Meier up for the easiest goal of his career. Plus, Grubauer had just made a strong save on Brenden Dillon, looking around a screen and appearing ready to melt it down for a whistle.

However, when Grubauer swept the puck with his stick toward his glove to clamp down on it, he somehow pushed it under his own glove and out the other side. Dunn was clearly caught off guard to have the puck land on his stick and reacted accordingly.

Just like that, the Kraken were trailing for the first time on the entire road trip.

“It’s just unfortunate, the third goal, especially the timing of it,” Bylsma said. “Because the start of the third period—we knew it was going to be a difficult game, we knew it was going to be a game against a good opponent. We had the mindset we were going to come in and dig one out.”

Takeaway #2: The second killer play

To their credit, the Kraken didn’t fold after that deflating goal. They battled hard down the stretch and generated outstanding chances against Jacob Markstrom, only to come up short. Then came the moment with six minutes left—you know the one.

Burakovsky carried the puck over the blue line and found Jaden Schwartz in the slot, who made a quick pass to Brandon Montour. Montour had driven wide, gained speed, and gotten behind New Jersey’s defense. With momentum, he deked Markstrom out of his jock and had him dead to rights.

But when Montour pulled the puck back toward the gaping cage, he inexplicably hooked it through the crease, past the far post, and out the other side.

That was the tying goal, and somehow, it stayed out.

When I asked Bylsma about that play after the game, he literally crossed his eyes and said, “We were all scratching our heads a little bit on how that one doesn’t go in.”

Seattle continued pressing and created several strong opportunities in the closing minutes but couldn’t solve Markstrom again.

Takeaway #3: An impactful return for Burakovsky

The healthy scratch bump appears to have worked again. After Oliver Bjorkstrand and Shane Wright each spent time in the press box before returning to play their best hockey of the season, Burakovsky became the latest recipient of this not-so-subtle messaging from Bylsma. Benched against the Hurricanes and Islanders to start the road trip, Burakovsky returned Friday when Yanni Gourde was sidelined with a minor injury.

Burakovsky responded in style, scoring a pretty goal at 10:16 of the first period to give Seattle a 1-0 lead for the third consecutive game. He also led a 3-on-1 rush, kept a play alive along the wall that directly led to Shane Wright’s power-play goal, and made the first of the tic-tac-toe passes that set up Montour’s painful miss.

Speaking with Burakovsky after the game, it was clear the healthy scratch treatment hit him hard.

“You don’t want to be in that situation when you’re playing your 11th year in the league,” Burakovsky said. “I mean, there’s been a lot of games that have been good, and there’s been games where I haven’t felt my best and the puck hasn’t really bounced my way.

“I think three games ago at home, I had maybe five shots from the middle that just hit a stick or something. But, I mean, you’ve got to stick with it, and yeah, I mean, it’s not fun to sit out.”

Bylsma said Burakovsky’s performance was “a good response.” So is he out of Bylsma’s doghouse? I’m not convinced, but this was a promising step. It will be interesting to see if Burakovsky can sustain this momentum and achieve results similar to Bjorkstrand and Wright in their respective post-scratch eras.

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.

Read more from Darren
Exit mobile version