Site icon Sound Of Hockey

Three Takeaways – Shane Wright scores twice, but Kraken comeback falls short against Red Wings

Darren Brown

The 5-4 shootout loss suffered Tuesday by the Seattle Kraken against the Detroit Red Wings was close to an ideal outcome for the pro-tank crowd. Everyone wants to see Seattle at least in games for the rest of the season, but to that group’s dismay, Chandler Stephenson scored late to tie the game and force overtime, snagging Seattle an unlikely point in the standings.

Meanwhile, the pro-win crowd didn’t get its way either, because in the end, Patrick Kane scored one of the prettier shootout goals I’ve ever seen live, and Seattle came up short of completing the two-goal comeback.

Here are Three Takeaways from a 5-4 Kraken shootout loss to the Red Wings, who have won seven straight games for the second time this season.

Takeaway #1: Killed by special teams

Kraken coach Dan Bylsma spoke after morning skate on Tuesday about staying out of the box against Detroit, which boasts the third-best power play in the NHL. But the Kraken did not heed that warning well enough, giving the Red Wings four power-play opportunities while only earning one of their own.

Detroit officially went 2-for-4 on the power play, but Elmer Soderblom’s tap-in goal at 3:21 of the third period, which put the Red Wings up 4-2, came just four seconds after the conclusion of Shane Wright’s questionable penalty for tripping Vladimir Tarasenko. So, call that 3-for-4.

Both official power-play goals came immediately after face-offs in Seattle’s end. On the first, Chandler Stephenson was in the box, so Mitchell Stephens took the draw. He sort of won it backwards, but Alex DeBrincat jumped on a loose puck and popped it out to Moritz Seider at the blue line. Seider walked the line and sent a perfect shot through a dual-layer screen of Stephens and Jamie Oleksiak to make it 2-1 with 30 seconds left in the first period.

Stephens also took the draw just before Jonatan Berggren’s power-play tally that made it 3-2 at 12:07 of the second period. On that one, Andrew Copp won the face-off cleanly back to Berggren, and Berggren simply sniped it past Joey Daccord’s blocker.

“One of the keys of a good penalty kill is winning the draw,” Bylsma said. “The face-off circle is underrated as a spot in the game where the battle and the competition is going on, and they won that one. And, it pops out, not to a one-time guy, but it pops right out on their stick with an open shooting lane. I thought the PK, when we had zone time against us, did a good job getting in lanes and blocking shots, but on the face-off a quick play like that, we weren’t able to do that. And again, that’s the story, I guess.”

Give credit to Detroit as well, which has had incredible success with the manpower advantage this season and has been on fire since Todd McLellan took over as head coach at the end of December.

“Power play’s been good all year,” Kane said. “Obviously, we want to create more opportunities for ourselves. I thought there were a couple that were maybe uncalled tonight too, that we could have had a couple more [power plays]. But nice to get a few opportunities and bury a couple.”

Takeaway #2: Nice night for the young centers

We’re definitely in “find the silver lining” territory with these many losses piling up and the Kraken fading deeper and deeper into irrelevance, so with that in mind, here’s some silver lining for you.

Matty Beniers and Shane Wright each found the back of the net—and in style!

Beniers was set up yet again by linemate Kaapo Kakko (I picked a great day to publish a story about why their line with Jaden Schwartz has been working so well) after Kakko’s pass initially got rejected by Seider, but went right back to Kakko.

What I liked about the goal was that Beniers didn’t hesitate when the puck did get to him in the slot. He just found a soft area away from Detroit’s defense, and when the puck was there, he let it rip. We saw that from Matty multiple times in this game, which I found encouraging in terms of his confidence continuing to grow. There’s no second-guessing, just quick, hard shots at the net.

And Wright came through with two goals, the first being an absolute snipe off a rush, and the second being a product of sticking with the play after his pass attempt got broken up. The goals meant Shane Wright is now on a six-game point streak, during which he has racked up three goals and four assists.

“They’re a big part of our team,” Bylsma said. “And to see Matty, the way he’s grown in the last 20 games, and to see Shane keep stepping forward and being on the scoresheet repeatedly and getting big goals, a power-play goal a couple games ago, and tonight, both those goals are huge for us in the game. And they’re coming from our young guys, so it’s good.”

As we turn our attention to the future, it is easy to see a path toward Seattle becoming a more competitive team, once Beniers and Wright mature a little more, and Berkly Catton joins the fold. That gives the Kraken three dynamic young centers, with Chandler Stephenson as the elder statesman.

Takeaway #3: Too many Red Wings fans

I have had some concerns lately about more and more empty seats popping up at Climate Pledge Arena, and I guess that will happen when your team has been well out of the playoff conversation for three out of four seasons.

But I hated seeing the building at what I estimated to be about a 40-60 split with visiting Detroit fans Tuesday. Their red paraphernalia made them stick out like a few thousand sore thumbs, and when Detroit scored its goals, there was a certain pop from the visiting crowd that made CPA feel a little less homey.

I have a feeling we’ll continue to see this trend grow this season, as the larger-market teams come to town, and the games become even less meaningful for the Kraken. With Toronto coming to town Thursday, expect another irritating crowd split.

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