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Three Takeaways – Kraken use huge second period to drub injury-riddled Oilers 6-1

Darren Brown

Look, we recognize these weren’t the Edmonton Oilers we’ve come to know and hate—the ones that feature two of the world’s best players in currently injured Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. We also recognize that this version of the Oilers was without other players like Mattias Ekholm and Stuart Skinner (who wouldn’t have played this game anyway), and Edmonton was on the second of back-to-back games with travel.

BUT…

It surely felt good from the Kraken perspective to give that team a good spanking for a change. The Oilers have absolutely owned the Kraken over the history of Seattle’s franchise, and the Kraken were just 2-11-1 all-time in the series coming into this game. They also had nine straight losses against Edmonton, with the last win coming way back on Jan. 3, 2023.

So, a lopsided win Thursday is both notable and well received by Seattle and its fans.

Here are Three Takeaways from a 6-1 Kraken win over the Oilers.

Takeaway #1: Coach’s challenge was a turning point

After 20 minutes, this game felt like it could go either way. The Oilers were on tired legs, but they had some dangerous chances in the first period that were thwarted by Joey Daccord, who had an impressive night, stopping 36 of 37 shots (I’m not focusing on him in this article, but I was very encouraged to see him play the way he did after a slight drop in his play lately). Daccord’s shutout bid was spoiled by Zach Hyman five minutes into the third.

HOWEVER…

The Oilers did appear to take a 1-0 lead with 52 seconds left in the first after a puck popped way up in the air, dropped perfectly for Jeff Skinner, and he lifted it over Daccord’s shoulder.

Seattle coach Dan Bylsma challenged the play for a missed stoppage due to a high stick by Connor Brown while the puck was floating through the air. Super slow motion showed that Brown’s stick barely made contact with the puck, but what I personally think got missed on the review is that after it touched Brown’s stick at an illegally high point, it then grazed the glove of Vince Dunn. If it did touch Dunn’s glove, then I think that should be a good goal, since Seattle would have been the most recent team to touch the puck before it landed for Skinner.

Bylsma gave all the credit for the successful challenge to video coaches Tim Ohashi and Brady Morgan but conceded that he was “deeply worried” Seattle would not win it.

“The first period was a little bit too much 50/50 for me,” Bylsma said. “They had two power plays, the penalty kill did a great job of killing them off, but the game was certainly still 50/50 at that point in time. And the high stick was a huge, huge call. All props to Brady and Tim in the video room, because it felt like a high stick, but it was not super— I didn’t see all the replays, but I wasn’t like ‘100 percent, oh yeah, that’s a high stick.’ It just changed the puck a little bit, and Brady and Tim were on it. And no, I wasn’t 100% confident we were going to get it.”

That ended up being a pivotal moment in the game because, instead of taking a 1-0 deficit into the second with the bad feelings of a late-period goal against, Seattle entered the middle frame on level footing and quickly took advantage.

Takeaway #2: What a second period

In that middle frame, the Kraken dominated every inch of the ice and were rewarded with five goals in one period for the third time in franchise history. It started with a tap-in power-play goal by Jaden Schwartz off a beautiful pass from Andre Burakovsky.

“We’re not rushing it [on the power play],” Burakovsky said. “I think, before, we were making a little dumb decisions sometimes, trying to force it and trying to maybe make the harder play. I think right now, we’re moving it a little bit quicker, we recognize when they’re putting pressure, and then we bypass that guy.”

I asked Bylsma what got the period rolling the way it did, and interestingly, he credited the hard forechecking of Mikey Eyssimont (who coincidentally only played two shifts in the period). I went back and watched Eyssimont’s first shift of the frame, and lo and behold, it was his pressure on Jake Walman that led to the Edmonton defenseman throwing a hot pizza pie to Schwartz, who was fresh off the bench.

https://soundofhockey.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screen-Recording-2025-03-28-at-9.19.33-AM.mov

“It happened fast,” Schwartz said. “[Tye Kartye] made a good change, and I just kind of hopped on. I think a couple of guys might have been forechecking the D-man and put pressure on him, and I just don’t think he saw me coming off the bench.”

After that, the ball just started rolling downhill for the Kraken. They got three more goals in very quick succession, with Jani Nyman tipping one through Calvin Pickard, Matty Beniers whacking one into an open net after a nice setup by Kaapo Kakko, and Burakovsky going skate to stick to make it 5-0.

The three goals came in a span of just 1:51, and there was even a fourth one in there by Jordan Eberle that got negated by an offside challenge.

As Ron Burgundy said, “That escalated quickly.”

Takeaway #3: Jaden Schwartz is rolling

Schwartz scored for the third game in a row and had two in this game, bringing him to 23 on the season. For a guy that has had a lot of health issues during his time in Seattle, it has been fun to watch this resurgence from the 32-year-old winger.

His 45 points (23-22—45 in 73 games played) are already his best offensive output as a Kraken (previous best was 21-19—40 in 71 GP in 2022-23), and his 23 goals are his highest total since 2017-18, when he scored 24 with the St. Louis Blues.

“Every year is a little different,” Schwartz said. “It’s hard to point to one thing, but I had a good offseason, was able to get my body where it needed to be, and definitely being healthy [helps]. Some seasons, you kind of have dings here and there, and most of it’s unlucky. But, [in an] 82-game season, most guys are battling through stuff. So I’m just taking it day by day, enjoying it, and just trying to bring my best and improve on a daily basis.”

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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