Bad news, gang: The Seattle Kraken will not go 82-0-0 this season. However, 81-0-1 is still on the table!
Yes, the Kraken took their first loss of the season Tuesday, 5-4 in overtime against the Montreal Canadiens. But considering the way the game started, it was again encouraging to see Seattle push back on a night when the home team seemed to have far more jump initially, and still come away with a standings point.
“We were playing hard right from the get go,” head coach Lane Lambert said. “If you look at the chances in the game, we have out-chanced them at 5-on-5. So I thought we did a great job of coming prepared, understanding what we needed to do, certainly in the first 10 minutes when they came out hard. We battled. I give our guys full credit for battling.”
Jared McCann scored for the third straight game, the power play connected for the second straight game, and the outcome easily could have gone the other way if it weren’t for some outstanding plays by Montreal’s stars—another encouraging sign in the early going of the season.
Here are Three Takeaways from a 5-4 Kraken overtime loss to the Canadiens.
Takeaway #1: Competitive every night
I wrote about this recently—Lambert has said that if the Kraken stick to his systems, they won’t win every game, but they’ll be competitive every night. Watching the opening period Tuesday, it felt like Seattle was getting caved in by a high-flying Montreal team.
Indeed, the Habs opened the scoring after a rare odd-man rush against, in which Ivan Demidov made an elite cut to the top of the right circle and an even more elite pass to the backdoor, where Alex Newhook redirected it over Joey Daccord.
That goal came amidst some sloppy puck management that looked similar to what we saw from Seattle on Opening Night, when the Anaheim Ducks appeared a step faster and hemmed the Kraken in for much of the opening 20 minutes.
But…
As Lambert promised, even when the Kraken were again on their heels in the first period, they still stayed within striking distance, getting to the intermission down just 1-0 with a 4-4 shots-on-goal count.
It was no surprise to see them get things back on track in the second and start to take some control of the game.
Takeaway #2: Costly penalty, other mistakes
Mason Marchment took a penalty at a very bad time, and it came back to bite the Kraken. Minutes after Jamie Oleksiak had given Seattle its only lead of the game with a seeing-eye shot through a double-layer screen set by Matty Beniers and Jordan Eberle, Seattle went shorthanded, clinging to a 4-3 lead.
The PKers appeared to have an outstanding kill in the books, but before Marchment could rejoin the play, Demidov made his second all-world move of the night. With Oleksiak tangled up with Brendan Gallagher in the crease, Daccord was shielded from getting to his angle. Demidov waited, and waited, and finally lofted it into an open net to tie the game 4-4 and send it to overtime.
There were other mistakes in this game—like a turnover by Chandler Stephenson that led to Cole Caufield’s first of two goals—but that penalty definitely hurt Seattle’s chances in this one.
“We made some mistakes, and those mistakes ended up in the back of our net tonight, whereas maybe in Games 1 and 2, they didn’t,” Lambert said. “[They were] structural and systematic mistakes that we have no business making those mistakes.”
Takeaway #3: Montreal’s skill wins out
The Kraken deserve plenty of credit for making this another close game and, even though it was different from the previous two (Seattle allowed five goals instead of one), for earning another point in the standings.
But I have to say, the Canadiens have some very skilled players. Demidov, Caufield, and Lane Hutson all made their respective presences known, with Demidov (1-1=2) and Caufield (2-0=2) each notching two points.
Caufield put an exclamation point on Montreal’s late comeback after Nick Suzuki beat Beniers on an offensive-zone face-off, pulling it back to Hutson, who danced around and created a cross-and-drop opportunity for Caufield.
Caufield streaked down the flank, Daccord dropped down and gave him a sliver of net to hit, and Caufield picked the corner from a sharp angle.
It was a beautiful goal to cap off a night full of highlight-reel plays by a talented Montreal squad—a scary team, indeed.
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.
Seven thoughts:
1. Why are the Kraken carrying three goalies but only playing one? They should not be trying to be tactical about this, just alternate them every third game until one plays himself to CV.
2. On the Habs’ second goal, nice setup assist to Stephenson. No idea the intent there.
3. If you follow Marchment, you know he has a history of stupid penalties. Was not as thrilled as others about his acquisition.
4. On the Habs’ OT winner, heck of a move by David Goyette to set that up. Oh, forgot, the Habs took Hutson one pick after Seattle wasted a pick on Goyette.
5. Not sure if they are having practices on the road trip but what is the Catton insertion waiting for? He needs to be on the ice to have time to reflect on it, otherwise it is all just a video game.
6. Stephenson TOI 21:26, Wright 13:15. If the objective is to get Shane going, does he not need a lot more ice time and Stephenson less?
7. Larsson -4? Hopefully just one bad game.
This seemed like a good test. Kraken were on their heels most of first period,but they found a way to rebound in 2nd. Then they looked like they really had things swinging their way towards end of 3rd. For losing, I’d say this was a good one. Habs looking sharp.
Chuck Goyette is a center Hutson isn’t…. Why would you even consider taking a defender or any other position over a center? Seriously though this center fascination has to end, we’re obviously going to miss out on some great players if our focus is so heavily set on one position.
I’m with you on Marchment I haven’t really liked what he brings to the Kraken, I’d prefer someone else getting his minutes.
Wright needs more ice time but we don’t have a coach that’s focused on developing young players. What’s better for the kraken in two years, barely making the playoffs or just missing them this season or developing our top talent?
Overall we got a point on the road, on to the next one.
I think Campbell’s role this year is player development. I’m not sure where Wright fits in the priority order with Catton, Nyman and Winterton. Compared to them, he’s a veteran.
I think if they could get more offensive zone time and more OZ faceoffs, he’d get more minutes.
> “What is the Catton insertion waiting for?”
Lambert wants solely to win games, and if Catton gave us a better chance of winning than someone in the lineup, he would already have replaced them. Thus, I think the Catton insertion is waiting for two things:
1. One of the middle-six wingers to play himself into a healthy scratch.
2. A suitably weak opponent where using Catton to replace and motivate that winger won’t hurt the team’s chances of winning.
I think a couple more performances like last night from either Marchment or Tolvanen and we might be seeing Catton in the game against the Flyers. Schwartz and Winterton are doing all the right things to help this team win right now, so I don’t see Lambert moving them out of the lineup.
If Marchment and Tolvanen recover their form, we could see Catton benched through the Toronto game before being sent down to Coachella for the six games he’d get on a conditioning stint.
You may be right, but as Nino said above, do we want to compete and just miss the playoffs this season or work on developing the best team two seasons from now?
I think the loss of Kakko has really upset the lines. If Eberle and Schwartz were still with Wright as originally planned, I think Shane would be more noticeable.
I think Wright needs a play driver on his line and that is what Catton does. Take your pick on who to drop, but I would like to see that change from the Ottawa game, even if it results in mistakes by young players.
Tough loss but a well earned point.
On to Ottawa.
Go Kraken!!!
Ottawa without Brady T.
I didnot like Eli play tonight or even in the first 2 games. He looks lost has troublle with puck possesion on the boards and Playing with Wright is bad news for Wright who has to play defensively to make up for Eli’s poor positioning. Good gritty point for the team. Larsson tries to do too much and I hope they get that sorted out because, at time, it looked like an Atom game wwwhere everyone goes for the puck.
While it’s probably not ideal for Catton, so far I’m getting a bit of flashback to the situation with Wright in season 2, where part of the reason he wasn’t making it into the lineup was because the team was playing well. Respect the streak.
The middle 6 is middling and lacking chemistry. I think all of them are spending time on the PP and/or PK and I’m wondering if that’s getting in the way of them being able to build something 5-on-5. I’m not seeing any duos clicking on those lines, let alone a full trio.
3 goals in 3 games for Jared McCann. Hoping good health and having consistency on a line with Beniers and Eberle means we see him return to the scoring we’ve seen from him in past years.
A lot to clean up from this one, but glad to see them recover and continue to battle and come away with a point. Thursday against Ottawa feels like the time to get a look at one of the backup goalies and get Catton a game.
I do wonder if something Austin mentioned in the Monday Musings comments is the plan. If they don’t play him, Catton will be eligible to go to Coachella after the game against Toronto on Saturday.
Was wondering the same thing, maybe their plan is to get him sent directly to the valley for some games then bring him up for a few before returning him to Spokane?
At this point I hope that’s a the plan otherwise I’m confused. As RB mentioned above the middle 6 isn’t really looking great all in all. Move Nyman up get Catton in, do something to they to get a little more skill into our middle 6.
I’d like to see Winterton and Nyman swap spots at the very least.
Glad you mentioned Montreal’s young players and their skill. The Kraken are going to experience a “skill deficit” against most teams they play – particularly at the forward position – and last night’s game could be a microcosm of that. Three Montreal goals created by their skill and skating.
The Kraken formula for winning games will look something like last night – creating goals from well executed set plays and precision passing (Wright to Schwartz), luck (Nyman), unexpected sources (Oleksiak) and opportunistic/savvy play (McCann).
This “formula” could work, but it absolutely requires tight, error-free play with high-end effort. Stephenson’s inexplicable “pass” to Caufield was an obvious error. It would have been a high-end hustle play, but Wright made zero effort to get back and offset the Hab’s 4-on-3 break leading to Montreal’s first goal. This team simply isn’t talented enough to overcome these kind of mistakes.
That was such an a strange game. Kraken looked mostly terrible and sloppy the entire game, yet somehow managed to keep it close and even came close to pulling out the win with only minutes left, despite the skill deficit. Kraken just lacked the jump at the end. Hopefully this is just a case of playing the first road game after flying across the continent, and the legs will get going with some more games under the belt. It would have been awesome to pull that one out despite the shabby play, but I will take the point. Go Kraken!