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Three Takeaways – Kraken misery continues with ugly 3-1 loss to Sabres

Darren Brown

Things are getting dire, folks. You could sense it from the moment you walked into Climate Pledge Arena on Sunday, where a big swath of fans arrived very late after the Seattle Seahawks narrowly defeated Philip Rivers and the Indianapolis Colts. And when they did arrive, they didn’t have much reason to cheer. The Seattle Kraken dropped their eighth game out of their last nine (1-7-1) with a 3-1 loss to the Buffalo Sabres.

Of course, we’ve been here in years past, but this free fall does sting, especially given that the Kraken started their season so well and gave hope that they could be a playoff team for just the second time in their five-year history. Instead, the plummet toward the bottom of the standings continued Sunday.

After the game, I asked Chandler Stephenson, who scored Seattle’s only goal in the game, “What is the mood of the team right now?”

Sounding downtrodden, Stephenson gave a long and thoughtful answer to a relatively simple question.

“I mean, it’s tough. Obviously, it’s no fun losing. And yeah, obviously, we got a little bit of energy with the dads being here [for the recent dads and mentors trip], and it’s exciting having them here. I think it’s just… it’s a hard league. It’s hard to stay positive when things are going this way. But, I think that’s kind of the MO right now, is that [winning is] going to come. That’s kind of the hard thing is that you’re just waiting for it [to happen], and it seems like it’s kind of the same thing. The effort’s there, goalies are playing well, giving us a chance to win. Offense isn’t overly there, but the PK has been better, power play has been pretty good too as of late. So yeah, I think it’s just that everything needs to be going for us to win games right now, and we’re just going to go into the next one, and hopefully we can have some energy and have some juice and get something going here before Christmas.”

Worth noting: the next Kraken game is against the 23-2-7 Colorado Avalanche.

Anyway… here are Three Takeaways from a 3-1 Kraken loss to the Sabres.

Takeaway #1: Two bad mistakes

You generally have to score more than one goal in a game to win, but with the way things have gone for the Kraken this month, you also can’t afford to make mistakes. Seattle made two huge ones in this game, and both resulted in rush goals for Buffalo—something we almost never saw in the first (almost) two months of the season.

The first goal, which ended with a pretty give-and-go between Noah Ostman and Josh Norris at 17:09 of the first period, came off a 2-on-1 that started when Alex Tuch escaped a Jamie Oleksiak pinch and made a quick breakout pass to Ostman in the middle.

“Their first goal, our D stands in,” coach Lane Lambert said. “Our protocol is our forward has to back him up, and he doesn’t, so it’s a 2-on-1. Can’t do that. And it’s happening too often, and there’s no excuse for it. These players, the guys have to do the job that’s required.”

In this case, Jacob Melanson (more on him in Takeaway #2) was the F1 on the forecheck, and Ben Meyers was the F2. That meant Tye Kartye was the high forward—and the one Lambert was clearly implicating. Kartye got caught flat-footed at the blue line, and Ostman had a ton of speed hitting the neutral zone. Kartye was so stationary, in fact, that Meyers—who was down at the offensive-zone face-off dot when the play started coming back the other way—ended up closer to catching the 2-on-1 rush than Kartye did.

The other non-empty-net goal, scored by Tage Thompson, came off an egregious turnover by Vince Dunn in the second period. Trying to clear the zone up the wall, Dunn had his pass knocked down by Tuch, suddenly turning it into a 3-on-1 that became a 2-on-0 in tight on Joey Daccord. Peyton Krebs slid it across to Thompson, who jammed it under Daccord’s pad for the 2-0 lead.

“Obviously, the second one was a costly turnover,” Lambert said. “Right now, we have to play the perfect game to give ourselves a chance to win. And there’s mistakes here and there that are reaching up and biting us.”

I asked Lambert whether these mistakes are happening more frequently than they were earlier in the season.

“That’s a good question. No, I think that it’s just biting us a little more now. It wasn’t like we were mistake free, certainly. But right now, it’s magnified, right? Because you’re not winning, and you’re having trouble scoring goals 5-on-5, so those little mistakes get magnified.”

Takeaway #2: Jacob Melanson was a silver lining

On a night when the veterans didn’t appear to have much juice, Jacob Melanson—who found out around 3 p.m. Sunday that he would be in the lineup for his second career NHL game, replacing a sick Mason Marchment—did exactly what you’d want. He was fast, physical, relentless on the forecheck, and looked like he belonged in a depth NHL role.

On his first shift, he dumped Rasmus Dahlin in the corner, then slammed Thompson into the end wall a few minutes later, doing everything he could to get under the skin of the Sabres throughout the night.

“The way I play, I play physically, bring energy, and the easiest way you get into it is get that first big hit, and I felt much better after that,” Melanson said. “Everyone’s been welcoming and happy to have me, and I thought tonight, I brought my energy, brought my physicality, and I’ll keep bringing that when the team needs it. And I feel like I can be a big part of that.”

The nastiness in Melanson’s game is an element the Kraken don’t really have, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens with him moving forward. Though he played just 7:47, he brought a spark to an otherwise lifeless lineup. Could that earn him more time with the big club?

“I did like [his physical game],” Lambert said. “I thought it was exactly what we needed, and [he brought] some youthful energy, and certainly he finished his checks. I thought he played well.”

Takeaway #3: Something has to give

One day after a true blockbuster trade sent Quinn Hughes, one of the best defensemen in the NHL, to the Minnesota Wild, it’s fair to wonder whether the Kraken will make a move of their own to try to salvage the season. Last December, former general manager Ron Francis traded for Kaapo Kakko. That didn’t ultimately rescue the season, but it was a signal that Seattle still wanted to keep trying to compete.

One year later, the Kraken are right back in the same position. Things are spiraling quickly, and while the playoffs remain attainable, constant injuries and illnesses have exposed just how thin this roster really is.

If the Kraken don’t pull off a trade or two for forwards who can put the puck in the net, that may be a sign that they’re instead beginning the march back toward sell mode.

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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