Three Takeaways – Kraken fall behind early, can’t catch up against Bruins in 4-2 loss

When we heard Thursday’s Kraken game at Boston was jersey retirement night for Bruins legend Zdeno Chara, we knew it would be an uphill battle for Seattle, facing an emotional team and playing its second game of a back-to-back with travel. What we didn’t necessarily expect (and maybe we should have) was just how early into the game the hill to climb would turn into a mountain.

With the Bruins riding the Chara wave, the Kraken fell behind very early yet again and then spent the entire game trying to dig their way out. They pushed hard in the closing minutes but came up short in the end.

Here are Three Takeaways from a 4-2 Kraken loss to the Bruins.

Takeaway 1: Another bad start and other similarities to Wednesday at NJ

After Wednesday’s game in New Jersey, I started ringing alarm bells about Seattle conceding early goals after it had given up the icebreaker in four straight games. That trend turned into a clear and present danger Thursday—and one that needs to be addressed.

On Wednesday against the Devils, the Kraken gave up the opener 54 seconds in when Cody Glass found a rebound for an easy tap-in goal. On Thursday, Marat Khusnutdinov burned around Cale Fleury and then deked past Joey Daccord, who had dropped to his butterfly far too early and had no chance of recovering. Daccord, by the way, was just OK in this one, stopping 20 of 23 shots.

The time of Khusnutdinov’s goal? 54 seconds… AGAIN! What are the chances of that?!

The Kraken continued to drag a$$ for the next three minutes, and although they had numbers back on a rush, Jaden Schwartz and Fleury seemed to get crossed up momentarily in coverage. Schwartz recovered and got his stick on Viktor Arvidsson’s shot-pass to Casey Mittelstadt, but Schwartz poked the puck right into an open net, giving Arvidsson the goal and Boston a 2-0 lead.

To Lane Lambert’s credit, he immediately used his timeout. He was demonstrative and stern in his address to the team, and from the next face-off on, Seattle controlled the rest of the first period.

Another similarity to the night before: Seattle did get on the board within eight minutes, scoring five seconds into a power play drawn by Kaapo Kakko—the exact same amount of time that elapsed before Jared McCann scored a power-play goal Wednesday.

The problem this time, though, was that the Kraken didn’t get themselves sorted as quickly as they had the night before and allowed a second goal in between their opponent’s first goal and their own. That second one against came back to bite Seattle and meant chasing for the entire game.

Takeaway 2: Some good, some bad from power play

The Kraken power play converted twice in this game, improving to seventh in the entire NHL at 23.7 percent on the season, which accounted for all of Seattle’s offense. As mentioned in Takeaway 1, Chandler Stephenson cut the deficit to 2-1 with a power-play goal at 7:29 of the first period. Stephenson won the draw to Matty Beniers and then headed toward the net. Beniers poked it up to Vince Dunn, who sent it across to McCann at the top of the right circle. McCann then rifled a shot-pass to Stephenson at the top of the crease, who redirected it into an open net.

They made that one look easy.

Seattle added its second power-play goal at 12:27 of the second period, after Brandon Montour’s shot off the end wall skipped right to Eeli Tolvanen in the right circle. Tolvanen quickly sniped it over Jeremy Swayman’s left shoulder to pull the Kraken within 3-2.

Sandwiched between those two power-play goals, though, was a lackadaisical play by Beniers four minutes into the second period. He slowly drifted back to retrieve a puck in Seattle’s zone and, rather than turning on the jets to create separation from Mark Kastelic, tried a little shimmy-and-escape move. He was moving so slowly that it was an easy read for Kastelic, who picked Beniers’ pocket, went in on a breakaway, and scored a short-handed goal to put Boston up 3-1 at the time.

Despite a strong push late in the third, Tolvanen’s goal stood as Seattle’s final tally of the night, meaning Kastelic’s shorty ended up as the game-winner.

It was a rare misstep by Beniers, but a critical one nonetheless.

Takeaway 3: Montour returns, Melanson leaves, Evans scratched

As I wrote earlier in the week, we knew the Kraken had difficult lineup and roster decisions coming with Brandon Montour nearing a return from a hand injury that sidelined him for a month. In that article, I predicted Ryan Winterton—one of just three players, along with Jacob Melanson and Shane Wright, eligible for assignment to the AHL without having to clear waivers—would be sent down to the Coachella Valley Firebirds.

Instead, the Kraken scratched Melanson Wednesday, then reassigned him to CV on Thursday when they activated Montour from injured reserve.

The decision was a “six in one, half-dozen in the other” situation, because the front office surely didn’t want to lose a player to waivers, but also likely didn’t want to send either Melanson or Winterton down. Something had to give, though, with the lineup fully healthy for the first time all season, and this was the call they made.

Interestingly, on the same day the grittiest player on the team was sent down, Winterton had his first NHL fight after taking a nasty hit from Alex Steeves and then standing up for himself instead of letting Vince Dunn do his bidding.

I wouldn’t have liked the call to send Winterton down either, but I especially don’t like the decision to reassign Melanson. The team turned things around when he arrived in the NHL, and since he’s come out of the lineup, the Kraken have put together two straight uninspiring performances and gone 0-1-1. I’ll reiterate what I wrote in my previous article: I’d like to see the team make a trade to clear out its logjam, improve offensively, and get Melanson a permanent spot on the fourth line.

For as effective as Tye Kartye and Freddy Gaudreau can be as fourth-line players, the Kraken need to do what they can to reunite Winterton with Ben Meyers and Melanson. When those three played together, they looked like one of the best fourth lines in the NHL. Any other combination just doesn’t seem to work as well.

By the way, with Montour back in, Ryker Evans was healthy scratched. It wasn’t a bad call, given that Evans has had some tough outings lately, but Fleury also did not have a great game against the Bruins. I’m curious to see if things look different Saturday in Utah, as Lambert tries to salvage the final two points from an otherwise disappointing road trip on which the Kraken currently sit at 1-2-1.