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Three Takeaways – Kraken give up early goals again, fall 6-3 to Penguins

Darren Brown

Joey Daccord 122925

Another game, another early deficit for the Seattle Kraken, who—despite starting the first couple minutes on their toes—quickly gave up two goals in the early stages against the Pittsburgh Penguins and found themselves chasing throughout the game.

The Kraken did rally back, as they often have during this stretch of losses, but after Seattle tied it in the second period, Brett Kulak scored 50 seconds later to regain the lead, and Pittsburgh pulled away in the end.

That’s Seattle’s fourth straight loss (0-3-1) and sixth loss in seven games (1-4-2) after winning eight of their previous nine (8-0-1).

“What’s happening right now is we’re making mistakes that are going in the back of our net,” coach Lane Lambert said. “And we’ve got to correct those mistakes.”

Here are Three Takeaways from a frustrating 6-3 Kraken loss to the Penguins.

Takeaway 1: What is with these early goals against?

Just when you thought they’d bucked the trend of giving up an early goal—after getting an impressive penalty kill from 3:29 to 5:29 of the first—the Kraken surrendered a benign-looking shot to defenseman Parker Wotherspoon at the point. His attempt found its way through traffic and in. There were no terrible, glaring mistakes on the play, but Joey Daccord couldn’t see it, and the puck got through.

“I think it’s everyone just playing better,” Ryan Lindgren said when asked how to nip the early goals against. “I think we’re just too loose right now in the D-zone. We’re giving up too many chances, we’re hanging our goalies out to dry a little bit. When we’re playing our best hockey, we’re a hard defending team.”

Seattle had a chance to quickly level the game with a power play of its own, but instead of evening things up, the Kraken put themselves in a deeper hole. Chandler Stephenson tried to make a little chip pass at the blue line, but Connor Dewar read it and stepped up, springing himself for a breakaway. He scored his first of two goals on the night, and once again the Kraken were hiking up a mountain, as they have been on several occasions lately.

The shorthanded goals against are also an alarming trend. This marked the Kraken’s third straight game in which they’ve given up a shorty.

“It’s always correctable,” Lambert said. “We have a face-off battle in Utah the other day, and they end up coming out of that with a 3-on-2, we play that very poorly. Tonight, we knew that they were locking the bench side with their forward, and their forward was going to step, and that was pre-scouted for our players. That was indicated to them. They saw a video on it, and they stepped, got a breakaway. So we’ve got to be better.”

Takeaway 2: Goals through traffic

Three goals against in this game floated through traffic and eluded Daccord. Wotherspoon’s icebreaker just missed Jordan Eberle, then flew between Brandon Montour and Anthony Mantha as they battled at the top of the crease.

Brett Kulak’s goal—which killed Seattle’s momentum and put Pittsburgh back in the driver’s seat—followed a face-off in Seattle’s end. Sidney Crosby won it back, Kulak walked the line, and sent a soft wrister that fluttered past Adam Larsson and into the top corner.

Then, just 2:21 into the third period, Justin Brazeau scored what proved to be the eventual dagger, using Jamie Oleksiak as a screen and firing through his legs to make it 4-2.

It’s hard to decide where the blame falls on goals like these. Defenders are trying to block shots and/or box players out, but when the block is missed, the goalie is left in a brutal spot.

Meanwhile, Daccord certainly didn’t have his best night, allowing five goals on 31 shots. But when pucks come from distance and you can’t see—or even hear—a wrist shot leave the stick, all you can do is read the body language of the players in front of you. You hope the puck finds you, but it’s a bit of a crapshoot. Daccord got no puck luck in this one.

“I have to go back and take a little bit of a look at some of the goals,” Lambert said, when asked about Daccord’s performance. “But, I’ve got to think that there’s maybe a couple we’d like to have him back there and put us in a better chance to have an opportunity to win the game.”

Takeaway 3: Jaden Schwartz on the fourth line

I wrote a Kraken Notebook on Sunday that touched on the challenges of having veteran players return to the lineup and potentially disrupt the team’s chemistry. Lambert had implied at practice that some line shuffling could be coming as he searched for the right mix again.

I knew he experimented last game with Schwartz on the fourth line alongside Ben Meyers and Ryan Winterton, but it was still a bit surprising to see Schwartz start this game on that bottom trio while Freddy Gaudreau moved back up to reunite with Chandler Stephenson and Eeli Tolvanen.

For Schwartz, it might be a tough pill to swallow, but if he was bothered by the demotion—even if it was purely a numbers thing—it didn’t show in his performance. The fourth line was the only truly effective line for the Kraken in this one, creating both of the team’s 5-on-5 goals.

The first came off a textbook forecheck by Ryan Winterton as the F2 and Schwartz as the F1, with Winterton prying the puck loose to Schwartz, who then found Ben Meyers—the F3—trailing in the right circle. Meyers sniped it over Stuart Skinner’s right shoulder.

The second goal was pretty as well. Ryker Evans set Meyers up for a Grade A chance, but Skinner slid across and robbed him. Winterton jumped on the rebound and—instead of shoveling it back into Skinner—found Ryan Lindgren in the slot, giving the defenseman an open net for his second goal as a Kraken.

I don’t know how I feel about Schwartz on the fourth line. There’s still something off about the makeup of this team with a fully healthy roster and Jacob Melanson back in the AHL.

But Schwartz did seem to jell pretty nicely with Meyers and Winterton.

“I liked the fourth line,” Lambert said. “I’ve liked the fourth line for a while. We need the other lines to be better.”

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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