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Three Takeaways – Full-team effort leads to signature 2-1 Kraken win over Hurricanes

Darren Brown
Joey Daccord Jamie Oleksiak

That was a massive win for the Seattle Kraken, who knocked off the second-best (now third-best) team in the NHL thanks to a complete, full-team, 60-minute effort that featured opportunistic scoring, staunch defending, and outstanding goaltending.

The Carolina Hurricanes played exactly the game we expected from them, tilting the ice for long stretches and throwing the kitchen sink at Joey Daccord. But the Kraken’s structured defense was nearly perfect on the night, and when it wasn’t, their goaltender bailed them out almost every time.

Considering Carolina had won five straight and was 10-0-2 in its previous 12, this was something of an unexpected victory for Seattle. Not only was it a big win because of the opponent, it also vaulted the Kraken past Edmonton for third place in the Pacific Division and gave them a five-point cushion over San Jose, Nashville, and Los Angeles for the final wild-card spot.

Here are Three Takeaways from a memorable 2-1 Kraken win over the Hurricanes.

Takeaway 1: The Big Rig game

Was that the best game Jamie Oleksiak has ever played as a Kraken?

Despite his massive frame, I don’t recall him ever looking downright scary to opposing players trying to enter the Seattle zone—but he did in this one against Carolina. The Big Rig finished with 11 hits, a new career high.

“He was outstanding,” Daccord said of Oleksiak. “He’s just such a beast. He’s an absolute beast, he’s a warrior, blocking shots, I thought he had a great stick tonight. He made so many good plays tonight, and then obviously just burying guys too.”

Plus, when the Kraken were forced to kill a 6-on-4 situation over the final 1:29 of the game, he came up with a critical shot block, then won a puck battle to get it out of danger and briefly relieve pressure.

Two of his biggest hits—one on Taylor Hall with 22 seconds left in the first period and another on Seth Jarvis with 14 minutes remaining in the third—indirectly led to scoring chances going the other way.

If Oleksiak played like that every night, he’d be one of the most feared and dominant shutdown defensemen in the sport.

“I just thought he was hard,” Lambert said. “I think there’s games where he’s equally as hard. Maybe the hits don’t show up, necessarily, on the score sheet so much. But his presence, and certainly his presence around the net in the defensive zone for us tonight was huge.”

Takeaway 2: Joey was excellent, too

It’s true Seattle’s defensive structure was mostly airtight in this game, with many of Carolina’s attempts coming from the outside. But you don’t win a game in which you’re outshot 36-15 without a special night from your goalie.

Daccord was visibly dialed in from the opening face-off. There weren’t many acrobatic saves—largely because he was square to shooters and the Kraken kept chances to the perimeter—but his play reading, puck tracking, and rebound control were excellent.

The home crowd chanted Joey’s name multiple times throughout the night—rightfully so—and he earned first-star honors.

“A big thing with playing a shot volume team [like Carolina] is just controlling your rebounds,” Daccord said. “Because they’re going to try to just get pucks in that create chaos, so if I can suck up pucks, get a lot of whistles, put pucks in the corner, that helps our D a lot in terms of just killing their motion in the offensive zone and resetting the play with a D-zone drop.”

There were brief stretches this season when it felt fair to wonder whether Daccord would rediscover the elite form that endeared him to fans last year. He appears to have found it. He’s now won six of his last seven starts, dating back to Jan. 25.

This is a very good time for Daccord to be playing his best hockey.

Takeaway 3: Critical goals at critical times

Seattle did an excellent job keeping the game low-scoring, but you still have to capitalize when opportunities arise.

The Kraken appeared to score three goals but were only credited with two after a beautiful give-and-go between Jaden Schwartz and Kaapo Kakko was overturned on an offside challenge.

That play came at 7:57 of the second period, with Seattle already holding a 1-0 lead thanks to Kakko’s icebreaker on a 2-on-1 with Berkly Catton. The overturned goal could have deflated the group—but instead, the Kraken responded with a crucial tally from their fourth line.

The sequence started with Jacob Melanson doing Jacob Melanson things in the defensive zone. After Daccord rimmed the puck around the boards, Melanson beat Sebastian Aho to it, absorbed contact against the wall, and protected the puck long enough to slide it to Adam Larsson, who quickly transitioned play up ice.

“‘Mel’ made a great play on the wall, got it to ‘Lars’ in the middle,” Meyers said. “He just moved it quick to me, I got it to Freddy, and then just drove the net. I was able to put her home after a great pass from Freddy too.”

Meyers’ finish wasn’t pretty, but it counted—and it ended up being the game-winner after Nikolaj Ehlers cut the lead to 2-1 late in the second.

From there, it was defend, defend, defend until the fans counted the Kraken down to the final horn, after which Daccord was mobbed by his teammates.

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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