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Three Takeaways – “Flat” Kraken lose yet again, 4-2 to Blackhawks

Darren Brown
Brandon Montour

It is officially (well, technically it’s still “unofficially,” but it feels pretty darn official at this point) time for Kraken fans to root for losses. With yet another dreadful loss to the last-place-in-the-Central Division Chicago Blackhawks on Saturday, Seattle dropped from four points out of the second wild card to six points out with seven games left to play.

It’s bizarre that the Kraken have stayed in the race for as long as they have, considering their ineptitude since the Olympic break—they’re now 5-12-2 in 17 games since returning from the three-week hiatus on Feb. 25—especially when you recognize that they’ve simultaneously sunk to 28th in the NHL. If they end up in that spot when the season ends, they will have the fifth-best odds of landing the No. 1 overall pick in the NHL Draft.

Then again, it’s also downright sad that we’re in this spot again, rooting for late-season losses for the fourth time in five years. And making matters worse, there’s no obvious bright, shining light on the horizon for this club.

But hey, maybe they’ll win the Draft Lottery? That would be exciting, right?

While the Kraken are still mathematically alive, they sent a clear message Saturday that they are not interested in fighting their way back into the playoff hunt, coming out—as Brandon Montour called it—“flat” to start the game, then again waiting until they were down 2-0 (against a bad team that had lost five straight) to finally show some life.

“Not enough desperation, didn’t start the game well, and our goaltender played fantastic for us,” coach Lane Lambert said. “Too many quality chances from them, and the power play didn’t give us anything, and our penalty kill got scored on. So really, not a really overly great assessment of the game in a game that we needed. It just wasn’t good enough.”

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

Takeaway 1: “Clearly, there’s something that has to change”

As I reported in my Kraken Notebook article on Friday, the team has been trying a different tack the last couple days in a last-ditch attempt to shake themselves out of the emotional crevasse into which they’ve fallen and become lodged. They were more boisterous and jovial than usual at practice on Friday, and while I didn’t attend morning skate Saturday, I heard it was a similar mood. The group is usually quite stoic, so with execution and confidence in short supply, they decided to try loosening things up.

That too did not work. In fact, this loosey-goosey version of the Kraken came out looking dead as a doornail against the Blackhawks and only remained in the game because Philipp Grubauer was outstanding for much of the night, stopping 27 shots with several 10-bellers mixed in.

“We were flat, and you’ve got to give it to them, young legs, had some buzz,” Brandon Montour said. “They’ve got nothing to lose. I don’t know if we’re gripping our sticks too tight or just not playing fast. We created a little bit, but not nearly enough, especially against a team that’s below us, a team that’s already out, we’ve got to obviously be— we keep saying it, but desperate.”

It has to be maddening for a guy like Montour, who left a Cup-winning team known to have (for better or worse) so many big personalities to join a Kraken team that can somehow manage to come out “flat” with its season on the line.

Lambert, by the way, has been an absolute quote machine lately, and he again brought the heat Saturday. I asked him about Montour’s commentary and how he can wrap his head around the team being “flat” at this stage of the season.

“I can’t [wrap my head around it]. I can’t,” Lambert said. “A game of that magnitude, to come out flat, clearly there’s something that has to change.”

What even can change at this point? Hmm.

Takeaway 2: A classic last-minute killer goal

Despite the flat start, Seattle remained tied 0-0 against a poor opponent through half the game. But Vince Dunn took a tripping penalty at 7:52 of the second, and the penalty kill—which has been one of the many areas the team has struggled in of late—again had a lapse that resulted in too easy a look for Teuvo Teravainen.

Credit the Blackhawks for the play, because after Teravainen took a pass from Connor Bedard at the left hashmark, Tyler Bertuzzi suddenly started racing down the slot in lockstep with Teravainen. That made Jamie Oleksiak start backing up to cut off the passing lane to Bertuzzi, so Teravainen cleverly took the ice being given to him, walked all the way in to the top of the crease, and jammed the puck through Grubauer.

But man, I thought Lambert’s head might explode after the second goal against at 19:37 of the second. He had been pacing up and down the bench, screaming instructions at his team to try to get them to sustain puck possession with the clock ticking down in the frame. But Chicago got possession and started a rush that Seattle seemed to have covered, with numbers back.

In fact, Ilya Mikheyev’s pass intended for Anton Frondell did get broken up, deflecting off Jaden Schwartz’s skate. But the puck sat in the slot, and Berkly Catton seemed to get fooled by the direction of the puck, cutting away from Tyler Bertuzzi instead of sticking with him. Bertuzzi jumped on the loose puck and snuck it inside the post.

“That same shift, we had chances the other way, and then I think it was a 3-on-3 play,” Schwartz said. “And it just went off… I think it was my skate to one of their guys that they weren’t even trying to pass to. Just a little bit of an unlucky break there.” 

It was actually the third goal—Sacha Boisvert’s first NHL goal, scored at 13:08 of the third to make it 3-1—that gave Chicago proper control of the game, but that one in the closing seconds of the middle frame is what put the Kraken too far behind the eight ball.

Takeaway 3: Jaden Schwartz gets on the scoresheet

How about a little palate cleanser for Takeaway 3?

There were a few bright spots in this otherwise dreadful game, like Grubauer’s play and Schwartz getting on the scoresheet for the first time since getting kicked in the face and missing several weeks.

He got the Kraken on the board and gave them life with a simple drive to the net at 10:48 of the third, redirecting a pretty pass from Eeli Tolvanen past Arvid Soderblom. He also started the play that led to Kaapo Kakko’s rebound goal, picking up the second assist.

“When you miss time, it always takes a game or two,” Schwartz said. “Just doing what I can for this team right now, and wins is the only thing that matters.”

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I’m still thinking about what those “changes” were that Lambert was alluding to… Hmm.

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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