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Three Takeaways – Kraken recover for big-time 5-3 win at Capitals

Darren Brown

Ryan Winterton 031726 Pan

The Seattle Kraken have had decent results so far this season, but their three previous wins came against the very bad Calgary Flames, the even worse Calgary Flames again, and the floundering Detroit Red Wings.

Their first two outings against “good” teams ended in a 3-1 loss at the Edmonton Oilers and a 6-2 home loss to the Vegas Golden Knights. So, expectations were managed when they arrived in Washington to take on a Capitals team with its sights set on a Stanley Cup run.

But the Kraken had an OK first period, dominated much of the second, and then recovered in the third after coughing up the lead early in that final frame. They got timely scoring, more production from the fourth line, and big saves in big moments from Joey Daccord.

“We started off with a couple huge penalty kills right off the bat, our goaltender played really well when we needed him to, for sure, and I thought we stuck with it most of the night,” coach Lane Lambert said. “Certainly, when they scored their third goal early in the third period, I liked the response on the bench. I liked the fact that the guys that were on the ice that got scored on just went straight to the center-ice dot and lined up. In other words, ‘Don’t take me off the ice.’ That means a lot to me.”

Here are Three Takeaways from an impressive 5-3 Kraken win over the Washington Capitals.

**Author’s note: I was under a time crunch to quickly hit the road for Philly after this one, so instead of watching the whole game and then giving my thoughts on a more macro level, I’m doing this rendition of Three Takeaways in a more chronological order than usual to get it written during the game. Enjoy!

Takeaway 1: Catton line gets ’em going again, Kraken escape first tied

The Kraken led the shots-on-goal race 11-8 after the first period, but like we saw from them in Detroit on Thursday, it didn’t feel like they should be tied at the first intermission. Perhaps that was because I had watched Seattle slap the puck around for several minutes in its own zone, fumbling it repeatedly in dangerous areas, before Alex Ovechkin scored his first goal of the season and 930th of his NHL career to make it 2-1 at 16:47.

But if we zoom out on that opening frame, put that little stretch of sloppy play in a safety deposit box, and throw away the key, there was a lot to like.

For example, the Kraken got themselves into penalty trouble early with two consecutive penalties (that’s not the part to like) to Ryker Evans and Chandler Stephenson. But the PK was stellar and allowed only one shot in almost four straight minutes of playing shorthanded.

Soon after that, the Berkly Catton line got Seattle going yet again—just as we had talked about with Lane Lambert on Sunday morning—when Vince Dunn found Kaapo Kakko with a perfect pass off the pads.

Add a beautiful spin move off Jakob Chychrun and a saucer pass by Stephenson in the dying seconds of the frame to set up Jordan Eberle, and you end up with a 2-2 tie through 20 minutes.

Again, on the whole, it was a solid opening period in a tough building against a tough team.

Takeaway 2: Fourth line comes through again

Where the first period felt more tilted in Washington’s favor than the shot count showed, the second period was the opposite. Seattle had the Caps penned in for several long stretches and had a handful of prime looks at Logan Thompson.

But while the top three lines all looked dangerous, it was the fourth line that finally broke through again at the 13:24 mark.

On a forecheck deep in the offensive zone, the first two players (F1 and F2) into the zone get on the puck and try to force the defensemen to cough it up, while the F3 goes to the front of the net. Ben Meyers (F1) and Ryan Winterton (F2) pried the puck loose twice, with Winterton ultimately winning it away from Justin Sourdif and putting it right onto Freddy Gaudreau’s stick in the low slot.

“It’s exactly what we talk about,” Lambert said. “And when I talk about pressure and gaps and all that, we’re [also] talking about 200 feet away from our net, so it starts there, and that’s kind of exactly what we’ve been talking about all year long. So, it’s kind of a nice little systems clip for us.”

As we’ve seen with Gaudreau on several occasions in the early stages of this season, he showed good skill and patience to wait out Thompson and slide a backhander past his right skate.

That’s three goals in two games for Freddy—he now has four on the season after scoring seven all of last season—and, eventually, after Ryan Winterton’s dagger later in the game, 13 combined points for the fourth line in those same two games.

Again, this fourth line producing this way could be one of the big keys to success for the Kraken this season.

Takeaway 3: Kraken recover for a monster win

Evans played a starring role on two of Washington’s goals in this one, first committing the turnover that led to the Ovechkin goal in the first, and then making the loose breakout pass that resulted in Boone Jenner’s tying goal 46 seconds into the third.

But to his credit—and to the credit of the Kraken as a whole—the team rode Daccord’s outstanding play after that goal and withstood an onslaught just long enough for Evans to start the play that led to Jared McCann’s eventual game-winning goal.

“[Evans has] been playing really, really well for us, using his legs, using his speed, making breakout plays,” Lambert said. “You know what? When you’re playing that much, and you have the puck on your stick that much, there is some possibilities that you’re going to make some errors at times. But it just shows, you shake it off, and then, also, what a great block there at the end.”

And hey, how about Ryan Winterton getting his first goal of the season as the dagger? He’s had so many great looks this season, and his goal meant the fourth line once again all contributed two points on the night.

That’s a huge win in these early stages of the season for the Kraken for a lot of reasons.

What say you, folks?

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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