Seattle Kraken versus Edmonton Oilers 7 p.m. Pacific time Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle, Washington TV: ROOT Sports Radio: AM 950 KJR
If you haven’t had this game circled since the Kraken schedule was released over the summer, then what have you even been doing?! We at Sound Of Hockey cannot WAIT to see the best player in the world take Climate Pledge Arena ice for the first time on Friday, and lest you forget, it’s also Dave Tippett revenge night. We’re not sure what he’s getting revenge for, since he willingly left NHL Seattle to become head coach of a team with multiple elite players, but it’s a revenge game nonetheless. Ladies and gentlemen, the high-flying Edmonton Oilers are in town to take on your Seattle Kraken.
Kraken still face injury adversity
Prior to Seattle’s shootout loss to the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday, news broke that the Kraken were suddenly dealing with some pretty serious injury woes. Top scorers Jordan Eberle and Jaden Schwartz, plus Will Borgen and Chris Driedger, were suddenly unavailable, joining Calle Jarnkrok and Mark Giordano on the shelf. Jarnkrok has been out since the third period in the Carolina game and Giordano has been in COVID protocol since just before the Tampa Bay game on Friday.
For Friday’s game against the Oilers, the Kraken face similar challenges, as only Borgen is available out of that group. Schwartz, Eberle, and Jarnkrok are day to day, while Driedger is on injured reserve. Interestingly, coach Dave Hakstol wouldn’t commit to Borgen being included in the lineup and indicated that things will look similar to last game. So we’re *guessing* that means Borgen will sit, while Jeremy Lauzon, Carson Soucy, and Haydn Fleury will all play.
Plenty to get excited for in this one
The narrative around the first game back after a road trip has always been that teams tend to have a letdown in that situation. We’re hopeful the Kraken can buck this supposed trend on Friday, as there are just too many reasons to get up for this game.
First, Seattle has had a good stretch lately and on Wednesday showed that this group can deal with the adversity of losing multiple key players to injury and illness at the same time. So why wouldn’t the players do everything in their power to build on that momentum?
Second, this is a measuring stick game in every sense of the word. The Oilers are a high-octane, thrilling team, and Seattle has no choice but to be on top of its game if it wants to have a chance to win in front of the home fans.
“If you’re mentally ready to play, and we had a good morning skate today, you just gotta treat it like any other game,” Soucy said Friday. “It doesn’t matter if we’re coming back from a road trip or not, we’re still on home ice. We gotta come out ready to play.”
Former NHL Seattle employee Dave Tippett back in town
On Friday morning, he raved about what an incredible job the Seattle organization has done in making everything a reality and how great Climate Pledge Arena turned out. He also mentioned that it was interesting seeing things like the long loading dock tunnel, with its entrance a block from the arena, and the twin scoreboards brought to life. Those items were apparently hot topics during his time with the fledgling franchise, back when the arena existed only in blueprints and concepts.
There will be a couple other semi-homecomings Friday, as Spokane’s Derek Ryan and Kailer Yamamoto are expected to be in the lineup for the Oilers. SOH’s Andy Eide asked Ryan on Friday if he recalls playing in the old Key Arena during his WHL days, and he joked, “Well, you’re dating me a bit there.” Ryan is ALSO a friend of the pod, by the way.
The Oilers have dropped to second place in the Pacific Division behind the Calgary Flames, though Edmonton has two games in hand on Calgary. At 16-5-0, it has been a great start to the season for Tippett’s squad, which appears to finally be putting everything together.
Edmonton is third in the NHL with 3.81 goals per game and has the league’s best power play, which clicks at a whopping 35.9 percent. McDavid and Leon Draisaitl have predictably produced a good chunk of the team’s scoring punch with 40 and 41 points respectively through 21 games, so the Kraken might want to keep an eye on those two.
23-year-old Stuart Skinner will make his seventh career start in net for the Oilers.
The Oilers got the better of the Kraken the first time these two teams faced one another, back on Nov. 1 in Edmonton, with a 5-2 win. McDavid was everywhere that night and Draisaitl had four points.
Projected lineup
Line rushes were short-lived at morning skate on Friday, and guys were swapping in and out, so we’re going off of Hakstol’s statement that things will look a lot like last game here.
Earlier this season, we heard Seattle Kraken players say—after several of their hard-fought regulation losses—that good teams find ways to get points out of tight games. On Wednesday, the Kraken did do just that, even as they fell behind the Detroit Red Wings in the third period. The outcome was a 4-3 shootout loss but pushing the game to overtime gave Seattle a point in the standings and five of a possible eight from the four-game road trip.
For some reason, five points and a 2-1-1 record feels a lot better than four points and a 2-2-0 record, doesn’t it? A regulation loss in Detroit sends the Kraken home with a very “bleh” sentiment, but figuring out a way to get a point on a night where the injury bug had just struck the team in a big way is another confidence booster.
Here are our three takeaways from Wednesday’s 4-3 Kraken shootout loss to the Detroit Red Wings.
Takeaway #1: “He’d like to have that one back”
Every time a goalie gives up a goal that maybe shouldn’t have gone in, the broadcasters say something along the lines of, “Oh, he’d like to have that one back.” 17 minutes into the first period Wednesday, 19-year-old phenom Lucas Raymond, off a rush, fired a shot from just above the goal line. Philipp Grubauer was a fraction of a second late in getting back to his post, and the puck caromed off him and went in.
Play-by-play announcer John Forslund indicated that Grubauer would, in fact, like to have that one back.
For as much as you’ve heard that watching hockey over the years, how many times has the goalie then actually gotten it back? It can’t be many, but that happened on Wednesday. Kraken coach Dave Hakstol challenged for offside and won, negating what looked like an unfortunate goal for Grubauer.
Hakstol credited friend of the Sound Of Hockey Podcast and Kraken video coach Tim Ohashi, along with video analyst Brady Morgan, for initiating the challenge. We promised Tim during that podcast interview that we would keep track of this stat for him, so he’s now 1-0 on the season in video challenges.
Coincidentally, the Kraken also had a goal disallowed earlier in the period when Mason Appleton ran into Thomas Greiss just before a Jeremy Lauzon shot from the point. The argument could be made that Appleton was pushed into the Detroit netminder, and even if he hadn’t been, Greiss still had time to recover. But that’s neither here nor there, since the call was made and upheld.
Takeaway #2: Ryan Donato was hurt… and then he wasn’t!
In the second period, Ryan Donato blocked a shot off the top of his left foot and limped down the tunnel in pain. Kraken faithful felt an overwhelming here-we-go-again vibe, as it briefly appeared Donato would join Calle Jarnkrok, Jaden Schwartz, Jordan Eberle, Chris Driedger, Will Borgen, and Mark Giordano in the Kraken’s injury and illness ward.
Not only did Donato get right back out there, but he scored immediately, his first of two goals on the night. The Red Wings had two comical errors in a row in their defensive end, and the puck wound up on Joonas Donskoi’s stick at the right hash. He dished to Yanni Gourde, who then made a beautiful fake and pass to Donato. Donato dusted it off and calmly deposited it into a yawning cage.
The fact Donskoi does not have a goal this season is absurd. He has been so good.
That gave Seattle a 2-1 lead, but the Kraken later found themselves trailing after a late second-period goal by Vladislav Namestnikov and a Raymond goal—this one actually counted—6:30 into the third.
With Seattle now behind, Donato, sore foot and all, followed Jamie Oleksiak on a rush into Detroit’s zone. Oleksiak lost the handle on the puck, but it dribbled right to Donato, who wasted no time in firing a perfect shot into the top corner to beat Greiss for the second time.
Takeaway #3: Next guy up, indeed
Injuries happen in hockey. It’s just part of the gig, and every NHL team deals with them every single year. Teams that have the depth to manage through times when several injuries happen at once are the ones that sustain success throughout the season. It’s a one-game sample size of the Kraken having a whole host of players on the shelf simultaneously, but still, that was a gutsy effort by the boys.
Eberle and Schwartz are the top two point producers for the Kraken so far this season, while Giordano is the captain, a top-pair defenseman, and a power play quarterback. Having those players all out at once is certainly less than ideal, but the Kraken rose to the occasion Wednesday.
As Gourde said after the game, “Next guy up, next guy up, let’s go!” Indeed, Yanni. Indeed.
While it’s great to see guys like Donato step up and help the team find points, Seattle needs its biggest guns healthy. Here’s hoping they’ll get some reinforcements before Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and the high-octane Edmonton Oilers roll into town on Friday.
Missing several key players, the Seattle Kraken got a late third period goal from Ryan Donato to earn a point in the standings as they dropped a 4-3 shootout to the Detroit Red Wings and Little Caesars Arena Wednesday.
Seattle was without leading goal scorer Jordan Eberle, Jaden Schwartz, Mark Giordano, Calle Jarnkrok, Will Borgen and goalie Chris Driedger. The Kraken (8-13-2) needed a total team effort Wednesday and got two goals from Donato and 23 saves from Philipp Grubauer.
Thomas Greiss turned away 21 shots for Detroit (11-9-3) and the Red Wings got goals from Robby Fabbri, Vladislav Namestnikov, and Lucas Raymond while Moritz Seider and Dylan Larkin each chipped in with a pair of assists.
The Kraken end their four-game road trip with a 2-1-1 record and earn points in the last three.
“Every point is massive,” Yanni Gourde said. “Every point is very important. So, it is a big point, but we got to be a little bit better, but we battled tonight. We definitely battled and we’ll look at the tape and try to improve.”
Down 3-2 as the third period was winding down, Donato gave the Kraken a chance. He got the puck from Jamie Oleksiak and quickly fired a wrist shot that beat Greiss in the top corner. The goal tied the game and came at 14:16 of the third.
Neither club scored in overtime, and Seattle’s Yanni Gourde got the best look with two quick shots after he dogged the puck away in the Detroit zone. The game went to a shootout where Detroit’s Larkin and Adam Erne converted their chances and Joonas Donskoi scored for the Kraken.
“I like the fact that we got down in the third and continued to push back and found a way to earn a point and get ourselves into overtime,” Seattle coach Dave Hakstol said. “We wanted the extra point tonight, so I think we’re all disappointed about that. But it’s also a valuable point that we gained. We earned the point tonight and we did that throughout the road trip. You know, we just went into each individual game and just worried about the work that we had that night.”
Back and forth final 40 minutes
Neither team scored until the second period, although both had goals waived off in the first. Seattle appeared to score on a Jeremy Lauzon shot from the point, but Mason Appleton was ruled to have made contact with Greiss in the crease. Raymond scored off the rush later, but Hakstol challenged the play and upon review it was called offside.
It was the first coach’s challenge in Kraken history, and it went the right way.
“That’s Tim Ohashi and Brady Morgan in the back room, number one,” Hakstol said of the challenge process. “Those guys did a great job not only of seeing it right away, but getting information and getting the right picture to us when you’re on the bench, and that’s not always easy when you have 20 or 30 seconds to do it. I know that sounds like a lot of time. But ultimately it is not a lot of time, so those guys did a great job on that.”
In the second period the Red Wings would strike on a power play. A mad scramble in front of the net forced Grubauer to make a couple of saves in close, but he couldn’t make them all as Fabbri was able to bang home a puck into the empty net at 4:46 of the second to make it 1-0.
Seattle tied the game at 1-1 at 10:44 of the period when Marcus Johansson found Vince Dunn up high on a Kraken power play. Dunn took a step and fired his second goal of the season.
Donato would then block a shot and limp into the dressing room only to return seconds later to score his fourth of the year at 16:04 to put Seattle up 2-1. On the play, Detroit defenseman Jordan Oesterle lost an edge deep in his own zone. That freed the puck for Donskoi who quickly passed it to Gourde who made a great feed to Donato for the goal.
“Maybe it’s one notch on the stat sheet for a shot block but [Donato] had a hell of a shot block before he scored that goal,” Hakstol said. “Those kinds of things are real important. He’s probably going to need an ice bag or two, but his compete level and his ability to push through and produce at the right time was really good.”
The period ended 2-2 thanks to a goal from Namestnikov, who snapped a shot after his initial look deflected off a skate back to him at 18:18.
In the third, Detroit went ahead 3-2 on a goal by Raymond at 6:30 when he spun and fired in the high slot. It looked like the Kraken would leave without any points in the standings, but they pushed, hit a cross bar, and eventually got the game tied on Donato’s second.
Injuries piling up for Kraken
Already missing Giordano and Jarnkrok, the Kraken revealed Wednesday morning that Eberle, Schwartz, and Borgen would not be available to play. Back up goalie Driedger also was placed on the injured reserve list.
That’s the Kraken’s top defenseman and two-thirds of it’s top forward line. It was an impressive performance by the remaining players.
“We know it’s a part of the game, injuries happen especially at a time when COVID is such a big thing,” Donato said. “Guys are going out all the time. So, we know it’s next guy up and we need to score on our chances and bury our opportunities.”
There was no update after the game on the status of any of Seattle’s injured players so it remains a possibility that the Kraken will have to take on the Edmonton Oilers Friday with a similarly depleted lineup.
“Next guy up, next guy up, let’s go,” Gourde said. “I know we have tremendous depth in this organization so let’s use it. Whoever gets to go over the boards, just got to go do it the right way and work hard. And if you do that you put yourself in good position to win games.”
Tentacle Tales
+ With the injuries, Kole Lind and Joey Daccord were recalled from Charlotte of the American Hockey League. Lind played in his second game with the Kraken and logged 6:02 of ice time.
+ The Kraken continue to score on the power play, ending Wednesday night 1-for-3.
+ Seattle ends the night tied with Vancouver in the standings with 18 points, six behind the Dallas Stars for the final playoff position in the Western Conference with 59 games left on the schedule.
Seattle Kraken at Detroit Red Wings 4:30 p.m. Pacific time Little Caesars Arena, Detroit, Michigan TV: ROOT Sports Radio: AM 950 KJR
On last week’s Sound Of Hockey Podcast, yours truly commended Calle Jarnkrok for how well he played against the Washington Capitals and even named him one of the SOH Three Stars. The following game, Jarnkrok got injured when Jordan Staal of the Carolina Hurricanes fell on him. On this week’s Sound Of Hockey Podcast, our own John Barr commented that—although Jarnkrok and Mark Giordano (COVID protocol) are out currently—the Kraken have been relatively healthy during the course of this season. Well, lo and behold, news broke Wednesday morning that in addition to Jarnkrok and Giordano, Jaden Schwartz, Jordan Eberle, Chris Driedger, and Will Borgen are all unavailable for this Kraken game against the Red Wings.
Do we think podcast-related jinxes are real? Not really, but the timing truly is incredible.
Coach Dave Hakstol didn’t give any additional information beyond that the players noted above are out Wednesday. Jarnkrok and Driedger are now officially on injured reserve, though, which means Driedger will be out at least a week, while Jarnkrok could theoretically return Friday if he happens to be ready. Schwartz, Eberle, and Borgen are still on the active roster for now.
Schwartz and Eberle have shown a lot of on-ice chemistry, so maybe it’s just a “two peas in a pod” thing. Or maybe Schwartz just refuses to play, knowing that Eberle is out. Or maybe it’s just sympathy pains? We don’t know, but we’ll look into those theories.
Ok, kidding aside, losing two of your top scorers simultaneously is not ideal.
The Driedger injury is also especially disappointing. He had just started playing well, earned himself a second consecutive start Monday, and won in both of his latest opportunities. The sequence played out in a very similar manner to his first injury, where he completed the game in Philadelphia, then was surprisingly on IR the following day. When he returned from that injury, he shared that he had tweaked something in his knee, and it got worse as time passed after the game against the Flyers. Hakstol did say that whatever the injury is this time, it popped up after Monday’s win in Buffalo, so one can’t help wonder if this new injury is related to the previous one.
Kole Lind and Joey Daccord recalled
Seeing that many players become unavailable at once might make you wonder if the Kraken can even field a full team against the Red Wings, but the math works out. They lost two forwards and a defenseman from what they had in the lineup on Monday, but they had a forward and a defenseman scratched that night. So Colin Blackwell and Jeremy Lauzon will draw back in, while Kole Lind was recalled from Charlotte, along with netminder Joey Daccord.
Assuming no last-minute scratches, the Kraken do have just enough healthy bodies present and accounted for in Detroit to avoid playing guys out of position or dressing fewer than the usual 20.
After sticking with Seattle all through training camp, Lind played just one game during his October call-up. It came on that fateful night when the Kraken got smoked by the Flyers and Driedger got hurt the first time. Lind played 9:21, was a minus-2, and had two penalty minutes. With the Charlotte Checkers, he does have two goals and five assists in 17 games played.
Daccord played two games in place of Driedger during his first stint with the NHL club. He was good against the New Jersey Devils on Oct. 19, but got hung out to dry a bit against the Edmonton Oilers on Nov. 1. At the AHL level, he has a 2.35 goals against average and .915 save percentage in eight games this season.
Kraken look to close out road trip in successful fashion
The Kraken will certainly need a “next man up” mentality against the Red Wings on Wednesday, but if they can find a way to win—despite so many players out of the lineup—then this could end up being a hugely successful road trip. Returning to Seattle with six points in four road games would be another lift to this club, which is still relatively fresh off a six-game losing streak.
To get it done against the Red Wings, the Kraken will need to continue to employ the winning formula that the team conjured up the last two games. That means opportunistic scoring, stout defense and shot blocking, and steady goaltending.
Philipp Grubauer has been good in his recent starts, so let’s see if he can continue to build on his game, especially now that he is again back to shouldering most of the load for the foreseeable future.
Detroit Red Wings
The Kraken will also have to slow down an improved, young Detroit Red Wings team.
Lucas Raymond was just named the NHL’s Rookie of the Month for November. He posted five goals and seven assists in 14 games and narrowly beat out his teammate, goalie Alex Nedeljkovic, for the honor. Raymond, 19, was the No. 4 overall pick in the 2020 NHL Draft and is paying very early dividends for general manager Steve Yzerman and his staff. In all, he has 21 points in 23 games and leads the team in scoring.
Meanwhile, Moritz Seider, the No. 6 overall pick in 2019, has also burst onto the scene on the Detroit blue line. Seider, 20, was the Rookie of the Month for October. He has two goals and 12 assists, while Dylan Larkin and Tyler Bertuzzi have chipped in with 19 and 18 respectively. Side note, we believe Bertuzzi is still unvaccinated against COVID and is the only player in the NHL who has not gotten the jab. It has no bearing on this game, but we thought it was interesting.
In all, the Red Wings are 11-9-3, good for fourth place in the Atlantic Division. They’ve won three in a row after losing four straight on a recent road trip.
It’s a trap! Right? Well, no, apparently it wasn’t in the end. But in a game that certainly felt like a trap going in, the Kraken came out flying on Monday. They potted three goals in the first period, including two of the short-handed variety, and followed up a surprising win in Florida with a convincing win in Buffalo. The Sabres pushed back in the second and third periods and got some fortunate bounces that resulted in goals, but the version of the Kraken that we’ve been seeing recently was simply too much for Buffalo to handle.
Monday’s game felt like a trap because Seattle was coming off that emotional victory in Florida, against one of the NHL’s best teams, and had recently beaten other good teams, Washington and Carolina. It’s so easy to get a little ahead of yourself and assume victory against a struggling club like Buffalo, but to their credit, there was no letdown by the Kraken who have now won four out of their last five since their six-game losing streak ended.
It’s borderline comical to think back and remember how pessimistic we all were about the outlook of the Kraken after they bottomed out against Colorado with a miserable 7-3 loss on home ice on Nov. 19. At that point, a look ahead in the schedule made it seem as if the streak would extend to double digits before things got even a little better. Now, the Kraken are riding high and have a chance to take six points out of a four-game road trip if they can pull out one more win on Wednesday against the Red Wings.
Here are our three takeaways from a 7-4 Kraken win over the Sabres on Monday.
Takeaway #1: Will Borgen impressive again
What a story Will Borgen has been in his first two games after getting scratched for 19 straight to start his tenure with Seattle. Against Florida, he had five shot blocks, a shot on goal, and a fisticuffs-related roughing penalty, all of which helped earn him a spot in the lineup on Monday. Against his former team, the Buffalo Sabres, Borgen again showed why the Kraken have valued him enough to hold onto him, even as they’ve been forced to waive players that had at one time been considered regulars.
Borgen assisted on Mason Appleton’s first goal as a Kraken late in the second period, giving him his first NHL point. But the big moment for Borgen came much earlier and helped set the tone for what type of game the Kraken were there to play.
With the Sabres on the man advantage just six minutes into the game, Yanni Gourde made an outstanding hustle play to steal the puck from Rasmus Dahlin behind the Buffalo net. Gourde then found Carson Soucy, who beat Dustin Tokarski cleanly over the shoulder. There was plenty of time left on the Haydn Fleury penalty, though, and giving back a goal there destroys the early momentum.
Borgen put himself in front of two back-to-back bombs by Tage Thompson, drawing a cheer from the Kraken bench that could be heard on the TV broadcast.
Jamie Oleksiak blocked another shot seconds later, and Chris Driedger, who had his second solid performance in as many tries with 32 saves, swallowed up the last shot of the penalty kill.
From that moment on, you just knew it was going to be a good night for the Kraken.
With Borgen proving he can play, things are going to get even more interesting for the defensive corps, especially when Mark Giordano returns from COVID protocol. Hakstol was already rotating in Fleury and Soucy, two players that can certainly play a regular NHL shift. Now Lauzon, who has been a workhorse for much of the season, has been scratched for two straight games, but that likely will not stick.
It feels like something may have to give at some point, but for now, too many capable defensemen is a good problem to have.
Takeaway #2: Tanev – Geekie – McCann line is cooking
Nights like Monday are fun, because guys get to pad their stats as they all assist on one another’s goals. We saw that with the Brandon Tanev, Morgan Geekie, Jared McCann line, as all three forwards registered two points on the night.
McCann had two goals, including an absolute beauty that Geekie shoveled to him with one hand on his stick.
Tanev demonstrated—in about a seven-second span—why Kraken fans love him so dearly. He picked off a Dahlin pass at the Kraken blue line, then raced, fought, and clawed his way through the neutral zone to gain position on the former top overall draft pick. In the process, he drew a penalty, and with the delayed call coming, got his own rebound and shot it passed Dahlin, who had given up the battle and resorted to playing second goalie behind Tokarski.
It was a great night by this group, both in terms of numbers on the scoresheet and analytics, as they took 56 percent of the shot attempts when they were on the ice together and had 60.43 percent of expected goals for.
Takeaway #3: Jordan Eberle injured, maladies stacking up
Perhaps the lone negative from Monday’s game was that Jordan Eberle, the Kraken leader in goals with 11, was injured in the second period and did not return. We believe it happened around the 4:15 mark of the frame when Eberle took an Alex Wennberg pass and went hard to the net. He got a good whack across the legs from Henri Jokiharju, then got tangled up with Will Butcher, and it looked like his ankle may have turned in a strange way, as his blade dug into the ice. He wasn’t putting much weight on it as he headed to the bench.
Hakstol did not have any real update after the game, but if he misses time, Eberle will join Calle Jarnkrok on the shelf. With Mark Giordano on COVID protocol, things are getting rather thin all of a sudden.
To Seattle’s credit, the group has shown well with the “next man up” mentality, as guys are jumping in and out of the lineup and producing. Colin Blackwell was scratched the last two games. So one would think that if Eberle or Jarnkrok can’t go in Detroit on Wednesday (Jarnkrok hasn’t been on the road trip, so this feels unlikely), then Blackwell would be there to fill the void.
Remember those 40 minutes when Seattle was fully healthy against the Capitals? Those were the days minutes.
In a game ripe for a letdown, the Seattle Kraken started quick and held off a third period push to defeat the Buffalo Sabres 7-4 at KeyBank Center Monday.
Seattle (8-13-1) scored thrice in the first period to build a lead and added on throughout for the team’s fourth win in the last five games. Buffalo (8-11-3) outshot the Kraken in the third period and scored twice to pull within two goals but ultimately were outlasted.
Twelve Kraken players recorded points while Carson Soucy and Brandon Tanev scored the franchise’s first two short-handed goals to stake Seattle to a 2-0 lead. Jared McCann and Mason Appleton scored twice, Tanev had three points, and Chris Driedger made 32 saves to win in back-to-back starts.
“What it’s been has been different guys contributing at the right time and at different times,” Seattle coach Dave Hakstol said. “That’s what gives a team confidence when somebody goes out of the lineup, somebody new comes in and contributes and that’s everybody’s job to be ready to come in and contribute in whatever way the team needs.”
Monday’s game was a test for the Kraken and one that may not have been obvious.
Coming after five games against the league’s best, and winning three of them, it would have been easy for Seattle to overlook the Sabres. It could have a been a night to exhale and take a breather.
“They gave us a late push with a couple late goals,” Tanev said. “But at the end of the day we get a great win here for our group.”
Shorties set tone for the Kraken against Sabres
Two short-handed goals opened the scoring for the Kraken and gave them the lead.
First, it was Yanni Gourde who forechecked hard on the penalty kill. He stripped the puck and threw it out to Soucy in the high slot. Soucy fired a slap shot that beat Sabres goalie Dustin Tokarski at 5:47 of the first period.
“[Gourde] could kind of sense that and he got up and got on top of it,” Hakstol said. “Those guys have the green light to go when they can without creating a ton of risk… I thought it was just a real good read to jump the first one.”
The Kraken were short-handed later in the period, and Tanev stole the puck in the Seattle end and took off while fighting Buffalo’s Rasmus Dahlin with one arm. Tanev drew a penalty, but before it could be assessed, he fired a one-handed shot that was stopped. The rebound came right to him and he snuck it in the net to make it 2-0 at 14:40 of the first.
“Your overall mindset is to try to do the job and kill the penalty and you get an opportunity to take a puck out,” Tanev said. “Then you try to take a puck to the net and create a scoring chance and I was fortunate enough to get a great bounce and have the puck in the net.”
With the two goals, Seattle became the third team this season to score multiple short-handed goals in the same game and the seventh expansion team to score multiple short-handed goals during their inaugural season.
“A couple of incredible efforts on those goals,” Appleton said. “You come into a building and it kind of sucked the air right out of it when you score goals like that. So that was real good for us and the way we want to start games on the road for sure.”
McCann scored his first of the night at 19:04 of the first to give Seattle a commanding 3-0 lead at the intermission.
Kraken have answers for Sabres all night
The Sabres scored at 1:53 of the second period to pull within 3-1, but the Kraken had an answer. Morgan Geekie took the puck deep into the Sabres corner and flung a one-handed pass back to McCann who was all alone in front for his second of the night to make it 4-1 at 7:59 of the second.
Jeff Skinner scored his first of two at 17:27 of the second to pull the Sabres back to within two at 4-2. The Kraken once again responded with Appleton scoring from in close at 18:09 to restore the three-goal lead and score his first of the night.
“Obviously there’s pretty goals, but you know those count the same as the gritty ones,” Appleton said.
Skinner scored his second 37 seconds into the third period to again pull the Sabres to within a pair at 5-3. Once again the Kraken answered. This time it was Jaden Schwartz with his fifth of the season at 13:44 to make it 6-3.
Dylan Cozens scored at 18:27 to keep the Sabres’ hopes alive, cutting the Kraken lead to 6-4. Eventually the Sabres would pull Tokarski for an extra skater, and Appleton hit the empty net to finish the scoring and send the Kraken home with two points.
Tentacle tales
+ Jordan Eberle left the game in the second period with an injury and did not play in the third. Hakstol did not have an update after the game.
+ Will Borgen played for the second straight time and the former Sabre defenseman picked up his first NHL point by assisting on Appleton’s first goal.
+ The Kraken scored seven goals for the first time in franchise history.
+ Gourde’s assist on Soucy’s goal was his 200th career point. He reached the mark in 328 games. Five active players who were undrafted reached 200 in fewer games.
+ Seattle will wrap up its current four-game road trip Wednesday in Detroit to take on the Red Wings.
