‘Weren’t Very Good at All’: Kraken Lose Crucial Home Division Matchup Against Ducks
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Seattle Kraken defenseman Brandon Montour (62) shoots the puck against the Anaheim Ducks during the second period at Climate Pledge Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steven Bisig-Imagn Images [/caption]
SEATTLE, Wash. - With crucial points on the line against the Anaheim Ducks at Climate Pledge Arena on Friday, the Seattle Kraken floundered.
Between going down a goal just over a minute into the game and allowing their fourth short-handed goal in five games, the Kraken went into the third period trailing 3-1 following what coach Lane Lambert described as “the worst 40 minutes we played all year.”
Seattle cut it to 3-2 early in the third, but couldn’t find the tying goal in a 4-2 loss. The Kraken are 1-4-1 in their last six and 2-5-2 in their last nine.
A win would have put Seattle even with Anaheim at third in the Pacific Division with 55 points. Instead, following a Ducks win and a San Jose Sharks win against the New York Rangers around the same time, the Kraken sit sixth in the division with 53 points, right behind the Los Angeles Kings via the points percentage tie-breaker (LAK is .541; SEA is .530).
“One word can describe the game for me: it’s ‘disappointment,’” Lambert said. “Friday night, big game, division opponent. Four-point game in front of our fans. I’m actually dumb-founded.”
Seattle had little jump coming out of the gate. Matty Beniers registered a shot on goal on the opening shift, but the Kraken did not get another until Jamie Oleksiak sent one in from 34 feet away at 12:01. The third and final shot of the period was a formality, as Freddy Gaudreau sent an easy puck towards Ducks goalie Lukas Dostal from the neutral zone with nine seconds left.
In the meantime, Anaheim registered 12 shots in the opening frame, the first coming when Ducks forward Cutter Gauthier cruised around Vince Dunn and beat Philipp Grubauer to the far post at 1:02 of the first period.
It marked the eighth time in nine games that Seattle allowed an opponent to score in the first five minutes of the game, another troubling trend in this recent stretch that Lambert attributed to turning the puck over too many times, among other reasons.
“(It) just felt like we weren’t connected enough,” Kraken forward Jaden Schwartz said. “They were back-tracking hard. Their D had tight gaps. They weren’t giving us much time and space, so we really had to just dig in like we did in the third (period) and get on our toes and pressure them a little bit more.”
Prior to the third, Seattle had the opportunity to even things up on the power play when Berkly Catton drew a hooking penalty at 14:17 of the first period. But just about a minute into the man-advantage, Beniers and Jordan Eberle jumped for the same loose puck in the right circle, leaving the right point exposed behind them.
The Ducks got a stick on it, and sent forward Ryan Poehling on a breakaway, where he beat Grubauer for a short-handed goal to make it 2-0 at 15:24.
“They won a battle, they won a loose puck, and then we didn’t have it covered,” Eberle said. “I think at the end of the day, you’re giving up breakaways and we have an extra guy out there, that’s not what we want.”
Beniers and Eberle would make things up by setting up a goal for Jared McCann after he forced a turnover from Ducks defenseman Jackson LaCombe trying to break out of Anaheim’s zone at 1:55 of the second period, but the Ducks grabbed momentum back after a Ryker Evans delay of game penalty put them on the power play at 2:38.
Grubauer made a couple saves, but forward Chris Kreider managed to rebound one in at 4:00 to put the Ducks back ahead by two. The Kraken had a second power play opportunity at 12:42 of the period, in which they recorded zero shots in 1:30 before Brandon Montour delivered a cross-check on Alex Killorn to cut the advantage short.
Across two power-play opportunities, Seattle was outshot (and outscored) 1-0, whereas the Ducks totaled four shots and a goal on Grubauer on two chances of their own.
“Power play, I know you’re not going to score every time, but you got to create momentum,” Eberle said. “And when you’re giving up a shorty, that’s obviously, you know, a death a lot of the time. So our power play for the most part, in my opinion, has been a big part of where we’re at.”
Grubauer kept the game in reach with a poke check save on Jansen Harkins’ penalty shot at 8:00 of the second period, which came after a Ryan Lindgren hold on Harkins, and Seattle took advantage by finally finding their legs in the third period.
Just 1:54 into the third period, Shane Wright made an exceptional backdoor feed to Schwartz for an easy tap-in to cut it to 3-2, putting the Kraken right back in the game.
“I think just snapping out of it,” Wright said. “We know it wasn’t our best. We know we had a lot better, and just kind of flipping that switch, get back to the game and the way we know we can play. Proud of the guys for a good push in the third there.”
Seattle desperately pushed for a tying goal down the stretch, with Catton in particular creating enough chances that, in another universe, may have given him a goal and two assists in the third period alone.
After hitting the side netting off the rush at 1:22 of the third, Catton teed up Chandler Stephenson for a rush down to the left post, but the elder forward couldn’t manage to get a shot off around the 8:00 mark. Catton also set up Eeli Tolvanen in front at 16:57, but Dostal made the stop.
Overall, the Kraken outshot Anaheim 11-7 in the third period, but couldn’t level it before Ducks defenseman Pavel Mintyukov banked the puck off the wall and into the empty net from his own zone to secure the 4-2 final at 18:48.
“Clearly, in the third period, we showed what we can do and how we can play,” Lambert said. “It’s just there was absolutely nothing going right in the first two periods. We couldn’t connect. We couldn’t make a pass. Just weren’t very good at all.”
After losing valuable ground in the division standings approaching the two-thirds mark of the season, the Kraken will look to bank points against three Eastern Conference opponents in the final three games of their six-game homestand prior to the Olympic break.
