Kraken land the first punch, but Panthers claw their way to victory
By Charles Hamaker
Sunrise, FL – For the Seattle Kraken, their games have seen similar beginnings to kick off their third season in franchise history. The Kraken will get out to a hot start to the first period, recently scoring a few goals to punctuate that quick first step, before they eventually see all positive momentum wiped away when the latter half of the games begins. That time period around the midway point of the second frame has signaled a flipped switch, and it’s always a negative for Seattle which includes tonight’s road loss to the Florida Panthers. The Kraken had a two-goal lead and were controlling the pace of this contest, before the Panthers scored two goals in a span of eleven seconds, and all momentum was theirs from that point on. These are worrying trends for Seattle, perhaps even more worrying than their struggles for consistently generated quality chances on the offensive end.
Trends becoming clear for Kraken
As stated previously, the Seattle Kraken have trends that are alarming occurring throughout their games to begin their season. Firstly, the team's hot starts are undeniable to start the game. While they don’t always directly result in a goal or multiple scores in those first twenty minutes and it doesn’t always mean that the other team is being completely dominated, Seattle has shown that they are ready from the jump this season, not the slow starting team we saw a few years ago during the inaugural campaign. That rang true once again tonight, as while the Panthers weren’t dragging their skates, the Kraken got out on the front foot and were dictating the pace of the game, challenging starting goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky early and could’ve easily had a second goal considering the chance forced immediately after the lone goal that counted in the first frame.
Semi-new linemates Yanni Gourde and Jared McCann connected on a wonderous play, as Gourde sent a saucer pass past a Florida defenseman in the neutral zone, finding McCann as he was headed up ice who took it directly towards the net, using his silky mitts to front hand then back hand on Bobrovsky for the nice goal. Seattle’s fourth line of Devin Shore, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, and Kailer Yamamoto looked to strike while the iron was hot as Bellemare brought the puck right up to Bobrovsky, but the Panthers goaltender was able to swipe the puck aside quickly before anything happened. The second Kraken goal of the night didn’t come until the second period, as Eeli Tolvanen smartly lodged himself firmly in front of Bobrovsky after his own shot attempt went wide and back to the blue line where Jaden Schwartz had collected. Normally the one who is sitting in the crease himself, Schwartz delivered a puck right where Tolvanen could redirect it to bounce five-hole through Sergei to give Seattle a two-goal lead.
It’s puzzling as to why the team struggles with that halfway through the second period time frame, as there are multiple games throughout this season where their opposition will make a game-changing play at that time. This starts in the road Nashville loss where the Predators got a shorthanded goal to kick off three unanswered scores, the road Blues loss where Jordan Kyrou’s goal immediately answered strong play from Seattle, the home Avalanche loss where a shorthanded goal got Colorado going, and the home Rangers loss where a Kakko goal put them ahead before New York fully pulled away. The point is that the Kraken tend to lose their steam in that part of the game and the other team takes advantage, as was the case tonight.
The first period was somewhat even in terms of goals and overall statistics, the deciding factor being that Seattle had much better shot quality than Florida. The second period saw a total shift in underlying stats after the Tolvanen goal and in actual results, as Gustav Forsling and Matthew Tkachuk found the back of the net within eleven seconds of each other. All it took to send the pendulum swinging in the Panthers direction was a foolish interference penalty against Jamie Oleksiak, giving Florida a power play and Forsling took advantage as he sent a laser of a shot from nearly the blue line on net that Daccord couldn’t stop on his glove side. The Tkachuk goal saw Matthew simply send a puck towards the Kraken goal, similar to Forsling, but the difference here was that the Panthers had traffic in front. Daccord never saw the puck on its way towards him, and as a result it grazed the left side of his body before going into the goal. Two pucks flung on net in eleven seconds, and just like that this game was tied.
Definition of an unlucky bounce
It’s already received flack online, and Daccord himself has stated that he will be more situationally aware of when he plays pucks because of it. Truthfully, I don’t find Joey in the wrong for what he did in this instance and rather believe that he was just on the wrong end of some bad luck with the Panthers third and eventual game winning goal tonight. With the game all tied up at two-goals each with a little under six minutes to play in the third period, a puck was sent down the ice to Seattle’s end, where Daccord saw it and anticipated that it would go back around his net, so he went there to play it. It happens all the time in hockey games with goaltenders who aren’t as skilled with their stick as Joey is and wouldn’t be thought of more if the puck had continued normally towards him. Sadly, that isn’t what happened, and things took a turn for the worse. Like it had all night, the puck took a bizarre bounce, opting to go right into the high danger area where Daccord was not present to protect his net, as Florida forward Nick Cousin’s was in the right place at the right time to tap it home. After that midway point of the second period, everything was going the Panthers way, even bounces of the puck. The Kraken got a minute of zone time with six skaters at the end of the game with Daccord pulled as a last-ditch effort but couldn't get enough attempts on net as they played along the outside, resulting in a second consecutive loss.
It’s no longer too early to worry
If you’ve been keeping up with our game recaps in terms of articles or in terms of videos, I’ve been optimistic about this Seattle Kraken team despite the losses outnumbering the wins to begin the season. I understand that the lack of continued offensive quality is concerning and that the power play still lacks urgency, but the Kraken were still doing a majority of things well in their game such as their goaltending, penalty killing, general shot generation, and so forth. It felt like they were just a breakout game away from looking somewhat like the team we saw last year that was able to rack up the goals at will and that scoring was able to overshadow the issues that Seattle had elsewhere. If the Kraken can get that offense clicking, they could arguably be a better team than last year given how well both goaltenders have played and how strong the penalty kill was to start the year (they seem to be in a funk lately), but that’s a large if.
The injury losses of Brandon Tanev and Andre Burakovsky certainly don’t help you as you lose an energy forward and puck distributor, but it doesn’t seem like the Kraken are totally bought into figuring these offensive issues out. It’s clear that this team needs to be able to get to the net more, just making the effort to do so can make a difference as displayed with tonight’s goals as McCann took the puck there himself before using his skills and Tolvanen made sure to get there for the tip in off the pass from Schwartz. They didn’t do that for the rest of the game, and certainly not in clutch time with that final minute of the game where it looked like they were playing pass along the boards the whole time as opposed to sending attempts at Bobrovsky. The Kraken have the players to be able to produce offensively, but they are playing outside far too often and aren’t doing the “dirty” work to get those goals that can jump start the other aspects of their attack, like the dangerous shots of McCann and Tolvanen can come when things are clicking. The pieces of the puzzle to a beautiful picture of this team are present, but it’s going to take a team effort of the coaching staff and players to commit towards that picture for it to ever become reality.
Quick notes
Kraken forward Jared McCann’s first-period goal extends his point streak against Florida to four games. The former Panther has scored three goals and added an assist during his current streak against his former team.
With his goal tonight, McCann is tied with Jaden Schwartz at four for the most goals on the team.
With the primary assist on McCann’s goal, Yanni Gourde now has five points (two goals, three assists) in five games against the Panthers as a member of the Kraken.
Kraken forward Eeli Tolvanen scored his first goal of the season tonight
What’s next?
Following a second consecutive heartbreaking loss on this four-game road trip, this time in Florida, the Seattle Kraken will wrap up this trip when they head to Tampa Bay for a battle with a Lightning squad that may be entering a new era. Tampa Bay and Seattle will meet on Monday, October 30th, with a puck drop of 4PM PDT being broadcast locally on Root Sports while national viewers can find it on ESPN+. Tampa Bay struggled to begin the year, especially without star goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, but have won three of their last four and are looking to remain as the only time that the Kraken have not beaten in their brief existence. As previously stated, Seattle has several aspects of their game going in the right direction, yet the offensive stagnancy in the latter half of games and power play struggles seem to be leaking into other areas and now those two problems are not the only things that head coach Dave Hakstol and the Kraken staff need to worry about.