Kraken Finish Is Better Than Start, But Not Enough

Kraken Finish Is Better Than Start, But Not Enough

Kept things close against Boston Bruins despite being outshot 30-10 the opening two periods

BOSTON, Mass. – Say one thing for Joey Daccord and his Kraken this Sunday stroll through Beantown: They managed to at least stay in a game they were on the verge of being blown out of in the first period.

Sure, the Kraken didn’t get a shot on goal until fewer than three minutes remained in that opening frame and needed their video coaches to bail them out of what would have been a third goal against in rapid succession. But somehow, largely due to Daccord’s netminding acrobatics, they kept this 2-0 loss to the Boston Bruins a lot closer on the scoreboard than it initially looked to be heading.

It wasn’t enough to avoid a third straight defeat on this road trip, nor a sixth loss in seven games overall. But the fact the Kraken calmed things down defensively the latter half of the game and kept things competitive is a building block of sorts they can use heading into the trip finale at Colorado in a couple of days.

Tye Kartye had a golden chance to get the Kraken on the board with under seven minutes to go, Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman down and out and several players scrambling around in front of him. But Kartye’s wrist shot hit defender Charlie McAvoy in the backside and stayed out of the net.

Then, with Daccord pulled for an extra attacker, Oliver Bjorkstrand hit the post in the final two minutes.

The Kraken were shut out for the second straight game.

Justin Brazeau opened the scoring on a deflection just more than three minutes into the contest and then Charlie Coyle added another midway through the period on a beautiful deke move in close. Daccord was cleanly beaten for a third goal just a minute later, but the Kraken correctly challenged the initial zone entry as being offside and lived to fight another period or two.

And fight they did, despite being on the short end of a 20-5 shot count midway through and a 30-10 deficit after two periods. Daccord made some spectacular saves late in the second to keep his team in the game as it desperately tried to muster some offense.

In the third, the Kraken came out swinging – literally in the case of Adam Larsson duking it out with Bruins tough guy Trent Frederic – and balanced out the shot total somewhat while pressing for the goal that would get them back in it.

But they couldn’t solve Bruins goalie Swayman and now have gone more than six periods without a goal and more than nine frames without any at even strength.

Kraken coach Dave Bylsma juggled his forward lines in this one to reunite several players familiar with one another. The big move was bumping Yanni Gourde up to his familiar trio with linemates Bjorkstrand and Eeli Tolvanen.

Jaden Schwartz was also put back up on a line with Chandler Stephenson and Andre Burakovsky.

The Gourde line got to see a top Bruins trio in Brad Marchand, Elias Lindholm and David Pastrnak and was able to largely contain them.

“That would be a tough challenge for them, but hopefully they can get to the positive line that they’ve been in the past,” Bylsma said.

Keeping that trio off the scoreboard at even strength helped buy the Kraken time to figure out their own offensive woes. Marchand and Lindholm did draw assists on Coyle’s power play goal, which snapped a streak of 14 consecutive Kraken penalty kills.

But otherwise, the Kraken held firm the final 2 ½ periods on the defensive side. Now, they’ll hope to carry some of that feistiness into Tuesday’s game – hopefully a little earlier than they did in this one.

SEA at BOS | Recap