Kraken suffer disappointing loss to Blues

 

While it might still be a little early in the season to talk about `must win’ games, the Seattle Kraken went into last night’s game at Climate Pledge Arena trailing the St. Louis Blues by one point in the suddenly tight Western Conference playoff race.

For the Kraken it was a night of coulda, shoulda, woulda. Seattle dropped a 4-3 overtime decision to the Blues- a game they could have and should have won.

Thanks to a solid second period, the Kraken took a 3-1 lead late into the second. But the visitors responded with three consecutive goals – including the tying (third period) and winning (overtime) goals off the stick of Blues’ forward Pavel Buchnevich.

“That was a tough point to lose,” said Kraken coach Dave Hakstol. “We would have liked to have capitalized on one or two opportunities that we had that maybe would have changed the game.”

While St. Louis took an early 1-0 lead on Oskar Lundquist’s power-play goal, the Kraken tied the contest on Brian Dumoulin’s slapper (ESPN’s Chris Berman’s name for Dumoulin would probably be Brian `Legion of Doom’ oulin). Adam Larsson picked up the assist on his cross-ice pass to Dumoulin and Brandon Tanev, in the right circle, screened Blues’ netminder Jordan Binnington.

Seattle outshot the Blues 11-5 in the first period and were dominant in the second stanza. Oliver Bjorkstrand, the Kraken’s representative in the upcoming NHL All-Star game (Feb. 3) gave Seattle a 2-1 lead on the power play. Alex Wennberg found Bjorkstrand to the right of the net and he tipped the puck past Bennington.

The Kraken’s third goal was one of the prettiest goals of the season. Bjorkstrand `picked the pocket’ of the Blues’ Scott Perunovich as he attempted to carry the puck out of his zone. Bjorkstrand hit Eeli Tolvanen with a pass to the left of the net. Tolvanen crossed over to Yanni Gourde, and when Bennington moved to cover Gourde, he passed back to Tolvanen who found the open net.

At this point, the Kraken had outshot the Blues, 21-11. But then St. Louis caught a break when Will Borgen was penalized for tripping. Replays showed it was more like Borgen fell over a falling Blues’ player, but Rob Thomas, St. Louis’ top scorer made it 3-2 at the end of the second period.

“We played hard,” said Hakstol. “We played a pretty good hockey game. You can make an argument, but it doesn’t make any difference, that maybe we deserve a little better. But you’ve got to turn the page and move on.”

“This was a game we probably should have won,” said Bjorkstrand. “We played well enough, but they found a way to tie the game and we couldn’t find a way to get the last goal.”

Jaden Schwartz, playing his 700^th NHL game against his old team, had a tough night. His shot hit the post with an open net and Bennington recorded a couple of big saves on Schwartz and Bjorkstrand.

Currently, the Nashville Predators and the plummeting Los Angeles Kings (2-5-3 in their last ten games) are tied for the eighth and final Western playoff berth. Next comes St. Louis (52), Seattle (50) and Arizona (49).

GAME NOTES

The Kraken were bolstered by the return of Matty Beniers, out five games after banging his head into the boards off a hit by Columbus’ Cole Sillinger, and Yanni Gourde, suspended two games for a high hit on Edmonton’s Mattias Ekholm. Pierre-Edouard Bellemare is now the only Kraken on the injured list. Kailer Yamamoto was a healthy scratch last night.

Chances are Philipp Grubauer, who came off the injured list earlier this week, will be in net tomorrow night when the Kraken host the Columbus Blue Jackets. Grubauer has backed up Joey Daccord in the previous two games. Daccord has played 19 of the last 21 Kraken games.

After tomorrow’s 6 p.m. tilt with the Blue Jackets, the Kraken will be idle for ten days over the All-Star break. Seattle’s next game takes place Feb. 10 at Philadelphia. The next Kraken home game after tomorrow, takes place on Monday, Feb. 19, a 12:30 matinee contest.