Road trip off to bad start for the Kraken

-

 


The Seattle Kraken began their most hectic road trip of the season five games in eight days-with an early 6-0 shot advantage over the Columbus Blue Jackets at Nationwide Arena.

In fact, the Kraken had 14 of te first 15 shot attempts in the contest. However, the Blue Jackets would score the first goal of the contest when Sean Kuraly tipped in Ivan Provorov’s shot at 11:58 of the first period. Kuraly had kept the puck in the Blue Jackets O-zone with a hit on Jamie Oleksiak behind the net.

After that it was all downhill for the Kraken.

The Blue Jackets scored four unanswered goals in the second period to post a 6-2 victory. The Kraken, who passed the midway point of the season with their 42nd game, dropped their fourth consecutive game after a five-game skein in December. Seattle’s now 17-22-3 on the season, seventh in the eight team Pacific Division.

While the Blue Jackets are a good home team (14-5-3) their offense wasn’t exactly led by Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Luca Del Bel Belluz and Denton Mateychuk, two recent call-ups from Columbus’ AHL affiliate in Cleveland, each had a goal and an assist and were picked as the top stars in the game. Mateychuk, a defenseman scored his first NHL goal.

“We needed to defend better,” said Kraken coach Dan Bylsma. “The goal is not to outscore the opposition. The goal is to win the hockey game with more goals than they have. And we just gave them too many goals tonight, too many opportunities, and lapses in our defensive coverage, and you end up chasing the game.”

Del Bel Belluz gave Columbus the lead for good when he tipped home a shot directly in front, off a pass from veteran James Van Riemsdyk. Columbus would add three more second period goals before Bylsma mercifully pulled a beleaguered Philipp Grubauer from the Kraken net. Joey Daccord, who hasn’t played since being sidelined with an injury on Dec. 22, stopped all four shots he faced.

“You’re just trying to wake up your team,” Bylsma said. “Particularly after the third goal, I think there was a dip in our play and a dip in our emotions, and that led to the fourth goal. And you know, the game's not over. You win some, you're going to lose some. But, you have to stay in the fight. You have to stay in the battle. And we stepped out of it for too long there in the second period.”

Eeli Tolvanen was a bright spot for the Kraken. He scored just 10 seconds after Kuraly’s score with a one-timer off Shane Wright’s pass. He scored a similar goal in the third period and could have had a hat trick except he was thwarted by goalie Elvis Mizlikins’ glove save. Tolvanen also had a season-high nine hits.

Also, Tolvanen and teammate Jared McCann deserve points for honesty. Tolvanen said the Kraken’s second period was an `embarrassment’ and when McCann when asked on Kraken TV if there were any positives that come out of the game he tersely replied, `no.’

Like most NHL teams, the Kraken will have a busy January playing 15 games. The NHL will shut down from Feb. 9 to Feb. 22 because of the NHL 4 Nations Faceoff. (Kaapo Kakko is the lone Kraken representative as a member of Team Finland).

If the Kraken don’t drastically turn their season around the team will likely be a seller at the NHL trade deadline as several veteran players only have a year or two remaining on their current contracts.

Seattle has two weekend games with matinee contests at Buffalo (Saturday) and Detroit (Sunday).

Scoring Summary

First Period

C- Sean Kuraly (Ivan Provorov, Mathieu Olivier) 11:58. S-Eeli Tolvanen 9 (Shane Wright 11, Jared McCann 17) 12:08.

Second Period

C- Luca Del Bel Belluz (James Van Riemsdyk, Damon Severson) 3:29. C- Zach Werenski (Adam Fantilli, Dmitri Voronov) 10:53. C- Denton Mateychuk (Van Riemsdyk, Del Bel Belluz) 12:27. C- Kent Johnson (Zach Werenski, Dante Fabbro) 15:45.

Third Period

S- Tolvanen 10 (Chandler Stephenson 22, Brandon Montour 15) 8:44. C- Kiril Marchenko (Mateychuk) empty net, 19:31.

Shot on Goal- Seattle 31 (Beandon Montour 6), Columbus 24 (4 players with 3) .

Hits- Seattle 16 (Eeli Tolvanen 9), Columbus (Zach Ashton-Reece 7).

Penalty Minutes- Seattle 2, Columbus 6.

Faceoffs- Seattle 54.9% Columbus 45.1%.

Blocked Shots- Seattle 13 (Adam Larsson 5), Columbus (Denton Mateychuk 6).

Referees- Ghislain Hebert, Mitch Dunning. Linesmen- Dan Kelly, Andrew Smith.

Three Stars- 1. Luca Del Bel Belluz. 2. Denton Mateychuk 3. Elvis Metzlikins.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Seattle's first major league team?

-
Image
With the widely rumored return of the Seattle Sonics, the Emerald City would surely be considered a `major league' city in the sports world. Of course, that wasn't always the case. The ill-fated Seattle Pilots came and went in 1969, but if you were a local sports fan your appetite was wetted by University of Washington football (Seattle's primary sports team for many years) and minor league baseball and hockey. But not many people know that a major league team - a world champion no less- moved to the Pacific Northwest in the winter of 1959-1960. The Chicago Westerners, the 1959 world champions in the wild-and-wacky pseudo sport of the Roller Derby appeared at the venue that was known as various times as the Seattle Civic Arena, Seattle Ice Arena and Mercer Arena. While the Ravens also skated games in Spokane and Portland, four games that were televised from the Civic Arena can be found on YouTube - two games apiece against the New York Chiefs and the Los Angeles Braves.  It...
Read more

Farewell to Pete Carroll

-
                                                  Farewell To Pete Carroll The Seattle Seahawks made longtime coach Pete Carroll a `special advisor’ two days after the 72-year-old Carroll announced he had no plans to leave coaching. Kudos to Channel 7, which accurately posted a cutline under a Carroll interview which read accurately ‘Carroll Fired.’ Seattle nation- `the 12’s’- registered their displeasure on social media. Well, some of them did. After all, Carroll’s the winningest coach in team history, including two Super Bowl appearances. But it was a different story 23 years ago when the New England Patriots announced they were relieving Carroll of his duties after three seasons with the team. Ironically, Carroll’s 27-21 mark as Pats’ head coach was the second-best winning percentage in the team’s history behind guess who? - Bill Belichick. But author J...
Read more

Kraken acquire Larry David's favorite player

-
Image
The Seattle Kraken acquired Kaapo Kakko today from the New York Rangers today in exchange for defenseman Will Borgen and a third round and sixth round pick in the upcoming NHL amateur draft. As often happens, Seattle fans were sorry to see Borgen go. An original Kraken, one of the more physical players on the team, a fan favorite, and Matty Beniers roommate. To say that New York fans feel the same way about Kakko would be an understatement. Ranger Nation has universally panned the deal of social media and coupled with the trading of captain Jacob Trouba last week, fans are calling for the scalp of Ranger GM Chris Drury. However, the most interesting aspect of this trade is that Kakko was a particular favorite of longtime New York sports fan and star of TV’s  Curb Your Enthusiasm,  Larry David. The iconoclastic comedian appeared on Michael Kay’s ESPN radio show a couple of years ago berating then Rangers’ coach David Quinn for benching Kakko. (on a personal note, this writer co...
Read more