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Showing posts from February, 2025

Blues throttle Kraken

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While the odds of the Seattle Kraken making the playoffs were unlikely heading into last night’s game against the St. Louis Blues, the Blues’ 7-2 victory at the Enterprise Center may have been the exclamation point on the Kraken’s post-season miss for the second consecutive year. The Blues scored four goals in the second period, taking a 6-0 lead as coach Dan Bylsma mercifully pulled Joey Daccord from the Kraken net after the fifth Blues’ goal. The 20-year-old Nikke Kokko made his NHL debut, the youngest goalie in the league by almost two years and made five saves on seven shots. “Take your pick,” said veteran forward Jared McCann when asked what went wrong for the Kraken. ``Pretty much everything. D-zone coverage, couldn't get a forecheck established, we made it easy on them. Just looked like we didn't have our legs tonight, and, it's just overall pretty embarrassing.’’ The Kraken fall to 25-31-4 on the season and while the Blues aren’t a guaranteed playoff team eit...

Kraken's Florida split

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  After being idle for two weeks due to the 4Nations tournament, the Seattle Kraken were able to spend some time in sunny Florida while players from USA, Canada, Finland and Sweden fought for the honor of their country. The Kraken arrived in the Sunshine State a few days before their weekend tilts with Florida and Tampa Bay, practicing in the Florida Panthers facility. Seattle also may have caught a break facing the Panthers, who had more players in 4Nations than any other team, notably their best player and team leader Matthew Tkachuk, now sidelined with an injury suffered in the tourney. The Kraken posted a 2-1 win over the Panthers on Jared McCann’s third period game-winner, Shane Wright’s two assists, and another solid Joey Daccord performance in the nets. Ironically, the first Seattle goal of the game was notched by Kaapo Kakko, the only Kraken player to compete in 4Nations as a member of Team Finland. Seattle wasn’t as fortunate last night dropping a 4-1 decision to t...

Beniers, Wright lead Kraken

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  Seattle Kraken head coach Dan Bylsma has preached- especially lately- that the Kraken can’t win if they’re always chasing the game- falling behind by multiple goals and then trying to rally to victory in the final period. Last night, the Kraken proved their coach wrong. At least for one game. Trailing 2-0 with six minutes remaining in their contest with the Calgary Flames, Seattle rallied for two late goals and posted a 3-2 victory thanks to Matty Beniers’ overtime goal. Thus, the Kraken take a 24-29-4 record into the February break, still 11 points out of a playoff berth. The NHL pauses for two weeks for the Nation 4 Faceoff tournament involving NHL players from the United States Canada, Sweden and Finland. “I was just trying to move their triangle,” said Beniers, who brought the puck out of the right corner. “Try to get them out of position, Schwartzy (Jaden Schwartz)   had a great screen, and I was able to kind of just walk down and shoot it. I had no idea if it wen...

Kraken winless in Seattle

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  Hard to believe, but the Seattle Kraken finish their February home schedule without a victory. The Kraken dropped a 3-1 decision to another hot team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, who currently reside in second place in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference. After a home stand that saw the Kraken lose three straight after a win versus San Jose (on Jan. 30), Seattle travels to Calgary tomorrow and following that game the entire NHL goes on hiatus. The Kraken are now 23-29-4 overall. For the next two weeks, the United States, Canada, Sweden and Finland will compete in the Nation4 series comprised of players from those countries. Regular season play resumes on Feb. 22. But the Kraken will start a three-game road trip before FINALLY returning home on Mar. 1. ``At times, we’re close to finding some good hockey but I just don’t think we find it consistently enough,” said Oliver Bjorkstrand, who had an assist and picked up his second fighting penalty of the season (against To...

Comeback vs. Wings falls short

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  Seattle’s known as a city where people have migrated from other parts of the country, so it’s not a total surprise that fans of other NHL teams show up at Seattle Kraken games. But the Detroit Red Wings may have set an unofficial record for visiting team representation last night as Climate Pledge was a sea of red with the jerseys of one of hockey’s original six teams. There were even a few attempts at a `let’s go Red Wings’ chant, but that was dutifully drowned out by a `let’s go Kraken chant. ‘ With the Red Wings on a six-game winning streak and Seattle falling to ten points out of a playoff berth, the former residents of places like Sheboygan and Auburn Hills, cities mentioned on the Light Rail heading to the arena, may have been looking forward to a pleasant evening. However, things became unsettling for the visitors as Seattle’s Shane Wright (his second of the game) and Chandler Stephenson notched third period goals to send the game into overtime in a 4-4 tie. An e...

Kraken suffer `weird' loss to Flames

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The first period of the Seattle Kraken’s game with the Calgary Flames had a little of `weirdness’ and unfortunately for the Kraken, most of the weirdness went against them. In what could be considered a must-win game for the Kraken, the home team lost two goalie interference reviews in the first period, not to mention coming up on the short end of the penalty calls, as Calgary scored three first period goals to take a 3-0 lead. The Kraken fought back with single markers from Kaapo Kakko and Brandon Tanev but the Flames fought back to post a 3-2 victory. That was a weird start,” said Kakko, who scored his ninth goal of the season after coming to Seattle in a trade with the Rangers a month ago. ``Be we’ve just got to keep playing. It was a hard first 20 minutes so, you get back to the locker room and just start again.’’ The bottom line for Seattle – the Kraken (23-28-3) are now ten points behind the Flames (26-19-7) the team they’ll presumably have to catch to earn a playoff bert...