Led by the first line, the Seattle Kraken were able to recover from a clumsy start last night against the Dallas Stars and complete a comeback in regulation to secure at least a point in their fourth straight game. But, the same split-second defensive mishaps that hurt the Kraken early were the same ones which came back to haunt them in overtime, resulting in a 4-3 OT loss. Let’s break down the scoring.
Duchene Drives the Rush
Dallas struck twice on the rush to put Seattle down two goals around halfway through the first period and, to their credit, it’s not because the Kraken were slow to their feet to open the game. In fact, they were too aggressive, a refreshing problem for a team with effort issues this season to have. Letting a team score on their first shot of the game, but it does speak to Seattle’s offensive dominance and timely start.
This first goal is the result of an ill-timed pinch, plain and simple. Despite having the entire third line down below the faceoff circle in the offensive zone, Will Borgen decides to pinch and attempt to regain possession when the puck is moved up ice along the boards.
Mason Marchment intercepts the puck’s path before it reaches Borgen, and is able to direct play up to Matt Duchene, who joins a two-on-one with Tyler Seguin. Jamie Oleksiak, the lone defenseman opposing Duchene and Seguin, struggles to break up the play but allows the Stars forwards to complete two lateral passes to pull Joey Daccord to his left. Duchene scores on a gaping net from there.
For as good as Borgen’s been at reading plays, this is a surprising mistake for him to make– especially twice. But, he’s a fast learner and I have no doubt he’ll recover Wednesday against the Los Angeles Kings. There was a moment where the broadcast cut to Borgen on the bench zoning out with a horrified look on his face– seems like he knows what went wrong.
Robertson Extends the Lead
Nine minutes later Dallas exploits a defensive mishap in the same vein to extend their lead, only this time in the neutral zone. Borgen trips hassling Roope Hintz, who’s trying to keep possession as he transitions out of his end of the ice. Hintz can see that Oleksiak is the lone defender in front of Seattle’s zone, and there’s plenty of room for Hintz’s teammates to pull up and join what could become another odd man rush. If that play just worked out for Dallas why not try it again, right?
Dallas is so, so fast and so lethal in transition, and it takes Jason Robertson no time at all to make himself available to receive a quick pass from Hintz, who, pretty impressively, does so from his knees. Joe Pavelski pulls up to provide Robertson some support on the rush, and the two execute the exact same back and forth play that Duchene scored on.
To Daccord’s credit, this time he’s a little more ready for it, and Seattle doesn’t make it as easy to be scored on, however, as good as Daccord’s reading of the play and his positioning is, the puck still slips underneath his pad.
One thing that should be pointed out as contributing to this play but which will be overlooked in favor of Borgen’s more obvious mistake is the fact that Robertson and Pavelski are far behind the play as it develops– all the way below Dallas’ blueline. Robertson in particular has to cut in front of both Alex Wennberg and Kailer Yamamoto to gain ice, which he does because he’s fast, and because both Seattle forwards are lagging behind the play. It’s one thing to have bodies to support teammates, it’s another entirely to make sure those players are aware of and engaged in what’s unfolding right around them.
Tatar Finds his First
We’ve talked about how Seattle is a team that builds offense off of defense. And sometimes the line between those two facets of their game are so blurred that it’s hard to tell exactly what that means. The Kraken’s first goal last night is a great example.
Early in the second period, Daccord makes a big save off of a hammer of a shot from Miro Heiskanen at the blueline. The puck bounces over to the corner, is moved out of the zone by Adam Larsson, and Matty Beniers records a takeaway from Ryan Suter. There’s the defensive aspect.
Now rewind: Tomáš Tatar anticipates the sequence is about to transition out of Seattle’s zone and heads into the neutral zone to provide support for the imminent offensive push. Systems are something he struggled with in Colorado but it looks like he’s already got a pretty good grasp of them here.
Tatar’s strong reading of the play, as well as his physicality, which he uses to flatten Suter and open up the zone, allows Beniers a reliable passing option so that he can commit to the controlled entry without circling back to wait for support, and he can join the two-on-one with Tatar to go for the high danger scoring chance.
Beniers’ shot can’t be overlooked but his strength is undeniably in his ability to translate his strategic vision to on-ice plays. Here, we see him draw Heiskanen’s attention by keeping the puck until the last possible minute, and then when he shoots, he intentionally bounces the puck off Scott Wedgewood’s pads. Tatar is open and caught up to the play, and successfully scores on the rebound.
Ultimately, defensive composure on the back end set Seattle up for success on the other end of the ice, and built towards a high danger opportunity with a 36.5% chance of scoring.
Duchene Doubles Up
A long delayed penalty is how Dallas responds to Seattle’s glimpse of offensive life. One of Dallas’ broadcasters called this “juicing the orange”– the slow application of pressure– which feels like an accurate depiction of what went wrong here.
The Kraken are pretty well postured attempting to defend a six-on-five occurring with 13 minutes left in the second, but they’re tired– by the time Duchene shoots to score again, Dallas had stretched their delayed penalty out to 59 seconds of time on the man-advantage. At this point, nobody’s keeping their sticks active, nobody’s pressuring Dallas, which means nobody’s challenging Dallas’ possession to end the delay. As time goes on they continued to decrease in strength, succumbing to a vicious cycle inevitably ending in another two-goal deficit.
Duchene receives a diagonal cross-ice pass from Pavelski to score right past Daccord, who never even saw the shot coming.
Beniers Breaks the Drought
Tatar, proving his value just two games into his tenure with the Kraken, sets up Seattle’s next goal with a persistent, physical defensive effort.
He fearlessly hassles the 6’3, 216-pound Esa Lindell, who has possession deep in the Seattle’s zone, and wrestles the puck away from him to fling it all the way down the ice. Jani Hakanpää picks it up in the offensive zone but Jordan Eberle, trailing close, is able to seize possession along the boards with plenty of time and space to wait for support to arrive. Beniers speeds into the zone, receives a pass from the vet, and scores his first goal in nine games high blocker.
Tolvanen Versus the Clock
Things are looking dire before the Kraken find their game-tying goal. But, in a commendable effort from a team down two forwards in Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Jared McCann and with only seconds remaining in regulation, they fight and get it done anyways.
This one’s all bodies, all chaos. With Daccord pulled and six skaters on the ice, Seattle cycles the puck around the ice to steady possession before a shot up high from Oliver Bjorkstrand catalyzes a flurry of quick chances net-front. The puck hits the post, which a panicked Wedgewood realizes and flips around like a fish to gain control of, likely anticipating it to bounce back down to the ice and slip into the net.
Instead, the puck bounces off Wennberg’s back and into prime territory for Eeli Tolvanen to swoop in and tap into an open net for a scoring opportunity that had a 51.9% chance of scoring. Net-front chaos– it never fails. Stick taps to this net-front effort from Wennberg, who fights with Suter in order to distract him and screen Wedgewood.
Evan’s Rookie Mistake
Thomas Harley doesn’t need to do much to find the Stars’ overtime game-winning goal– Ryker Evans hands it to him. Posted net front, he does what he can to move Harley’s body out of the crease, but forgets to cover his stick. When Harley receives a pass, all he has to do is deflect it into the wide open net to score. Next time, Evans needs to focus on disarming his opponent’s stick rather than getting in his way, physically. To leave a stick open is to let a scoring chance persist.
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