Well, they never said it was gonna be easy!
It would help if the Kraken could keep themselves under control.
But first, we might as well get through the highlights:
Game Notes:
- Your TOI leader was Adam Larsson, who logged 22:03 tonight. This was actually a fairly tight category for once, as Dunn, Oleksiak, and Eberle played 21 minutes as well.
- I told you in the gamethread, man. The Stars bounce back hard when they’re down on their luck and tonight was no exception; they spent the first 40 minutes of this game just hammering the Kraken zone with shot after shot after shot; many of whom were excellent stops by Phillipp Grubauer, but he can only do so much when the team in front of him seemingly woke up after giving up their first goal. This isn’t the kind of team you can coast on.
- Carson Soucy had himself a f#!king gruesome game. Three minor penalties, one of whom ended directly in a goal for Dallas, all of them QUITE avoidable. In fairness, nobody can be on their game 100% of the time, it happens. However, one consistent negative of Soucy’s game is that when he’s off his best practices, he usually ends up putting the opposition on the power play, and this is the wrongest possible team to do that against. He was able to keep it under wraps for most of the first round, but today he didn’t have a handle on discipline at all.
- He was hardly alone, however. Will Borgen and Jamie Oleksiak also took some pretty boneheaded penalties tonight and Seattle didn’t end up getting any makeup calls in the process. Hard job, indeed, but you’d like the Kraken to get a little opportunity on the man-advantage, eh stripes? I thought everyone decided you guys were all about game management.
- Had nearly three minutes with six players on the ice, the final minute being a 6-on-4 with the goalie pulled and couldn’t score. I need to know what Hakstol is doing to prepare these guys for the man-advantage, because it needs to go. HOW ARE YOU HAVING THIS MUCH TROUBLE WITH THE OTHER TEAM SHORTHANDED!
Were there any bright spots?:
Yeah, I suppose there were a couple.
- Tye Kartye‘s goal was the spark that kept the Kraken in this right up until…well, it became clear they couldn’t actually make it happen tonight.
- Jordan Eberle’s goal was admittedly, really cool and was the result of a hell of a shift.
- Seattle’s goalie, our dearest Grubert, Philipp Grubauer, played his heart out tonight and as a result, gave them as good a chance as any to win this. His .892 SV% doesn’t tell the whole story; he was getting shelled out there and came up gigantic multiple times.
- This series is far from over. Now we go home to make it long. Longer than Dallas wants. Longer than any Stars fan could ever possibly want. Seattle already played a game where they crushed the Stars. They absolutely can do that again.
Let’s grouse about the result while taking a look at the NaturalStatTrick.com Charts:
Kraken shift focus back to Climate Pledge, as on Sunday night they get another shot at taking a lead in this series. That game drops the puck at 6:30pm PT.
We’ll see you there, and remember:
Keep Calm, and Post Zoidberg When We Win.
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