Well. As it turns out, Brandon Montour’s pretty important.
But first, the Highlights
Game Notes
- Your TOI Leader was Ryker Evans, who played 25:31 tonight.
- Seattle walked into this game severely undermanned; Vince Dunn is still on the mend, and Brandon Montour was given leave to be part of his daughter’s birth, and man; you really feel their absence when they’re gone. The Kraken struggled significantly with getting out of their own end, and Montour, a dude whose been a gigantic part of their improved starts.
- Again, what killed them was their inability to ultimately re-establish possession after attempting to break up a play, particularly in front of their net. As a result, the Leafs were allowed to just try second and third and fourth opportunities. This has been a major issue for their defense, Toronto’s Nylander line took ample advantage; ended up making the Kraken look absolutely foolish in how often they lost a man in front of their net. This needs to be hammered out against the Sens. Needs to be.
- The Kraken’s shot placement tonight was miserable; almost entirely from one side of the ice and barely near the slot. We’ll see it in the charts, but the offense really needed to be on it’s A-Game tonight, and they just weren’t. Which is crazy, because they mostly broke even in possession…even if it felt like the Leafs got the better chances since they were able to capitalize.
- Joey Daccord finished his night sub-.900, but I’ll be real, he might have had a chance on only one of Nylander’s goals. Everything else was him getting completely let down by his defense losing a player and letting Toronto set up shop in the net front.
- The Leafs decided to get exclusively unusual penalties tonight; Nylander got one for closing his hand on the puck and Matthew Knies got a holding the stick penalty. It would’ve been nice to take advantage of that; Seattle went back to 0-fer on the power play. At least the PK was good enough to keep it close…ish…
Was there anything good about this game?
- Eeli Tolvanen popped home his 4th of the year late from an Evans feed. Good on him!
- The PK kept Toronto’s power play from gaining any hope, keeping Toronto off the score sheet when on the man-advantage.
- Brandon Montour will be coming back soon!
The Charts, via NaturalStatTrick.com
It really stings to have another game where the offense started to get it’s act together far too late to matter. Gonna need those swings in momentum to start earlier.
The Kraken will continue their Eastern Canadian road trip with a stop in the Canadian Capital; where they face the Ottawa Senators on Saturday. That game starts at 4pm.
We’ll see you there, and always remember
Keep Calm, and Post Zoidberg When We Win