The Seattle Kraken proved again Thursday at Climate Pledge Arena, if they can somehow stay out of their own damn way, the Kraken have the resilience of a playoff contender.
In three of their last four games, all losses, Seattle scored exactly one goal in each. That cold snap dropped Seattle to a next-to-worst 2.50 goals for per game. Generating more offense would be a tall task with the Winnipeg Jets, 6th-stingiest in allowing goals, providing the opposition.
Despite a multitude of unforced errors, the never-say-die Kraken three times rallied from down a goal – and got a game-winning 3rd period marker from captain Jordan Eberle – for a hard-to-figure 5-3 victory. Defenseman Vince Dunn contributed a goal and two assists, and Philipp Grubauer made 23 saves.
Eeli Tolvanen on the power play and Kaapo Kakko both scored, but Kakko later left with a lower body injury. Eberle added an empty-netter for the unexpected final. The Kraken thus have won the first two meetings with the 2024-25 NHL President’s Trophy winners, which I guarantee wasn’t on anyone’s bingo card.
Seattle scored more than three goals in regulation for just the third time, the first since a 5-4 overtime defeat in Montreal on Oct. 14. The Kraken have now won twice this season in seven tries when allowing the first goal.
1st Period
Poor Seattle defensive coverage puts the home team behind at 10:17.
On a Winnipeg rush, Kraken defenseman Vince Dunn points frantically for one of his mates to pick up captain Adam Lowry, skating unmarked down right wing. The Kraken don’t notice, but Winnipeg’s Dylan DeMelo sure does.
Lowry accepts DeMelo’s pass and finds Alex Iafallo at the near post. Iafallo beat Kraken d-man Adam Larsson to the spot, for the redirection past netminder Philipp Grubauer.
Here’s a tip: get shots toward the goal while Kaapo Kakko is standing in front. Jaden Schwartz does just that from the right circle, and Kakko tips in the game-tying tally past Connor Hellebuyck for his first of the season at 15:15.
Bonus points – well, one point for an assist, anyway – to Dunn, who managed to feed a pass to Schwartz AND throw a hit that knocked Mark Scheifele down to the ice.
Seattle takes eight of the 12 SOGs in the period.
2nd Period
A poor line change burns the Kraken at 3:18. While a trio are headed off and a new trio headed on, the Jets’ Neal Pionk notices Scheifele all by his lonesome. Pass, shot, score as Scheifele’s 10th whistles past Grubauer’s glove.
A team as offensively-challenged as the Kraken are right now simply cannot incur self-inflicted defensive blunders. Winnipeg has scored on two of its first six shots.
And yet, Kraken whack-a-puck in front of Hellebuyck ties the game again at 7:27. Ryan Winterton gets the first in-close hack. Dunn gets the second, maybe doesn’t get good wood (or carbon fiber reinforced with polymer resin, as the case may be) on it. Replays showed it hit Josh Morrissey’s stick at almost the same moment.
That works to the Kraken’s advantage, as the disc floats high over the prone goalie and into the cage for a 2-2 tie, Dunn’s third of the season. It’s only fair to point out that Seattle has scored on two of their first 10 SOGs against Hellebuyck, last year’s NHL MVP.
Having found a new goal-scoring strategy, the Kraken take Winnipeg crease whack-a-puck to a new level, with Jamie Oleksiak, Tye Kartye, Berkly Catton, and finally Shane Wright pushing the puck over the line. But referees disallowed the goal, ruling Hellebuyck had covered the biscuit an instant before Wright poked it home.
Grubauer follows with his best sequence, four solid positional saves in a 55-second span. True, all four came from 50 feet out or further, but the tries from Colin Miller (two), Logan Stanley and Pionk were all through traffic.
Trouble re-appears when the Jets’ Kyle Connor gets position on Dunn skating in on a shorthanded opportunity. Dunn is called for hooking, and when the Winnipeg minor expires, so does the tie. 69 seconds into their abbreviated man advantage, Connor’s shot from the right circle ramps up off defenseman Ryan Lindgren’s stick and past Grubauer at 18:50.
The Kraken penalty kill, 30th in the league, goes 0-1. Shots in the period are 13-5 favoring the ‘Peg.
3rd Period
And the Kraken unforced errors continue, a too many men on the ice penalty in the last 14 seconds of the middle period. So Winnipeg has 1:46 of fresh ice to try and take a two-goal lead. But Seattle manages to stave off a nail-in-the-coffin fourth goal against.
Uh, put a hold on that death notice. Eeli Tolvanen blasts a power play goal through Hellebuyck at 4:11 from Dunn (his third point tonight) and Matty Beniers. Now 3-3, could the Kraken overcome the Jets AND themselves?
Newly energized, Seattle takes its first lead at 7:21. Matty Beniers and Jordan Eberle know each other so well, it’s not a surprise when Beniers’ slap-pass (his 8th assist) finds the captain at the far edge of the crease to re-direct the go-ahead Kraken goal, Eberle’s 6th.
After a Jonathan Toews blast knocked the strap off Grubauer’s mask, the Jets pulled Hellebuyck for a sixth attacker with 2:22 left. Eberle took advantage, scoring his second of the night into an empty net – assisted by Beniers, natch.
Up Next
Here’s a phrase which hasn’t been written often in recent years: a revenge game against San Jose. The Sharks dominated the Kraken 6-1 on Nov. 5. Seattle concludes its current homestand with a rematch on Saturday at CPA, before heading to the road for their next four games.