Boos rained tirelessly from a home crowd grown hostile watching conviction after conviction send Kraken skaters packing to the penalty box. To their loyal eyes, the referees abused their authority to exert a personal grievance.
Eight penalties were taken over the course of Seattle’s 5-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild, six coming from the defensive corps. Thirty-eight minutes were played at five-on-five, the only game state the Kraken controlled, owning 50.76% of the total shot quality– in all situations, they owned 47.89%. Vince Dunn took another characteristically rash penalty despite scoring the game-opening goal. Jaden Schwartz and Jamie Oleksiak teamed up to hand the Wild their first lead via five-on-three.
Minnesota scored twice on the man-advantage, including the game-winner from Matt Boldy. Seattle could not convert on their five power play opportunities.
Referees are not responsible for how a team handles or mishandles penalties. The Kraken put themselves in a position to be realistically penalized enough times to leave the game outcome up to special teams, which have knowingly not been in consistently competitive form all season.
Seattle has no one to blame but themselves.
“We can’t take that many penalties. We shot ourselves in the foot, especially against that group,” Yanni Gourde told reporters, presumably also thinking of his own penalty, his team’s fifth of the night. “It kills our mojo, it kills our momentum. We can’t roll four lines, and that’s really when we’re very successful. That’s how we grind teams down.”
“At this point in the year we shouldn’t have a performance like that.”
Albeit not seen without squinting, there were bright spots amid the misery. Jordan Eberle’s clearly embracing a second wind, scoring his 18th point in 20 games, inadvertently bouncing a pass off of Minnesota’s Dakota Mermis to score early in the third. Although the circumstances of his entry into the game were ugly, Philipp Grubauer played nearly lights out in relief of his tandem partner, saving 17 of 18 shots (.944 SV%) in the final 37:46.
Joey Daccord’s quality of play has spent so long at godly levels it’s easy to clutch pearls at his performance Saturday night, and although his rough night contributed to the problem it was far from the root cause of the loss. As to whether Minnesota’s first goal was truly his responsibility is a gray area– Marcus Johansson’s shot (6.8% chance of scoring) slipped right through Daccord, positionally set and eyes on the target, but he may have been screened by Tomáš Tatar. Everything else was on Daccord— except, of course, the five-on-three tally— allowing 2.08 more goals than expected in 22:09.
Head coach Dave Hakstol admitted he “had that instinct” to pull Daccord “one goal earlier” than the four total he ended up allowing before his night was over (13 shots, .692 SV%).
“Tonight wasn’t his night. This is not on him, but he just like everybody else is gonna have to address his own performance, shake it off, and be ready for the next one.”
Games against the Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins lie in the week ahead. Hakstol was confident Daccord will bounce back, a testament to his “pro” attitude. Yet if Grubauer is heating up, it’s time to let the veteran goaltender take the reins in pursuit of desperately needed wins. Any competitive advantage must be used, no matter how small.
But even as monumental as those wins could be relative to the club’s disappointing season, their impact shrinks in the grand scheme of things.
Dropping their 22nd loss of the season, the Kraken now need six points to overtake the Nashville Predators for the second Wild Card spot. That’s only if every other team also competing for it doesn’t budge, which hasn’t been the case– the Calgary Flames have won three straight, the Wild two, and the Predators four; St Louis lost last night but are 5-5-0 over their last 10.
Hakstol told reporters Wednesday he keeps a close eye on the standings at this time of year. There’s no reason, then, to think Seattle didn’t understand they couldn’t afford to lose Saturday’s game. Unfortunately that opens the possibility they acted recklessly in spite of the urgency of their position.
If these are the performances to be expected from the Kraken amid high stakes circumstances, maybe they aren’t cut out for the playoffs.
“I don’t think we should be frustrated, I think we should be pretty upset with ourselves,” Hakstol said, more scathing than normal in his post-game assessment. “Tonight we weren’t good.”
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