Winnipeg, Canada – The Seattle Kraken’s characteristic mental lapses showed too costly to overcome in their February 17th loss to the Winnipeg Jets. Turnovers again were responsible for goals, as Seattle dropped their second straight. The Jets take the season series, with a third and final contest taking place between the teams on April 13th in Winnipeg. Vince Dunn, Marcus Johansson, and Jordan Eberle all scored for the Kraken.
Mason Appleton was playing against his former team
Seattle saw their hot start disappear, as before the Kraken could end the first period with a two-goal lead, Winnipeg’s Dominic Toninato scored a short-handed goal. Seattle needed a hot start on the road, against a Winnipeg team that has the ability to get a quick start out of the gate, and they mostly got that. The beginning of the end of their momentum came with Toninato’s goal, which was scored with just 13 seconds left in the period. Jordan Eberle spoke about the effect that goal had on the team, in the post-game press conference.
“We started really well; we were on top of them. Obviously get a couple of big goals, and then the shorthanded one, the first, that really deflated us. That can’t happen, that’s on me, that’s on other guys, it just can’t happen,” Eberle would remark.
Jordan Eberle's goal would tie the game late
In a somewhat positive light, the Kraken were able to score another power play goal in this game, meaning that between Jared McCann’s goal in the loss to Toronto and Vince Dunn’s power play goal in this one, the Kraken had scored back-to-back power play goals. With tonight’s game taken into account, the Kraken are now five for their last 41 on power play opportunities. A negative that takes away from the power play is the shorthanded goal that was mentioned earlier.
Another positive would be Everett Fitzhugh and JT Brown teaming up to complete the NHL's first all-black broadcast team. Fitzhugh normally works as the team's radio play-by-play announcer, but due to the fact that John Forslund had been called in to do play-by-play for the Golden Knights vs Avalanche matchup that took place on February 16th, Fitzhugh had a spot in Forslund's chair. Everett did well in his television debut, fitting in well next to Brown, as both mentioned prior to game time that they had a chemistry built already.
The word I feel like I have had to mention the most in discussing the Kraken’s issues, turnovers, reared its ugly head once again. Several of Winnipeg’s goals came off of Seattle’s inability to clear the puck and the Jets forcing takeaways. This is an issue that has been hanging over Seattle’s head all season, and ideally would have been taken care of by now. Head coach Dave Hakstol would speak on the teams' issues in the loss to the Jets.
“On the second goal, Duboi’s goal, we had the puck outside the line, we didn’t connect on a breakout play. That play has to be clean coming out of the zone, we had the opportunity to come out of the zone clean, and we made a mistake at the blue line... Too many of their opportunities came off of our stick. We gave up nothing in the first period except for the shorthanded goal. In the second period, once they got the two goals, which gave them a little bit of life, and the four or five chances in the second period that they had come off of our stick... Those are areas that we can affect in a much better way for ourselves,” Hakstol would state.
The Kraken’s defensive issues at this point just seem like they will hang around them until some big change is made. Whether that is a player issue or a coaching issue is still yet to fully be decided. The dump and chase offense that Seattle continues to try to see through does not work, and will not work with the personnel that you have. Hopefully, both of these issues can be fixed with the cap space that the team has, and potentially a trade of current team captain Mark Giordano.
Seattle will continue their Canadian road trip on February 19th, with a 7PM PST puck drop against the Calgary Flames.
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