After a pretty good week previously winning twice against the Montreal Canadiens and Minnesota Wild, the Seattle Kraken would have a couple of really good tests early this past week against the New York Rangers and Edmonton Oilers. Then to end the week, we saw the Kraken take on the Buffalo Sabres (which I heard there was some franchise history made in this game) and then on the road against the Arizona Coyotes. Let’s take a look back at this week for the Kraken:
NY Rangers trick the Kraken on Halloween in a close one till the end (10/31/21)
This game was a close one that went right down to the very end. Seattle welcomed the New York Rangers to the Emerald City for a Halloween matchup. Chris Kreider got the Rangers on the board first as he skated into the offensive zone and to the right face-off circle and then fired a dart that would go in and out of the net quickly to give his team a 1-0 lead that would beat Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer on his glove side. Kreider’s goal would be the only one of the period as the Rangers would lead 1-0.
In the second period, Jordan Eberle at the 13:46 mark of the second period would even up the score 1-1. Eberle would score a beauty of a goal on his backhand that would beat Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin for his second goal of the season. Seattle dominated this period leading with a 13-2 shot advantage and certainly had their chances. Shesterkin other then the lone goal was spectacular in between the pipes for the Rangers as the game would remain tied after the second period.
Adam Fox would get the game winner for the Rangers at the 12:10 mark of period three. Winger Artemi Panarin would curl at the face-off circle to find Fox trailing into the offensive zone and then would pull the puck around Kraken forward Brandon Tanev and fire it behind goalie Philipp Grubauer to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead. Barclay Goodrow would seal the victory for the Rangers as he would score an empty net goal for his third goal of the season. The Kraken would fall to the Rangers by a final score of 3-1.
Kraken dominated by the Draisatl show vs the Oilers (11/1/21)
After facing the Rangers the night before, the Seattle Kraken would head up north briefly to take on the high flying and scoring Edmonton Oilers. Leon Draisatl would start his offensive showing by getting the Oilers on the board first with his sixth goal of the season as he deflected in a shot from Tyson Barrie for the 1-0 lead. Moments later, Jaden Schwartz would tie the game for the Kraken on a beautiful effort as he split the oiler defenders and beat goalie Mikko Koskinen five-hole on his backhand. Of course, one goal wouldn’t be enough for Leon Draisatl as he scored his second goal of the game a couple minutes later on the power play off of a nice backdoor set up from Zach Hyman to make it 2-1 Oilers. That would be all the goal scoring as he leave the first period behind and move onto the second period.
Duncan Keith would score his first goal as a member of the Edmonton Oilers a minute and forty-seven seconds into the second period which was of course assisted by you guessed it…Leon Draistatl and Connor McDavid to give their team a 3-1 lead. Later in the period, Carson Soucy got the Kraken back within one as he would wrist a shot as Nathan Bastian saw him trailing into the slot and fed him the puck to score the goal to make it 3-2. It would be 3-2 in favor of the Oilers heading into period three.
In period three, Kyle Turris and Kyler Yamomoto would help seal the victory for the Edmonton Oilers as each would score their first goals of the season. Turris scored as he kept his stick on the ice as Devin Shore fed it to him in front of the net and was able to tap the puck into the back of the net to make it 4-2. Yamamoto would make it 5-2 later on as he would receive a pass through traffic from Leon Draisatl and finished on his forehand, going five-hole for the goal. The Edmonton Oilers defeated the Seattle Kraken by a final score of 5-2.
Hats off to Eberle, Kraken beat Sabres 5-2 (11/4/21)
Tonight featured another first for the Seattle Kraken in their franchise history which I’ll get into shortly. Let’s dive into the action and what happened as the went back home to take on the Buffalo Sabres. The first period saw the Kraken have a 14-6 shot advantage. It took them a it to get on the scoreboard but, they finally did at the 15:43 mark as Morgan Geekie got the Kraken on the board first to make it 1-0. Alex Wennberg sent a saucer pass cross-crease to Geekie, who would shoot and score on a slap shot to give his team the lead. It would remain 1-0 after the first period.
Tage Thompson a little over six minutes into the second period tied the game for the the Sabres. Buffalo started a really nice breakout and were able to find Thompson who would put in great effort and fought off the defense and then shot it from the high slot to beat Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer to tie things up 1-1. Kyle Okposo later on gave the Sabres a 2-1 lead as he scored his third goal of the season on the power play as he fired a shot top shelf to make it 2-1 in favor of the Sabres. Unfortunately for Buffalo, that would be the last time they would have the lead. A moment later, Jordan Eberle answered right back as Jaden Schwartz found Eberlein the slot who hurried the shot that would beat goalie Dustin Tokarski glove side to tie the game 2-2 which would be the score after two periods.
The Jordan Eberle show would not be over as he scored twice more to give himself the hat trick and the first one in Seattle Kraken’s franchise history. Eberele would power his way to the net and then chipped the puck in for his second of the game. On the hat trick goal, Eberle faked the shot before he slapped the puck past Dustin Tokarski for the hat trick. Jaden Schwartz ten minutes later would add an empty net goal to seal the victory for the Seattle Kraken as they defeated the Buffalo Sabres by a final score of 5-2.
Brutal loss vs the Arizona Coyotes 11/6/21
This game was definitely a bitter pillow to swallow for the Seattle Kraken after a very good start against the NHL’s worst in the Arizona Coyotes that ended in disaster. Seattle jumped out on the Coyotes jumped out to a very early 2-0 lead by striking twice within the first sixty seconds of the game thanks to Jordan Eberle and Yanni Gourde. About thirty-four seconds after Goourde’s goal, the Coyotes got one back as Antoine Roussel scored his first of the season. Later on in the period at the 11:04 mark, Nathan Bastian expanded the Kraken lead to 3-1 as he got the puck off of a turnover near the front of the goal and put into the back of the net on his backhand for his first of the season. The Kraken would lead 3-1 after the first period.
Travis Boyd would get the game within one for the Coyotes scoring his second of the season. Boyd sent a quick one-timer on the feed from Christian Fletcher past Phillipp Grubauer to cut the deficit to 3-2. That would be the only goal of the second period.
Early on in period three, Lawson Crouse scored the game tying goal as he fired a wrist shot from the top of the right face-off circle to beat Grubauer. Phil Kessel later on helped the Coyotes get their first lead of the game on the power play as he fired a wrist shot from the slot for his second goal of the year. With the net empty, the Kraken were able to tie the game thanks to captain Mark Giordano as he buried a point shot past Coyotes goalie Scott Wedgewood to hopefully force overtime or win the game. Unfortunately for Seattle, that dream was very short lived as Arizona scored the game winner thirteen seconds later as Lawson Crouse scored his second of the game. Crouse got the pass from behind the goal to the front and into the back of the net to help earn the Coyotes their first victory of the season beating the Kraken by a final score of 5-4 in a wild affair.
How’s it Kraken? My thoughts on the week that was
The Kraken came back down to earth after having a very good week previously winning two in a row. Against the Rangers, they played pretty well and were in the game till the very end but were unable to come all the way back and lost in a close one. Edmonton and mainly Leon Draisatl put on a show offensively the next game and made the defense and goalie Philipp Grubauer’s life hell in this one. The Oilers are a very fast and offensively skilled team. On Thursday night, they played well and got the win over the Buffalo Sabres as Jordan Eberle made franchise history by scoring the very first hat trick for the Seattle Kraken. Unfortunately on Saturday night, the game started very well but ultimately ended in disaster as the NHL’s worst in the Arizona Coyotes found a way to come back from a 3-1 deficit and won the game in the last minutes of the game.
Both losses earlier in the week were against two very good teams in the Rangers and Oilers. I liked how the Kraken played against New York for the most part, they lost on a good play by that was set up by Artemi Panarin who found a trailing Adam Fox for the GWG and then they got the empty netter from Chris Kreider. Against the Oilers, we know what that team can do considering they have the top two offensive players in league scoring in Connor McDavid and Leon Draistal. Draistal took this one over and put up a four point night against the Kraken. Seattle had a hard time containing a high flying Oilers offense and sadly don’t have those same type of x-factor offensive weapons to counteract. This loss wasn’t surprising.
It was nice to see the Kraken rebound against the Sabres and Jordan Eberle starting to find his offensive game after a slow start to his season. He had one helluva game by scoring the franchise’s first hat trick in their history. Hats off to him for that performance. Eberle scored a total of five goals this week. They really need him to continue scoring and be that x-factor on the scoresheet for the Kraken. Unfortunately, the Kraken laid a total egg against the Coyotes and 100% should have beaten the sorry Arizona Coyotes. There is ZERO excuse for this loss. Besides blowing it the first time and then tying the game again with the goalie pulled, what bothered me was how the Kraken let the Coyotes respond so quickly late for as Lawson Crouse scored the game winner. This game should have at least gone to overtime and gotten a point out of this one. Seattle needs to absolutely learn from this one, toss it in the trash, and do better the next game out. Seattle has one more road game on Tuesday against the injury plagued Vegas Golden Knights before coming home for a long home stand starting on Thursday evening. Stay tuned Seattle and let’s see what happens next week!
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