The Seattle Kraken played with more intensity to start out the game and the Colorado Avalanche didn't match them in time.
DENVER – Nathan MacKinnon was held to zero shots on goal and the Colorado Avalanche were outshot 43 to 22 in the Game 4 overtime loss to the Seattle Kraken Monday night.
Seattle came out of the gate with more intensity than the Avalanche, which cost Colorado a 2-0 deficit after the first.
Will Borgen grabbed a pass in the circle and wristed it past Alexandar Georgiev’s left side to put the Kraken up by one at 3:56 into the first. On the power play, Daniel Sprong fired the puck to the net, it hit the left post and bounced in past Georgiev at 10:09 making it 2-0.
“We didn’t get to our game early enough, so that’s the big major takeaway for me,” head coach Jared Bednar said after the game. “We know it was going to get tougher and tougher as the series goes on. Space is going to be less available to you, so you have to go earn every inch of ice and we didn’t do a good job enough early on in the hockey game taking care of our side of that scenario.”
The Avalanche came out with better legs in the second but still struggled to gain possession of the puck and create scoring chances.
Mikko Rantanen’s first shot of the game came off a backhand pass from MacKinnon. He pulled the puck in and fired it past Philipp Grubauer to get Colorado on the board.
The checking game remained super tight on both ends. Then Rantanen’s second shot and second goal of the game came on the power play with less than a minute left in the period.
Even though the Avalanche managed to tie up the game and take it to overtime, Bednar was left with three lines to mix up due to a lack of productivity from some players.
“We’re playing our game to the best of our ability and sometimes those guys (Rantanen, MacKinnon and Cale Makar) are going to chip in, sometimes they’re not,” Bednar said. “If they can, it will obviously help. So there’s a level of concern, but I can’t say I haven’t had it all year to some effect.”
The slow start and lack of scoring chances left the Avalanche with some work to do in order to move on from this loss and get their heads into the next game.
“I think they worked us. I think they were ready from the puck drop and we didn’t do enough to kind of weather that,” Evan Rodrigues said.
Cale Makar gets 2 for interference, McCann leaves the game after hit
At 8:24 into the first period, Makar received two minutes for interference after putting Jared McCann into the boards.
Georgiev made a save on McCann’s breakaway shot and the puck deflected up over the net. McCann, not prepared for the hit, had his head up waiting for the puck to come down when Makar hit him in the corner, and he dropped to the ice. Then the whistle blew.
There wasn’t an immediate call on the ice, then a penalty was called. But then the officials got together to discuss and concluded it was a two-minute minor for interference.
McCann took some time to get up and get off the ice, as he was clearly injured. He did not return to the game.
Makar said after the game that he never intended to hurt McCann but was just following through with a check after the puck was deflected and went flying in the air.
“I didn’t feel like I tried to finish him that hard. But I mean I feel like if I was in that scenario, they would’ve done the exact same thing,” Makar said after the game. “So I’m not trying to hurt anybody, it’s just unfortunate, tough bounce there and they got the call right and that’s all you can ask for.”
The Avalanche were, again, without Valeri Nichushkin after he left Seattle abruptly before Game 3 on Saturday for “personal reasons.” There is no further information on his whereabouts or when they expect him to return.