Jaden Schwartz Earns Point For 7th Straight Game; Seattle Allows 2 PPGs
The Seattle Kraken continue to spur sales of defibrillators, blood pressure cuffs, and prescription meds.
Tuesday against the Arizona Coyotes at Mullett Arena, the Kraken displayed a better effort and forced the game to a shootout, but couldn't score in the skills competition and lose, 4-3. Matty Beniers' goal-less streak to start the season grew to 13 games, and he also was unable to score in the shootout.
The top culprits in the loss were undisciplined penalties and a leaky PK.
1st Period
Mullett Arena, the Coyotes' temporary home, is located on the campus of Arizona State University.
Kraken starting goalie Joey Daccord, who played college hockey at ASU, spoke earlier to current Sun Devils.
Daccord is called on to make a key save moments into the game, getting a pad on Travis Dermott's wide open wrister. And talk about wide open - Jamie Oleksiak sends Yanni Gourde and Eeli Tolvanen in 2-on-0. A dizzying series of give-and-go passes ends with Tolvanen's third, Seattle up 1-0 40 seconds after puck drop.
The lead doesn't last long. Arizona's Matias Maccelli extends his point streak to nine games, with his second goal at 6:06.
An NHL puck is three inches in diameter. When a Brian Dumoulin shot pinballs behind Arizona goalie Connor Ingram, about half the puck makes it across the goal line. Before the back 1.5 inches can squeak across, the Coyotes' Claton Keller deftly sticks it off the line.
Jared McCann pokes at the still-free puck, but Ingram recovers to smother the rebound.
The Kraken kill a Gourde slash at 16:37. That and the right post, rejecting Dermott's drive which had beaten Daccord, keep the score 1-1 after 20. Shots favored Seattle 12-8.
The 2nd will start 4-on-4 due to matching penalties as the horn sounds: Gourde for hooking, Keller for embellishing the hook. Gourde holds up two fingers to the referee - either signaling the second time he's been unfairly penalized, or the first time he's displaying his Winston Churchill impression.
2nd Period
To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld admonishing a rental car agent in Seinfeld, the Kraken know how to TAKE a lead, they just don't know how to KEEP the lead. Seattle has scored first in nine of 13 games, winning four.
Kailer Yamamoto takes an offensive-zone - i.e., unnecessary - hooking penalty. Pierre-Edouard Bellemare makes a heroic, and painful, block, which isn't rewarded. Barrett Hayton tips a Keller shot. Arizona leads for the first time, 2-1, on the PP at 3:59.
This time it's Seattle with the rapid response, 58 seconds later. Taking passes from Jordan Eberle and Matty Beniers, Justin Schultz snaps one above Ingram's right pad to tie the game 2-2 at 4:57.
Schultz broke into a wide grin during a ROOT Sports interview, asked his strategy on the tying goal. "Honestly, I was just throwing at the net, and sometimes those go in."
The Kraken get two shots and no goals on their first power play. Just over a minute after it expired, Gourde is banished to the penalty box for the third time, interference at 11:55. The Kraken survive.
Survive is also the right way to describe the Kraken after Vince Dunn and Logan Crouse take matching roughing penalties at 17:03. Arizona does such a beautiful Globetrotters-style weave 4-on-4, the only thing missing was Sweet Georgia Brown.
Officially, shots were 11-all for the period, 23-19 Seattle after 40 - not reflective of late domination by the Coyotes.
3rd Period
Bunting may be a lost art in baseball, not in hockey.
On an early Seattle power play, Matty Beniers sends a precision shot-pass into the crease. Jaden Schwartz's redirection beats goalie Ingram, but not the right post. However, the puck bounces off the pipe, in the air back to Schwartz. He bunts home the lead goal, 3-2, at 1:16.
For Schwartz, his 6th goal, 4th on the PP, and points in seven consecutive games. Beniers, still goal-less in game #13, collects his second assist.
The Seattle lead lasts 42 seconds. Vince Dunn is whistled for a cross-check at 1:27, and Clayton Keller - he of the goal-save, embellishment, and assist - adds a game-tying PPG at 1:58. The Kraken lose the lead for the second time; it's 3-3.
Seattle's penalty kill reminds of Longfellow's Girl With A Curl. When it was good to start the season, it was very, very good. Since then, it's been horrid (10 PPGs allowed in the last 6+ games). They've allowed two on the PK tonight; both were passing plays from bumper spot to circle to back of the net.
One minute left, tie game, and Matty Beniers, looking for his first goal of the season, has a breakaway! He settles the puck in time to go backhand-forehand, but Ingram makes a right pad save to send the game to OT.
3rd period shots are 14-7 Seattle, 36-25 through regulation.
Overtime
Joey Daccord makes his own game-saving breakaway stop on Crouse. Right after, Bjorkstrand hits the outside of the right post.
The game goes to a shootout.
Arizona goes 1-for-3, with Nick Bjugstad scoring the only goal for either team. Seattle goes 0-for-3, with Bjorkstrand, Beniers, and Eberle unable to keep the game alive.
Postgame
Kraken gain one standings point, and are 4-6-3. They've lost both shootouts this season. Their two game road trip concludes with a game in Colorado against the Avalanche on Thursday. The Avs bested the Kraken 4-1 in Seattle's home opener on Oct. 17.
