Kraken Finish Is Better Than Start, But Not Enough

BOSTON – Say one thing for Joey Daccord and his Kraken this Sunday stroll through Beantown: They managed to at least stay in a game they were on the verge of being blown out of in the first period.

Sure, the Kraken didn’t get a shot on goal until fewer than three minutes remained in that opening frame and needed their video coaches to bail them out of what would have been a third goal against in rapid succession. But somehow, largely due to Daccord’s netminding acrobatics, they kept this 2-0 loss to the Boston Bruins a lot closer on the scoreboard than it initially looked to be heading.

“We were down so we were chasing it a lot in the second half,” Daccord said after stopping 31 of 33 pucks directed his way in his second career game at TD Garden in his hometown. “We got to our game pretty good in the second half. A couple of posts. A couple of good saves over there.

“I don’t want to say the puck’s not going in right now because we scored eight goals a couple of games ago. But yeah, the last couple of games haven’t gone our way.”

Not nearly enough their way to avoid a third straight defeat on this road trip, nor a sixth loss in seven games overall. But the fact the Kraken calmed things down defensively in the latter half of the game and kept it competitive is a building block of sorts they can use heading into the trip finale at Colorado in a couple of days.

Tye Kartye had a golden chance to get the Kraken on the board with under seven minutes to go, Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman down and out and several players scrambling around in front of him. But Kartye’s wrist shot hit defender Charlie McAvoy in the backside and stayed out of the net.

Then, with Daccord pulled for an extra attacker, Oliver Bjorkstrand hit the post in the final two minutes.

“I mean, we definitely took it to them in the third,” said Daccord, whose team outshot the Bruins 13-3 that period in coming ever so close to making it a one-goal game. “Obviously, they were playing a little more conservatively because they were trying to defend the lead. But you know, we hit a post and had some crazy plays where some pucks could have gone in. We’ve just got to stick with it. Stick to the process.”

Justin Brazeau opened the scoring on a deflection just more than three minutes into the contest and then Charlie Coyle added another midway through the period on a beautiful deke move in close. Daccord was cleanly beaten for a third goal just a minute later, but the Kraken correctly challenged the initial zone entry as being offside and lived to fight another period or two.

And fight on they did, despite being on the short end of a 20-5 shot count midway through and a 30-10 deficit after two periods. Daccord made some spectacular saves late in the second to keep his team in the game as it desperately tried to muster some offense.

In the third, the Kraken came out swinging – literally in the case of Adam Larsson duking it out with Bruins tough guy Trent Frederic – and balanced out the shot total somewhat while pressing for the goal that would get them back in it.

But they couldn’t solve Bruins goalie Swayman and were shut out for the second straight game. They’ve also gone more than nine periods without a goal at even strength.

“We weren’t connected at all at first,” Kraken alternate captain Yanni Gourde said. “I thought our breakout and execution wasn’t great. Our support wasn’t great.”

He added: “Towards the end of the game, I thought we were breaking out cleaner. We put the puck in deep. We didn’t try extra plays.

“We knew ‘Let’s just put it in behind, try to win races, try to win battles and eventually we’re going to get our chances.”

As with Daccord’s statements about trusting the process, Gourde said the team’s lack of goals isn’t due to an inability to finish plays. It’s the inability to start those plays to begin with and move the puck up ice.

“Breaking the puck out (of the defensive zone) has to be a strength of ours and it’s not right now,” he said. “Our transition (game) has to be a strength of ours because the way we want to play, we want to play fast. So, we’ve got to clean that up a little bit.”

Gourde had been reinstated pregame on his familiar line of the past two seasons with Oliver Bjorkstrand and Eeli Tolvanen. Kraken coach Dave Bylsma was hoping the excellent two-way trio could shut down the top Bruins’ line of Brad Marchand, Elias Lindholm and David Pastrnak.

And indeed, keeping them off the scoreboard at even strength bought the Kraken time to figure out their own offensive woes. Marchand and Lindholm did draw assists on Coyle’s power play goal, which snapped a streak of 14 consecutive Kraken penalty kills. It was the first of three successive minor penalties taken by the Kraken that period, preventing them from generating any momentum of their own.

But as the game wore on, the Kraken generally avoided the box with greater frequency and held firm defensively during the final 2 ½ periods.

Bylsma and Gourde both agreed postgame that the confidence shown later on in the contest could bode well for the Kraken in Tuesday’s road trip finale against the Avalanche. But they also agreed the team must stop saying the right things about doing better from the start of games and actually turn talk into action.

“And now it’s our job as players and coaches to act on it,” Bylsma said. “After falling off the horse in Ottawa a little bit, this was our chance to say that wasn’t how it was going to be.

“And it’s just disappointing how we came out and started that game with both our mindset and our execution in that regard. Now, we’ve got to learn the lesson, turn a page here and get our focus on Colorado.”