Sabres Cut Through Early Strike

The two hockey clubs squaring off at Climate Pledge Arena Monday night entered the action with similar numbers in the NHL standings. The visiting Buffalo Sables were at 69 standings points in their first 68 games while the Kraken had compiled 68 standings points in 66 games. Each team was chasing the second wild-card holder in their respective conferences with three other teams in between and in pursuit of a wild-card bid.

With a 6-2 road win, Buffalo was departing with 71 points and their fourth win in the last five games, four points back of Washington (winners here last Thursday and victors in Calgary Monday to take over the East second spot from slumping Detroit). There are a lot of teams in the chase, including New Jersey as the seventh Eastern Conference team with a chance to get hot and make the postseason.

For the Kraken, the homestand ends with a 0-4-1 record and stalled at those 68 points, now 11 back of Vegas with the defending Stanley Cup champions next on the docket Thursday night in the first of back-to-back road games that continue in Arizona Friday.

“We had too many holes in our game tonight,” said Kraken coach Dave Hakstol post-game. “Too much fluctuation up and down in the quality of our play throughout the game.”

Hakstol said the impact of the 0-4-1 homestand was affecting his squad: “You know, I saw a little bit of frustration tonight. I think some of the carryover is maybe from the results we've had previously this week. I’ll be blunt and honest. This is the first time that I've seen frustration come onto our bench. Whether it happened quickly or throughout that first period, it's the first time I've seen that.”

The Kraken have a day off Tuesday, one of the mandatory days required each month as part of the NHL’s agreement with the players association.

“We had the day of practice [Sunday],” said Hakstol. “Obviously, we weren't able to flush it out. And it affected us today. We have a day off tomorrow. We're gonna have to use that to our advantage. We're gonna have to get our thoughts clear and get our focus on what's ahead of us.”

Alternate captain Jordan Eberle was equally blunt in his post-game remarks: “We need to win games. That's plain and simple. This league is about winning.”

Eberle said Seattle turning in a full 60-minute effort has proved “kind of inconsistent throughout the whole year and that's kind of been frustrating.”

Coulda Been Worse...

The situation could have grown worse. Stellar defenseman Jamie Oleksiak went down after blocking a shot in the first period, not able to get up as play continued, and then helped off the ice at an ensuing whistle. The 6-7, 250-pound defenseman left the game with just four minutes of time on ice, leaving the Kraken with just five D-men.

The quintet of defenders paired up in different combinations and rookie defenseman Ryker Evans shouldered some of Oleksiak’s heavy duties on the penalty kill. But in perhaps the most positive development of the game, Oleksiak returned for the third period and finished with 9:49 of total time on ice.

Early Returns on Line Changes

The experiment of slotting Eeli Tolvanen at left wing with center Matty Beniers and right wing Jordan Eberle paid early dividends for Seattle. As in very early. Eberle took a pass from his new linemate some 20 seconds into the game’s first shift, then proceeded to hold the just long enough for Buffalo goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to think maybe a pass was coming next. Wrong. Eberle wristed it hard past the Sabres goaltender (whom future Hall of Famer John Forslund shortened to “UPL” from time to time on the ROOT Sports broadcast). It's Eberle’s 15^th goal of the year.

The play was ignited by strong forechecking by Beniers with Eberle winning a wall battle to keep the puck in zone. Defenseman Brian Dumoulin had moved up into the play and moved the loose puck from the left wall cross-ice to Tolvanen, who quickly flicked it to a cycling Eberle. You wouldn’t know the starting forward line was playing its first shift together all season and had just Sunday’s practice to find out they would form a trio Monday. Dave Hakstol said after Monday’s morning skate that you only find out if there is potential chemistry in gameplay. Pretty good first sample.

Tolvanen earned his second primary assist of the period on a late power play when his one-time pinballed a bit net-front, popping upward and landing near the right post. Beniers was in the right place at the right time to blade the puck into the net.

Buffalo Responds Thrice

Trouble is, those two first-period Kraken goals came before and after Buffalo scored three times in less than five minutes of play after Eberle’s opening score. Like Eberle for Seattle, Buffalo’s Tage Thompson scored on his team’s first shot, beating Kraken starter Joey Daccord with a long-range snap-shot just 25 seconds after the home squad’s goal. The Sabres score was their first of two response goals (scored within two minutes of another goal) during the first frame.

Just under four minutes into the period, Buffalo scored what was ultimately the go-ahead-stay-ahead goal when Jeff Skinner notched his first of two goals on the night, solving Daccord with a mid-range wrist shot. Less than two minutes later, Sabres forward Alex Tuch made it 3-1 on another shot from longer range and marking the second response goal. It also punctuated Joey Daccord’s night, getting pulled in favor of Philipp Grubauer before six minutes had elapsed.

“Those are quality shots,” said Hakstol when asked about ending Daccord’s night. “The first goal against from Thompson, that's just a hell of a shot ...  the second and third ones are pucks I know when Joey's on, he stops, he sees those and he makes those saves.”

Buffalo was at it again mid-second period, with Owen Power, the former Michigan teammate of Matty Beniers, scoring on a rebound of sorts when a teammate rung the far post and Philipp Grubauer couldn’t recover in time. Forty seconds later, the aforementioned Skinner scored his second goal of the game to stretch the Buffalo lead to 5-2. Skinner completed the hat trick with a late-game goal. The veteran Skinner now leads Buffalo with 24 goals.

Third-Period Energy

Despite a three-goal deficit, the Kraken revved up during the final 20 minutes and the crowd was still bringing noise too. Seattle had 10 shots on goal halfway through, but, Luukkonen, the Sabres’ 25-year-old Finnish goalie, was up to the task. He had his ups and downs last season but has been solid for the Sabres this year. Monday was his 23^rd win in 2023-24.