Second Period Flurry Sinks Kraken

CALGARY, Alberta – Kraken forward Freddy Gaudreau shrugged and shook his head postgame in trying to pinpoint exactly how his previously resilient team had gone off a second period cliff.

His team-leading seventh goal of the season Friday night in a first period largely controlled by the Kraken had drawn them even and set them up nicely at intermission. But this 6-2 loss to the Calgary Flames was sealed by a three-goal flurry in a five-minute span that chased goalie Philipp Grubauer midway through the contest and had the Kraken themselves chasing the rest of the way.

“It’s hard to answer, I don’t know,” Gaudreau said of the stronger opening frame. “I guess it was better for us shooting-wise than the other two periods. But it (the game) is three periods. So, it doesn’t really matter.”

Gaudreau’s goal, in which he slotted home his own rebound after taking a Mackie Samoskevich pass at the net front, allowed him to equal his total from all of last season. It erased an earlier power play goal by Morgan Frost in a period in which the Kraken held a 10-5 shots edge and seemed on their way.

“I feel like we were maybe there more in the first, but yeah, we’ve got to manage the puck better too,” Gaudreau said. “Sometimes, you feel like the wind is going more in their favor and that’s when you’ve got to step up and kind of manage that pressure, manage that momentum by playing maybe simpler and more connected.

“It feels like we were never able to kind of shift that momentum back.”

Instead, the Kraken played what head coach Lane Lambert termed “probably the worst 40 minutes I’ve been a part of here since I got here” the rest of the way and things got ugly fast.

Samoskevich would score the only other Kraken goal on a power play with under two minutes to go in that middle frame with his team already down three. Matt Coronato then scored on newly inserted Joey Daccord just 39 seconds into the final period and Ryan Strome capped the scoring on a net front passing play with under two minutes remaining.

Aydar Suniev had put the Flames ahead to stay five minutes into the second period when left alone in front following a Kraken turnover. Matvei Gridev then scored the second Flames power play marker in two attempts by banking a shot in off Ryker Evans’ skate.

Joel Farabee, who leads the Flames with 14 points, scored the fourth Calgary goal, this one between Grubauer’s pads, on just their 14th shot to end the goalie’s night and bring on Daccord.

It goes without saying the Kraken, now 8-5-1, didn’t want to get into a clash of power plays in this one. While the Kraken were a solid 12^th best in the league coming in and got another power play goal from Samoskevich, the Flames are a top-five man-advantage team and clicking at an astronomical rate since losing their opening five games.

The Kraken, meanwhile, entered tied for 26^th on the penalty kill at a 67.6 efficiency rate. And they quickly gave up another on the first Calgary shot of the contest after Curtis Douglas took an extra two-minute roughing penalty during a fight with Adam Klapka.

“It’s all about us, it’s not about them,” penalty killer Gaudreau said of his team getting burned by top Calgary and Toronto power plays of late. “There’s no excuses here about playing good teams or good power plays. We’ve got to find a solution within our group.” 

Lambert tended to agree postgame. While deeming it fair to question whether top opposing power play units were skewing the numbers against his team, he added that what he’s seen from the penalty kill won’t get it done.

“We’re not good enough right now, that’s it,” he said. “And we both 5-on-5 tonight and on the penalty kill, we lost battle after battle after battle. So, what is that? Is that our size? Is that our will? What is that? We’re going to find out.”

The Kraken play the Flames again next Wednesday night at Climate Pledge Arena in the season finale between these teams. After that, they host the New York Rangers at home and then fly to Finland for a pair of matchups against Carolina.

Samoskevich, right behind Gaudreau in scoring with six goals, knows the Kraken need to get their legs going harder in those games than in this one. He echoed Lambert in suggesting the team left its game in the locker room at first intermission.

“We just came out flat and awkward,” he said. “I don’t know whether it was maybe we thought it was going to be easy after that or what it was. Just the execution wasn’t there and you’ve just got to learn from it. Not let it happen again.”

Samoskevich agreed the Flames are a different looking team from the one the Kraken twice beat 6-1 the season’s opening week. Calgary rebounded and has now won six of the last seven games.

“They played faster this time for sure,” Samoskevich said. “They did a great job beating our forecheck pretty good and put some pressure on us.”

Teammate Gaudreau insisted this wasn’t a case of the Kraken being caught off-guard by an opponent they’d whupped twice prior less than a month ago.

“Those games to start the season, I mean, sometimes it happens,” Gaudreau said. “Teams are trying to find their identity or whatnot, or trying to get connected together. But we weren't thinking they were not going to be good. We were not stupid. We can see their previous results, and how they're going. They're a really good team. We knew that, but yeah, somehow they were better than us tonight.”