Latest Kraken Comeback Bid Falls Short

Living by the multi-goal comeback the past week or so has become quite the habit Jaden Schwartz and his Kraken teammates would like to see broken.

Standing in a quiet Kraken locker room Saturday night after a 4-2 loss to the visiting Edmonton Oilers, winger Schwartz, a major catalyst of a miraculous three-goal comeback victory over Vancouver exactly a week prior, lamented how his team keeps playing from behind. While they managed another multi-goal, third period comeback against Vancouver yet again just two nights ahead of this one in an eventual shootout defeat, third time wasn’t the week’s charm in attempting to dig out from their latest hole.

“I mean, we’ve got to get better starts,” Schwartz said. “It’s tough coming back all the time in this league. It’s good to be able to do it and put ourselves in a position to tie it up again. But especially with them playing (Friday) night, we’ve just got to be sharper off the start, be on our toes and be aggressive instead of just watching them and being on our heels.”

So, while Schwartz and his team can rejoice in getting the late-game push down to a relative science and goalie Philipp Grubauer playing some of his best hockey to keep things close, the opening act isn’t going to cut it. It was bad enough that the Climate Pledge Arena lights briefly went out just 11 seconds after the opening puck drop. Problem was, the Kraken never got theirs turned on.

Grubauer was the only thing keeping this from being a blowout two periods in, robbing the Oilers of at least four goals – including his stopping Connor McDavid on a first period breakaway. That save helped halt McDavid’s points streak at 13 games, though teammate Leon Draisaitl lengthened his to 14 contests by assisting on Vasily Podkolzin’s opening goal just 57 seconds in.

Jeff Skinner then made it 2-0 barely five minutes into the game, both goals coming after Oilers players got in behind Kraken defenders after some sloppy puck play. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins made it a three-goal lead with eight minutes to go in the middle period before Chandler Stephenson got this latest Kraken comeback bid going with 4:04 to go until intermission on a right circle wrist shot off a 2-on-1 rush.

Schwartz knocked home a rebound after a Vince Dunn shot seven minutes into the final period to get fans believing in miracles yet again. But Draisaitl clinched things with an empty net goal in the final minutes.

The loss spoiled the 500^th career game for Dunn, and injury was added to that insult when his defensive partner, Adam Larsson, left the contest in the final minutes of the second period and did not return. It was later disclosed Larsson has an upper-body injury and the Kraken said they’d wait to see how he responds to treatment overnight and on Sunday’s day off before commenting further.

As for comments on this seventh straight Kraken defeat to the reigning Western Conference champions, Schwartz pretty much said it all with his words about the game’s opening. The red-hot Oilers, despite playing and winning Friday night in Anaheim, had plenty of early Kraken help in improving to 11-2-1 in their last 14 contests.

“We weren’t playing with the puck enough,” Schwartz said. “They were making the plays and moving their feet early.”

The Oilers have also been as stingy on defense of late as they are dynamic on offense, allowing just 42 goals in their last 18 games – with 12 of those contests having seen them yield two goals or fewer. And even though the Oilers played backup goalie Calvin Pickard in this one, the Kraken were up against it after yielding the two early goals.

They managed just three shots in the opening period and had only seven by the time Stephenson scored just ahead of the 16-minute mark of the second.

“That’s something we need to clean up and start playing with leads more,” said Stephenson, whose goal was his second in as many games after managing just three all season beforehand. “Since the (Christmas) break, we’ve kind of been putting ourselves behind the eight-ball. We’re close, and we’re making the game interesting. But we need to kind of get better with our starts and just carry it on.”

Kraken coach Dan Bylsma said there was “a little bit too much standing around and watching their good players and not putting enough bodies on guys” as the Oilers freewheeled early in front of Grubauer. Grubauer’s acrobatics while the team awaits a possible injury return by Joey Daccord this next week are a positive sign for the Kraken, as are the recurring comeback displays.

But Bylsma said all the recent comeback play is also mentally taxing and may have contributed somewhat to the sputtering start.

“We kept pushing in the third and got back into the thing,” he said. “Credit to our guys just to keep hounding them. You don’t want to keep coming back all the time, but we had a push in the third period, and that’s what you want to see from your team.”

Schwartz has been a big part of the comeback dynamic and now has four goals in his last six games. He’s been as big a net-front presence as anybody on a line with Matty Beniers and newcomer Kaapo Kakko, who collected an assist on Schwartz’s goal.

“It took us a while to get going, but once we did, we made a lot happen and put pressure on their D and got a lot of pucks back,” Schwartz said. “But there’s no excuse for taking half the game to do that.”