Kraken play Devils Tough, But Fall By A Goal

Kraken forward Jared McCann looked to be about the only player Monday night to momentarily get inside the head of the red-hot opposing goalie, who proved the difference in this one.

McCann’s perfect first period screen on New Jersey Devils goalie Jacob Markstrom ahead of a tying Adam Larsson goal apparently irked the netminder to where he slashed the Kraken forward in the back of his legs. After McCann skated back at Markstrom for a terse exchange during the goal celebration, the Devils’ goalie got the last word the rest of the way with several spectacular saves to hand the Kraken a 3-2 loss in a game they probably deserved to win.

“You just try to take his eyesight away,” McCann said of his screen from the lip of Markstrom’s crease that enabled the left point wrist shot by Larsson to float slowly on by into the net unseen. “He’s obviously a great goalie so you’ve got to get bodies in front of him and can’t let him see the puck. He’s obviously a big dude, too.”

But not big enough to see around McCann, who then stood and celebrated the goal with his arms raised right in front of Markstrom – his one-time former teammate with the Vancouver Canucks. The proximity of the celebration right in Markstrom’s face likely induced the slash, which sent McCann briefly hobbling, though any hope of the goalie’s temper affecting his ensuing play was quickly dashed in the final 45 minutes.

After Larsson’s goal erased a poor Kraken opening to the game and an initial tally by New Jersey forward Dawson Mercer, the teams went back and forth at each other and forced goalies Markstrom and Philipp Grubauer into a plethora of acrobatic stops the rest of the way. Paul Cotter finally snapped the 1-1 tie with 24 seconds to go in the middle period, but Shane Wright tied it on the power play early in the third off a perfect “saucer” pass from Kaapo Kakko to even it up 2-2.

But only 37 seconds after Wright’s goal, which McCann also drew an assist on, Ondrej Palat was left alone in the slot and fired the eventual winner past Grubauer to snap a four-game New Jersey losing streak.

The Markstrom show took over completely from there as he robbed Eeli Tolvanen of a tying goal soon after Palat’s go-ahead marker. Tolvanen was set to one-time a superb cross-ice pass by Wright into a wide-open right side of the net, only to have the netminder dive across and swat the puck away with his glove.

Then, as the game ticked towards its final minutes, Matty Beniers had a chance to knock home a rebound of an initial save in-close, only to have Markstrom swing his arm across and knock the puck from harm’s way with the butt end of his stick.

“I think there were some good things we did well,” McCann said. “We had some good offensive zone time, and guys were changing (shifts) well and sustaining that. I think, obviously, their goalie made some big saves for them tonight.”

Among other things, the Kraken did well was staying engaged when the situation called for it. The Markstrom slash on McCann was merely a warmup for when Jonas Siegenthaler cross-checked Jaden Schwartz dangerously into the boards from behind just seconds before the second intermission, drawing an immediate and rugged response from Kakko – who went after the Devils’ defender and prompted a wild scrum of players. Several skirmishes broke out, including Brandon Montour eventually winding up on top of Brett Pesce – each drawing fighting majors.

Siegenthaler drew the extra two minutes for the initial crosscheck, and Wright would capitalize just more than a minute into the third period to tie it 2-2.

“I think we want to impose on the other team,” Wright said. “I think we want to be more physical, be known as a physical team and finish hits hard. Guys aren’t going to back down to anyone, so that’s the way we want to start playing.”

They’d actually started doing it much earlier on in the contest. New Jersey, at one point, started the game with a 7-1 shots advantage and the opening Mercer goal. But the Kraken outshot them 12-4 the rest of the period and nearly took the lead before Markstrom stopped Andre Burakovsky on a breakaway and Oliver Bjorkstrand point-blank from the high slot off a 3-on-2 rush.

“I think the second half of the game, we were breaking pucks out a lot better,” Wright said. “We were executing plays out of our own end and playing down there. They had a lot of really good chances and a lot of chances to finish it off. It just wasn’t our luck.”

Kraken head coach Dan Bylsma, whose team reached the halfway mark of its season at 17-21-3 and on-pace for 74 points – seven fewer than a season ago – agreed things need to pick up in the second half of the campaign. But he felt the Kraken played well enough in this one to have come away with a better result and hopes it bodes well on this upcoming five-city road trip.

“We had three or four – it looked like – back-of-the-net chances to get us even,” Bylsma said. “And it’s a hard-fought game, and you’ve got to take the positives from how we played.”

Ultimately, Bylsma added, the late second period goal and Palat’s response goal right after the Kraken equalizer were setbacks he’d like to avoid. But this was nothing like the loss to Edmonton on Saturday night when the Kraken were badly outplayed the opening 36 minutes before mounting a late comeback attempt.

This time, he said, after the Devils stormed out of the gate for their initial goal and big shots advantage, the Kraken “hung in there and withstood it” and quickly found their game.

“It was a hard-fought game and a hard-fought game the way we want to play it,” Bylsma said. “You take no solace not getting two points out of it but this is the halfway point of the season and something we’re going to have to build on with this game going forward.”

For his part, screen artist McCann agrees there were positives to build off – even if he couldn’t get completely inside Markstrom’s head enough to swing the result.

“It was one that we lost, but we did create a lot,” McCann said. “And, you know, it’s the right direction.”