Dunn’s Return Provides Hope For Kraken Offense

Vince Dunn hasn’t been on the ice in a game for six weeks but saw enough from the Kraken in this affair to know it wasn’t nearly enough.

The offensively talented defender, whose services were sorely missed by a Kraken team hard-pressed for goals since his Oct. 17 mid-body injury, had some jump to his game despite the long layoff. And the Kraken hope his return can jumpstart both their offense and overall mindset after a 4-2 loss to the San Jose Sharks on Saturday night that dropped them two games below .500 with a tough East Coast swing upcoming.

“We let three big games slide on us there,” Dunn said, referencing consecutive losses to the Sharks and Anaheim Ducks prior. “And these next few games are not going to be easy, so we’ve got to find a way to pull things together here.”

Dunn the past two seasons, has been the catalyst the Kraken have relied upon to jumpstart their offense out of the back end. With Dunn out of the lineup, the Kraken scored more than three goals only four times in 19 games, and those scoring woes continued in this affair despite the home side racking up 38 shots.

“We had the puck on our stick a lot of the time and then just found a way to give it away and didn’t really create a lot of chances in the offensive zone,” Dunn said. “Their goalie made some big saves but we didn’t really make it hard enough on him.”

Sharks goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood outplayed Kraken counterpart Joey Daccord, who had a rare off night that allowed the visitors to build up a lead they never relinquished midway through the game. It was 4-0 for the visitors by the time Jaden Schwartz put one by Blackwood in the second period, and Jared McCann added another in the third.

The Sharks got a first period goal from Mario Ferraro, then poured it on in the middle frame with markers from Luke Kunin, Cody Ceci and Will Smith.

As for the Kraken, who’d done an admirable job battling back above .500 courtesy of a recent 5-1 homestand, their third straight loss and fourth defeat in five contests dropped them to 11-13-1 ahead of a four-city road trip and then three home games against top opponents. This game was somewhat typical of the Kraken’s woes throughout Dunn’s absence, punctuated by an inability to produce goals early on -- especially in a first period that saw them outshoot the Sharks by a 13-9 margin.

It didn’t help that the Kraken entered the night without the services of Chandler Stephenson, who was coming off a three-point Friday night in San Jose but got scratched right before gametime with an illness and replaced in the lineup by AHL call-up Mitchell Stephens.

Already without Jordan Eberle for the next few months and with Dunn easing back into games, the offense needed somebody to step up in the interim. But the shots just weren’t going in for the Kraken, despite peppering Blackwood with 30 of them in the opening two frames.

McCann, who has split team MVP honors with Dunn the past two seasons, had gone six consecutive games without a goal by the time he popped his 10^th of the season on a 39-foot wrist shot just more than six minutes into the final period. He said it’s “going to be on our leadership group” to get the team’s mindset turned around in time for this tough stretch.

“We’ve got to sit down with everybody – maybe just the players – and kind of figure it out here,” McCann said. “Obviously, we know we can beat good teams. We’ve proven it, and we’ve just got to get back to it.”

But to do that, he added, the team has to stop giving the puck up too easily and do a better job of creating second chances in front of the opposition net.

Kraken coach Dan Bylsma agreed his team gave the puck away too easily in recent games, getting outscored 17-9 in the three straight losses.

“I think the investment with which we’re playing right now in the game and the game plan is not where it needs to be to have success on a night-to-night basis,” Bylsma said. “And it doesn’t really matter who the opponent is. I think early on in this game, we tip-toed into the match. We wanted to see how it would go.”

He added that players and coaches “all have to take ownership in it.”

Bylsma did like what he saw out of Dunn, pairing both him and Brandon Montour on the same power play line for an unusual two-defender look. But those defenders are also two of the team’s top offensive threats, whose combined presence can only help a team needing some added offense in the games upcoming.

But for that to happen, Dunn agrees his team needs to come out harder and execute with greater precision.

“It sucks – it really sucks,” he said of recent results. “We feel the pressure, But I think we’ve got nothing to lose, nothing to feel sorry for. So, we’ve just got to go out and execute and come together here.”