Feelin’ 22

DENVER, CO - You can’t say that Kraken trips to Ball Arena are uneventful. Tye Kartye made his NHL debut and scored his first NHL post-season goal here. The team won the first playoff round in franchise history here, off two Oliver Bjorkstrand goals, and tonight, the Maestro did it again in an entertaining and physical match.

Seattle welcomed back Shane Wright to the lineup along with 2021 draft selection, Ryan Winterton, who made his NHL debut – something the player called “surreal” afterward. The two formed a line with Devin Shore and performed well. Winterton generated the Kraken’s first shot on goal of the game and later launched Shore on a mini-breakaway. Wright saw power play time and drew the first penalty of the game. And the trio had a key shift that held possession for almost a minute and led to Seattle’s first goal from Jaden Schwartz.

“Rock solid,” Dave Hakstol said when asked to describe their efforts. “They looked like they were comfortable to me. The moment was definitely not too big.”

The Kraken added to their lead in the second period when Larsson aided the breakout with a pass to Oliver Bjorkstrand in the neutral zone. As the forward carried the puck into the zone, he got tripped up, but Jamie Oleksiak in support gained possession and moved into the zone before he sent a cross-slot pass back to Bjorkstrand who finished from the center-right hashmarks for his fifth goal of the season and third in the last four games.

Colorado would respond to every push Seattle had but ultimately with 31.6 seconds to play, the maestro came up huge again working behind the net before feeding Eeli Tolvanen net front. As the Avalanche gathered defensively around Tolvanen, Bjorkstrand shifted to the other side of the net, gathered Tolvanen’s rebound, and scored the game-winner.

“(Our push at the end of the game) was relentless,” Bjorkstrand said. “We just stuck with it and we didn't panic. Obviously, (Colorado) got back in the game and sometimes that can be hard to manage but we just kept at it and kept on believing.”

Eight is Great

After the space was created by the fourth line early, Matty Beniers’ line went on the attack. Kartye gained possession on the entry and bumped the puck back along the boards to a trailing Jaden Schwartz. Ivan Prosvetov couldn’t get a clean look at the Seattle forward due to a net-front screen by Alex Wennberg and number 17 made the most of an open shooting lane tucking the puck into the top left corner of the net for the opening goal of the game. That extends Schwartz’s point streak to eight games (5-5-10).

Feeling Rushed

Colorado is the best team in the league in creating chances off the rush averaging 8.5 per game. Against the Kraken, they generated eight, but after four quality rushes early on, Seattle’s defense adjusted to settling them down including a play by Jamie Oleksiak and Will Borgen on Nathan MacKinnon.

The Avalanche’s first goal, however, was a response goal and came on a mini-rush chance when Bowen Byram received a cross-slot pass from a streaking MacKinnon, but otherwise, Seattle kept Colorado’s speed quiet.

“I think it was mainly staying above them and not giving them easy offense, not giving them transition and transition offense,” Matty Beniers said. “Obviously there's some of the best players over there and they feed off that really well. So getting the puck deep, grinding them low, staying above them, those things are  big keys for us and I think that they worked.”

The Matty Touch

After Colorado was called for too many men, the Kraken went to their second power play of the game. Matty Beniers gathered a loose puck and sent it to Vince Dunn at the top of the key. The defender had a looping Beniers to push the puck right back to and last year’s NHL rookie of the year pushed down into the zone and sent the third puck of the night past Prosvetov for his first goal of the season.

“It felt good,” Beniers said. “It felt great. It was tough, not getting one in but you know, you just got to stick with it. And you know it's going to come.”

By The Numbers

• The Kraken impressively won the shot quality battle over Colorado with 52.23-percent of expected goals in 5-on-5 play. They generated 45.22-percent of all shot volume.

• The Kraken earned the edge in offensive zone time (24;36) and offensive zone possession time (7:01).

• In their first game together, Shore, Winterton, and Wright played 5:15 of 5-on-5 play and owned the shot quality battle (75%).

• The Matty Beniers line was the most effective overall owning the shot volume (75%) and shot quality (94.54%) battles in 9:33 of play playing mostly against the MacKinnon line.

• Oliver Bjorkstrand led all Kraken skaters with six controlled entries (including the one on his first goal) and Matty Beniers led all Kraken skaters in controlled exits (9). Among all skaters in the game, only Nathan MacKinnon had more in either category.

• The Kraken power play scored a goal for the fifth straight game.

• The Kraken penalty kill returned to its perfect ways denying all three Avalanche power plays.

• In all strengths, Seattle won 54.8-percent of all puck battles.

Here's a look at our data-driven Instant Analysis from Sportlogiq (click HERE for how to read this graphic):