Kraken Escape Late Yet Again

Kraken points leader Chandler Stephenson made a postgame remark after another heart stopping finish about how resilience was key to his team’s best start in franchise history.

After all, winning for the fourth time in four tries after blowing a multi-goal, third period lead requires some bend-but-don’t-break character.  And Brandon Montour slapping home a 5-4 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs from the right faceoff circle with 33 seconds to go in regulation Wednesday night, certainly kept his Kraken from being broken by their latest late setback.

“I think that's just playing with the lead – you're just kind of playing smart,” Stephenson said. “You're not really looking so much to score another one. You're just trying to keep the game in control. Make them come 200 feet. Trying to trap it up as much as you can. And yeah, sometimes you almost over defend and you just kind of back yourself in a little bit too much rather than staying aggressive.” 

But the Kraken are also 4-0-0 after giving up those late multi-goal leads. They also blew a one-goal lead in the final frame to the Washington Capitals on the last road trip and pulled off a victory there as well.

“It's just kind of a good confidence builder for the group,” Stephenson said. “I think from last year to this year, that's something that we wanted to improve on. And yeah, just kind of shows a little bit more experience, a little bit more resilience. And yeah, it's obviously early on, and you want to get ahead of the eight ball rather than behind it.”

The Kraken are certainly ahead of it now, improving to an impressive 8-4-1 on the season by winning for a third time in four tries this homestand. Two of those wins were also against what are being touted as playoff contenders in Utah and now Toronto. 

They’ll play again Friday night in Calgary, then return to Climate Pledge Arena to face the Flames and New York Rangers next week before heading to Finland immediately afterward for a pair of matchups there. As head coach Lane Lambert would say after this one: “A win is a win is win” – and that math has certainly held up in standings, sitting third in the Pacific Division just three points behind the first place Edmonton Oilers.

Stephenson and Ryker Evans had given the Kraken a 4-2 lead entering the final period ahead of Jack Roslovic scoring midway through and then Auston Matthews tying it with 90 seconds to go with goalie Sergei Bobrovsky pulled for an extra attacker. Berkly Catton and Josh Mahura had earlier each given the Kraken a one-goal lead before a pair of tying power play strikes by 18-year-old dynamic Toronto rookie Gavin McKenna, last summer’s No. 1 overall draft pick. 

Mahura’s go-ahead goal came just 16 seconds off the opening second period faceoff, converting a 2-on-1 pass from Ben Meyers. It was Mahura’s first goal in almost exactly a year since scoring an overtime winner against the Maple Leafs in Toronto last October. 

He’d previously gone 134 games without a goal after scoring in January 2023 against Toronto as well.

“It’s just weird how it kind of works out that way, I’ve got to say,” Mahura said. “If I had the answers, I’d probably be scoring a lot more.”

But Mahura’s latest bit of Maple Leafs feasting didn’t last long as Evans took a hooking penalty just 63 seconds later and McKenna scored again from down low in the right circle off a Matthews feed to tie it 2-2.

The Kraken knew coming into this key matchup that they needed to avoid the vaunted Maple Leafs power play, which entered with the league’s fifth best power play efficiency rate at 28.9%. But despite getting burned twice by it, the Kraken kept fighting back and regained the lead fewer than two minutes later when Stephenson fired a net-front pass to Matty Beniers that went in off a Toronto defender.

“I mean, they obviously have some good players that were making some good plays,” Mahura said of the Leafs and their high-octane offense. “And we just stuck with it.”

Stephenson would collect his second assist of the night getting the play started ahead of Evans picking the far corner on Bobrovsky from the top of the left circle midway through the frame. That gave the Kraken their ever-dangerous two-goal lead entering the third. 

But after Evans put a 130-foot wrister on goal just 92 seconds into that final frame, the Kraken didn’t register another shot until the final minute of the game. That one was stopped by Bobrovsky to force a faceoff in the Toronto end that Beniers won cleanly back to Jordan Eberle, who fed it to Montour for the winning goal.

Kraken coach Lambert, he of the “win is a win is a win” mindset, admitted he’d have liked some additional shots that frame along with some better penalty killing earlier on. But he liked his team’s even-strength play throughout, the “great faceoff win” by Beniers late and – to complete the trifecta of postgame comments using the night’s key word – the “resilience” his team again showed in the face of adversity.

“We've given up some leads, let's be honest,” Lambert said. “And I think we've done a really good job staying resilient. That was a huge response after they tied the game.”

Stephenson, who now leads the Kraken with 13 points, felt goalie Philipp Grubauer deserved a better fate than seeing Matthews score the tying goal down low from the side of the net. He was happy to see the Kraken get it back less than a minute later to walk out victorious.

“I think that was kind of the hockey gods, I guess, kind of giving us one there to help him out given how much he's helped us,” Stephenson said of Grubauer, now 5-0-1 his last six starts. “So I think yeah, the more we are in those (late lead) situations, the more comfortable we're going to get.”