Kraken Shoot, Shoot and Shoot Some More

Nobody needed to draw Jaden Schwartz and company a roadmap for the “shoot first” approach expected and implemented in this Monday night victory to close out the 2024 calendar year.

After a comeback for the ages two nights prior, led by Schwartz firing whatever he could at and into the opposing net, the Kraken’s hottest shooter came out ripping again in this one, picking up two early assists and helping his team to a first intermission lead. Later, with the score tied in the third, Schwartz helped secure a 5-2 win over Utah HC by scoring on a Kaapo Kakko breakaway pass that put the Kraken ahead for good and had him musing postgame about all the positives that can result from simply putting more pucks to the net.

“All of us kind of pass up shots depending on the game or whatever,” Schwartz said. “But you could see at times tonight, there were a lot of rebounds. It just creates offensive zone time a lot. Even if you don’t score, you still get them running around a little bit.

“We’ve been getting bodies around there and getting some second chances, so -- that’s how you score.”

Matty Beniers added insurance a few minutes after Schwartz’s go-ahead tally, scoring from behind the goal line on a shot that deflected in off Utah netminder Karel Vejmelka. Jared McCann added an empty net goal in the final two minutes to secure a second consecutive Kraken victory heading into the New Year.

The Beniers marker was the second time in as many games the Kraken have scored such a goal from an impossible angle behind the line. Schwartz got one in Vancouver on Saturday to launch a Pacific Heist comeback of historical proportions in which the Kraken tallied three times the final 4:45 of regulation before putting the Canucks away in overtime.

Given those results, the directive from head coach Dan Byslma ahead of this Climate Pledge Arena game was simple: Shoot, shoot and shoot some more when afforded the chance. The Kraken certainly heard him, racking up a 16-5 shots advantage in the opening period and scoring goals 51 seconds apart by Yanni Gourde and Andre Burakovsky in the final two minutes to head to intermission with a 2-1 lead. Utah then evened things in the final minute of the middle frame on a goal by Alexander Kerfoot that set the stage for a winner-take-all third.

And the Kraken took it, largely because Schwartz scored his third goal in two games. He nearly had another one in the opening frame as well on a nifty power play backhand, only to have that goal wiped out by Utah challenging that Schwartz had been offside upon entering the zone.

It could have been a devastating setback. The Kraken had started the game with a 7-1 shots edge only to have Logan Cooley score on Utah’s second shot of the night off Philipp Grubauer’s glove to put the visitors ahead eight minutes in.

After Schwartz’s goal was denied, any further Kraken setbacks might have lingered large given they already trailed 1-0 and saw plenty of hard work going for naught. But they kept at it, leading to a Ryker Evans shot from a non-dangerous scoring area that took a funny carom and went right to Gourde at the net front.

Gourde didn’t hesitate, firing home the tying goal and then pumping his fist with extra vigor not always typical in opening periods. And the Kraken didn’t let that emotion or momentum subside, with Schwartz throwing a puck toward the net less than a minute later and seeing it re-directed by Burakovsky for the intermission lead.

“The first look that I had kind of got closed off, and then I’d seen him going to the net,” Schwartz said. “And I was kind of flat-footed, so I just tried to get it in the direction of the net, and he did a good job of getting there and getting a stick on it.”

The Kraken are still very much a team seeking what they want to become and looking for scoresheet validation when they do it. That’s likely why the reward of Gourde’s tying first period marker was celebrated with such emotional force and seemed to carry into Burakovsky’s ensuing goal.

Bylsma agreed afterward those results at that point in the game following his team’s disallowed goal were “huge” and helped keep things from spiraling further.

“We got some success,” he said. “We got the goals in the first period after that point. I don’t want to say it was a turning point in the game, but it was a huge test in the game for us mentally. And just keeping our focus, keeping our mindset.”

Skeptics might have suggested that despite the favorable result in Vancouver, the opening 55 minutes of that Canucks game looked very much like a sixth consecutive Kraken loss salvaged only by a miracle finish unlikely to happen again in any of their lifetimes.

And so, given the nature of that reprieve, this game against a Utah squad relocated this summer from Arizona seemed very much a referendum on how seriously these Kraken should be taken. Bylsma made sure ahead of time his team was ready to answer that question.

“We wanted to take the four-day break and the game in Vancouver as a reset and get real focused on how we need to play for 60 minutes every night,” he said. “With the energy, with the aggression and with our execution. And yes, we wanted to build on the comeback in Vancouver.”

Schwartz has long been the Kraken player leading the way towards opposing net fronts along with injured teammate Jordan Eberle. Both are alternate captains and – as assistant coach Bob Woods told Kraken Hockey Network reporter Piper Shaw on-air between periods – their teammates call their style “Jordan Schwartz” for similarly getting things done in tight spots in-close.

Schwartz has gotten the most done on a newly formed line with trade acquisition Kakko and centerman Beniers the past week-plus. Kakko sent both in alone with third period passes resulting in goals, the Beniers score coming after he’d been foiled his initial breakaway chance.

“I think we have a pretty good line right now,” Kakko said. “I like to play with both of those guys. I think Schwartz has been on fire the past few games and Matty is a good player also.”

He said his pass to Schwartz on the winning goal was “maybe a little lucky” but got there and was finished off well. Finished by Schwartz not trying any fancy deke moves and merely just shooting the puck – right between the goalie’s pads.

The way things are going for the Kraken right now, nobody’s about to argue his “shoot-first” choice.

“It starts with you staying with it and working hard and bringing the right attitude,” Schwartz said of implementing a plan and carrying it through. “And some games you’re going to get rewarded and it’s going to come a little bit easier.”