Kraken Fail To Cash-In Early, Lose To Avalanche

Kraken forward Jared McCann and his teammates have lived through some rough moments in this building whenever the Colorado Avalanche come to town.

A touch of that receded Tuesday night when McCann scored the 100^th goal of his Kraken career to pull his team even in the second period, but it wasn’t enough to prevent a 3-2 loss to an undermanned Colorado group in a game where the home team’s offense dried up the final 40 minutes. It was the kind of game where the Kraken could have used the back-end offense and finishing ability of injured defenseman Vince Dunn, who will be out indefinitely with a mid-body injury and missed his second straight contest.

But McCann wasn’t about to use any of that as an excuse after his team’s three-game win streak was halted.

“Someone’s got to step up,” McCann said after the Kraken slipped to 4-3 on the season. “We’ve got to step up collectively. Obviously, he’s a huge loss. He’s a big part of this team. But injuries happen in this league, and it’s an opportunity for a young guy to step up and make a difference.”

Kraken defenseman Ryker Evans stepped up in the game’s final stages, scoring with 3.5 seconds to go in regulation and goalie Philipp Grubauer pulled for an extra attacker. But it was too late to make a difference by that point, with a pair of earlier Colorado markers by Joel Kiviranta and another from Nathan MacKinnon having staked the visitors to a two-goal lead that held up almost the entire final frame.

The Avalanche have now won seven of nine-lifetime games at Climate Pledge Arena, the Kraken falling to 2-6-1 against them at home, including their opening-round playoff series from two springs ago. It was in that series that McCann, the team’s 40-goal leader that season, was blasted into the boards after the whistle by Avalanche defender Cale Makar and missed the final three games with a concussion.

Makar has since been booed whenever he touches a puck within Seattle city limits, including on Tuesday when he passed to MacKinnon in the high slot for a gut-punch goal with eight seconds to go in the second period that put Colorado up 3-1.

But despite McCann’s injury that April 2023 playoff series, the Kraken still rallied to win in seven games by taking two of the final three contests on the road at Ball Arena. Much as they’ll now need to dig deep and find some offense without Dunn, having scored just one even-strength goal in his absence the last two games.

“I thought we played great in the first 20 minutes,” McCann said. “We controlled a lot of the play. We had a lot of good offensive zone looks. But I don’t think we got as many pucks to the net as we would like and bodies there. But that’s something to watch and learn from.”

Indeed, the Kraken certainly started out looking as if they’d manage quite a few more goals than they ultimately got against Colorado netminder Justus Annunen, with Yanni Gourde hitting the post in the opening minute off a Tye Kartye pass and the Kraken buzzing the Colorado net seemingly at will.

Kraken coach Dan Bylsma called it his team’s “best first period of the year” despite the lack of goals as they piled up a 12-5 shot advantage. But then Kiviranta beat Grubauer to the blocker side with under two minutes to go until intermission to knock some air out of the Kraken’s ballooning offensive thrust.

Colorado held a 17-5 shot advantage in the middle period despite McCann tying things midway through with his fourth of the season on the backhand after Shane Wright and Jordan Eberle did an outstanding job of keeping possession in the zone. But Kiviranta scored again off a deflection with five minutes to play in the frame ahead of MacKinnon’s back-breaker in the closing seconds before intermission.

The Kraken struggled to generate chances from there until the final few minutes against an Avs’ team that had yielded a league-high 4.83 goals per game in their first six contests and opened this game with three rookies -- Calum Ritchie, Ivan Ivan and Matt Stienburg – in their lineup.

Bylsma agreed with McCann that somebody will need to step up in Dunn’s absence, suggesting there are multiple candidates.

“I think Vince is a guy who seems to be able to come up with the right play at the right time in both passing and shooting to get us set up to get a goal,” Bylsma said. “But we’ve got plenty of others on the back end to step in and do it. Monty (Brandon Montour) is that guy. Lars (Adam Larsson) is that guy, and Ryker (Evans) is that guy, as he was tonight.

“But I think we need to become a little bit more determined offensive team if we’re going to score more goals and get more goals.”

That last bit, again, coincides with McCann’s talk of needing to get more pucks in deep with bodies in front of the opposing goalie. Wright and Eberle did their part, fighting to keep the puck in Colorado’s end just ahead of McCann getting a feed in deep and not missing his chance at the milestone 100^th.

And though it wasn’t enough this time, McCann, who leads the team with nine points, hopes for better things to come from a team still off to the best start in franchise history seven games in.

“Obviously, it would have been a lot nicer with a win,” McCann said of the milestone goal. “But I have a lot of people to thank for that. Obviously, being here with this organization has meant a lot to me and my family, getting an opportunity to stay somewhere and getting an opportunity to play.”