Seattle, WA – A rematch of the Dallas Stars and Seattle Kraken, just two days after a thrilling back and forth contest, was not due for a repeat of the prior outing as the visiting Stars handily defeated the Kraken, 5-2. Seattle had an obvious emphasis on getting bodies into the crease to create traffic in front of Dallas goaltender Jake Oettinger, but a few tough bounces in favor of the Stars ultimately put this game away before we even got to the third frame. The Kraken drop their third straight, second in a row to Dallas, and need to be able to fix their issues quickly considering the state of the Pacific Division.
The term bad bounce comes up when an unlucky play occurs to a team that otherwise was performing well. A “bad bounce” against the Kraken set the tone for the rest of this contest, when the Stars scored the first goal of the game. A puck clattered off Seattle defenseman Adam Larsson twice before careening towards net, where it clipped Stars forward Evgenii Dadanov and post Kraken goaltender Martin Jones. A truly unfortunate series of events set the stage for Seattle’s third straight loss, and this one should be a wakeup call as the regular season nears its end.
“It was a really tight game, I thought we had good minutes, played good, but the special teams needed to be better tonight,” Seattle forward Alex Wennberg on the team going 0-3 on the power play.
A huge area of emphasis for Seattle that was noticeable in the first game against Dallas on Saturday, and one that was preached from the time that game ended until this one started, was the ability to create traffic in front of Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger. The Kraken stated that they needed to do a better job of not letting Oettinger see pucks, and it seemed like they were doing a solid job at that to begin the game. There were some hopeful signs of potential, but ultimately Seattle couldn’t convert on enough chances to hang with Dallas. The only goals of the night for the Kraken came on a Yanni Gourde shot that deflected off Joe Pavelski into the net, and an Eeli Tolvanen tip in goal with traffic in front, off a pass from Vince Dunn. Those goals showed what Seattle needed to do, the Kraken just simply didn’t do it enough.
“We’re confident in the guys that are in the room, whenever things go south, we’re confident that we can get the job done, we were just on the wrong side of things today… This team has done a good job all year to believe until the end. Tonight, they were just the better team,” Kraken defenseman Adam Larsson on the loss.
Seattle will get a practice in during a few days off from games following their third straight loss, and second in as many outings against the Dallas Stars. The Kraken will return to action on Thursday, March 16th, when they head on a one-game road trip to battle the San Jose Sharks. Seattle will be looking to have a much better outing this time around than their last in San Jose, when they were shutout and allowed four goals to a lowly Sharks team. This three-game losing streak comes at a rough time for Seattle, although it’s against good teams, considering the state of the division and how the rest of them continue to win games. The Kraken get a good chance to bounce back, but that seems easier said than done.
