Seattle Kraken drop third straight game with 7-4 loss to Anaheim
Jordan Eberle was the first of three visibly dejected Kraken players that spoke to the media on Thursday night.
Minutes before, Seattle (4-9-1) fell 7-4 to the Anaheim Ducks (8-4-3). It was the Kraken’s third straight defeat and fifth in the last six games. Asked for an explanation, Eberle found himself repeating words he used after a loss to Vegas earlier this week.
“We got to find ways to win,” he said. “We’re just finding ways to lose.”
That has become a troubling theme in Seattle’s young inaugural season. The Kraken spent Thursday night chasing a victory, trying to make up ground after falling behind 2-0 early. They never let the score get out of hand, never fell too far behind. They even grabbed momentum a time or two.
But just like so many other potential victories this season, the Kraken let the win slip away.
“We kept keeping ourselves in it,” Eberle said. “You got to find a way to win. It’s frustrating losing games obviously in this league. When you’re losing in the fashion that we’re doing. In the last two (games), we gave up two timely goals and then tonight we’re giving up too much.
“We obviously need to clean some stuff up and figure it out. You look at the standings, you find yourself pretty far back early on in the year, you got to find a way to climb back.”
Thursday’s loss kept the Kraken in last place in the Pacific Division with nine points. The Vancouver Canucks are a spot ahead with 12 points. Edmonton, the division leader, is 10-2 with 20 points.
“We feel we have a really good club,” Eberle said. “We, for the most part, have been in every single game. You look at our record, I strongly feel that we easily could have had three or four more wins with the exception of a couple games where maybe we didn’t play well.
“When you have that and things aren’t going right and you’re losing games in the fashion that we’re doing it, you maybe start to question yourselves a little bit. I think we got to have a little bit of a talk in the room and figure out and understand the group that we have. We’re a competitive team, especially at home we’ve played really good games … and found ways to lose. That’s been the frustrating part. We just got back to our roots and our work ethic and our compete level.”
The Kraken never led against the Ducks, but they were never quite out of it either. After Anaheim took a 2-0 lead early in the second, Jaden Schwartz scored to give Seattle a boost and cut the lead to 2-1.
But three minutes later, Josh Mahura scored for the Ducks to push the advantage back to two goals. Jared McCann — in his first game back from COVID-19 protocol — responded again for the Kraken. But in a recurring scenario for Seattle, the Ducks quickly added another goal to go up 4-2 after the second period.
“We definitely put a lot of pressure on ourselves (to start fast),” McCann said. “We just got to relax. You can’t play hockey tight. That’s just not the way it works. … We can do it. We just got to believe in ourselves and go from there.”
The back-and-forth continued in the third. Eberle pulled the Kraken back within one, 4-3, but Anaheim once again pushed the lead back to two with a goal from Hampus Lindholm. Midway through the final period, McCann scored his second goal of the game to cut the Ducks’ lead to 5-4.
That score held until the 2:39 mark of the third when Anaheim scored an empty netter to seal the victory. The Ducks added another empty-net goal before the buzzer to produce the final score.
“It’s about the complete 60-minute performance, which we did not have tonight, which put us in a real tough spot,” said head coach Dave Hakstol. “As we come out of that first period back on our heels, we got going partway through the second period and gave ourselves a chance, but ultimately it’s really hard to dig out of a hole.”
Thursday’s game was the first in six straight home games for the Kraken. They’ll return to Climate Pledge Arena on Saturday night against the Minnesota Wild.
“The biggest part is inconsistency, right?” said goalie Philipp Grubauer, who finished with 29 saves on 34 shots. “I don’t think we are playing to our capabilities here. Even though tonight, I think we had some really good moments where we played our structure and our game then we have moments where it’s absolute chaos for a couple minutes of the game.
“I think we got to sit down and talk — what’s working and what’s not for us. Also, I don’t think we can get too frustrated. … It’s not an easy situation to be in but I think you got to enjoy the process a little bit, too, because going through that I think makes us stronger moving forward.”
This story was originally published November 11, 2021 at 10:49 PM.
