Philipp Grubauer rebounds, but other Kraken issues resurface in 3-0 loss to Winnipeg
From shelled to stellar.
Yet still not enough.
Philipp Grubauer started Thursday night for the Kraken again Winnipeg at Climate Pledge Arena. That was after coach Dave Hakstol benched him following three goals on four shots in the first 5 minutes by Sidney Crosby and the Penguins in Pittsburgh’s 6-1 steamrolling of Seattle Monday night.
“Yeah, last game, was a little unlucky there,” Grubauer said Thursday night.
That was after Grubauer was back in goal, as he has been for 21 of the first 24 games in Kraken franchise history. And instead of leaving it, he kept the Kraken in a game their offense continually missed chances to win.
Grubauer allowed a goal at the start of the first and third periods, then a second to Jets leading scorer Kyle Connor with 5 minutes left in the game, on Winnipeg’s 28th shot.
Seattle’s offense sent unforced errors out of their own zone, whiffed on open shots — did nothing before, in between and after in the Kraken’s 3-0 loss to the Jets.
“They forced us to make mistakes,” Grubauer said.
All over the ice.
Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck stopped all of Seattle’s 25 shots for his 25th shutout in 327 career starts
Seattle was shut out for the second time this season, and second time in seven games. The Kraken have scored two or fewer goals 13 times this season, exactly half their games.
Grubauer is going to have to be pretty much perfect to win those.
“We’ve got to execute better,” Kraken captain Mark Giordano said after his return from missing six games in the NHL’s COVID-19 protocol.
“We’ve got to be quicker. We’ve got to create more.
“You should be a little frustrated, pissed, when you lose. I think guys are frustrated in (the locker room).”
The Kraken (9-14-2) have lost two straight after winning three of four and five of their previous seven games.
Want to know why they are next-to-last in the NHL’s 16-team Western Conference, ahead of only Arizona? Start here. Literally: Thursday was the 17th time in 26 games the Kraken allowed the opponent to score first.
Seattle has won just four such times.
“The mistakes we made, the first goal against, is a hard way to start the hockey game,” Hakstol said.
Yet again.
The Jets’ first, decisive goal was like so many others the Kraken have given away so far this season: off a turnover deep in their own end.
Will Borgen played the puck from behind his net softly toward defense partner Cameron Soucy in the deep corner. Soucy never got possession of the puck. Winnipeg’s Paul Stastny intercepted the pass and fed from behind the net to the Jets’ Dominic Toninato. Grubauer had no chance to stop Toninato’s third goal of the season 5:24 into the game.
It was an improvement. By that point in Monday’s game again Pittsburgh, Seattle trailed 3-0 and Grubauer was on the bench.
From there Thursday, Grubauer kept the Kraken in it.
His most heroic efforts came on back-to-back shots during a minute and a half of four-on-four, following minor penalties on each team midway through the second period. Nikolaj Ehler broke in free from the right but Grubauer denied his close wrist shot.
Ehler tracked down the rebound on the opposite boards and centered the puck deftly to teammate Logan Stanley. Stanley fired a dangerous slap shot hard from the top of the slot. Grubauer stretched and glove that for his second difficult save in 3 seconds.
Seattle still trailed only 1-0 into the third period.
Less than a minute into the final frame, Connor one-timed a shot from the slot past Grubauer to make it 2-0, and take away the momentum the Kraken had gained throughout their chance-filled second period.
“The reality is, we couldn’t find the back of the net in a well-played second period,” Hakstol said.
Connor added his 17th goal of the season, breaking in alone on Grubauer with 5 minutes left in the game.
So many misses
Eight minutes in, Winnipeg’s Pierre-Luc Dubois thought he made it 2-0 Jets. He rapped a wrist shot from right at top of the goal crease past Grubauer, then off the left past and the right one but not across the goal line.
A few inches further and Grubauer would have given up five goals within the first eight minutes of two consecutive games. Instead, Seattle stayed down only 1-0.
One minute later, the Kraken got their first power play. But the Kraken couldn’t get their offense set in the short-handed Jets’ zone during the 2 minutes with the man advantage. Seattle had no shots on the power play. The two best chances were Winnipeg’s, including a 2-on-1 with Connor.
With 8:05 left in the first, Adam Larsson sent a crisp head-man pass through the neutral zone onto the stick of former Jets draft pick Mason Appleton. Appleton, who played 138 games for Winnipeg from 2018 until Seattle took him in this summer’s expansion draft, broke in alone on Hellebuyck. But Winnipeg’s goaltender tipped Appleton’s wrist shot with his glove wide left of the net.
It was the third Kraken chance to go wide within the first 12 minutes. Centerman Adam Lowry was way wide twice on open shots from the right side in the opening minutes.
Seattle’s second power play, early in the second period, went like its first.
No shots. No good.
Winger Joonas Donskoi, looking for his first goal of the season, turned with the puck around the defense circle but fanned on his open shot from deep in the right face-off circle. Two other times, Kraken forwards passed the puck back across the blue line and out of the attacking zone, more gifted breaks for the Jets’ barely tested penalty killers.
Seattle went 0 for 5 on power plays. The Kraken are at 16.2% (12 for 74) scoring with the man advantage this season. They were 22nd in the NHL in power-play success entering Thursday.
Such unforced errors out of the zone happened at least five times throughout the frustrating game for Seattle’s offense.
After the fourth time, Storm legendary basketball point guard Sue Bird appeared on the giant, twin video scoreboard wearing a Kraken game sweater and imploring another sold-out, yet-not-all-here crowd: “Seattle, we need you LOUD! Let’s blow the roof off this place!”
It didn’t help. The roof stayed on. The Kraken stayed behind.
Minutes later, late in the second period, Seattle’s Jordan Schwartz raced in free on Hellebuyck. He tapped his stick for a pass, poised for a one-timer past the Jets’ goaltender. He got that pass, but Schwartz fanned on the shot as the puck bounced away about 10 feet in front of the back post.
Captain back
Giordano returned to play for the first time since testing positive for COVID-19. He spent 10 days in isolation in a hotel room in Florida, where he became positive while the Kraken were on a road trip through Tampa and Miami, before he re-joined his team this week.
Giordano missed six games. Seattle went 3-2-1 without its captain.
He had seven shifts with 6:20 of ice time in the first period. The 38-year-old veteran looked extra sweaty after it.
“I felt fine, totally fine,” Giordano said. “Couple good, hard days of practice helped.
“I felt perfectly normal, to be honest.”
With 11:44 left in the second period, Winnipeg’s Connor, seventh in the NHL with 15 goals, got free on the left side with a scoring chance. Giordano closed him down. The sage defenseman then reached with an extended right arm and blocked Connor’s shot from the top of the face-off circle with his stick. The shot and seemingly prime Jets scoring chance deflected harmlessly over the glass behind Grubauer.
Giordano nearly had an assist to what could have been the tying goal with 2 1/2 minutes left in the second. Winger Jared McCann had Giordano’s shot pass on his stick directly in front of Hellebuyck, but his backhand went directly into the goalie’s thick pads.
The Kraken fell to 6-8 inside their glitzy new palace at Seattle Center.
Hendrix-style anthem
This story was originally published December 9, 2021 at 9:33 PM.
