This isn’t supposed to be the season of giving in the National Hockey League.
But there the Seattle Kraken were Thursday night, allowing a pair of unassisted goals to the Washington Capitals in a 2-1 defeat that dimmed their playoff hopes.
The Kraken, who are 0-2-1 to start their five-game homestand and have lost four in a row at Climate Pledge Arena, will try to be stingier when they play host to the Nashville Predators on Saturday night.
Washington’s first goal came when Kraken goaltender Joey Daccord, trying to clear the zone on a penalty kill, shot the puck right at Capitals forward T.J. Oshie with the ricochet going straight into the Seattle net.
After the Kraken tied the score, a turnover at their offensive blue line sent Washington’s Connor McMichael in on a breakaway for the deciding goal at 11:36 of the third period.
“We just made two mistakes,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it, I’m not going to make more of it than it is. We made two mistakes, and on a night like (Thursday), those are two mistakes, obviously, that we don’t want to make.”
The loss dropped the Kraken into sixth place in the chase for the Western Conference’s two wild-card playoff berths. Seattle is nine points behind Vegas and 12 back of Nashville, which leads the wild-card standings entering Saturday.
The Kraken couldn’t take advantage of a Washington team playing the second half of a back-to-back set after a 7-2 loss the previous night in Edmonton.
Seattle managed just 13 shots over the first two periods and didn’t score until the third, when Oliver Bjorkstrand tallied on the power play.
“We’ve got to find ways to have better energy and kind of not get frustrated,” Kraken forward Yanni Gourde said. “I think little things happen, and then we get frustrated. Our game goes a little bit sideways, and then we can’t find ways. And then we find a goal, and then all of a sudden we’re moving again.”
Gourde pointed to the giveaways that led to both Washington goals.
“We’ve got to be more mature in that way,” he said. “We can’t let the game affect us too much. We can’t let the small things affect us too much. They’re going to score a goal whether it’s a nice play or a bad break. They’re going to score goals.
“You’ve just got to stay with your game and compete every shift and kind of rinse and repeat with a shift-after-shift mentality.”
The Predators extended their point streak to 13 games with a 4-2 victory Wednesday at Winnipeg as Gustav Nyquist had a goal and an assist and Juuse Saros made 27 saves. Jason Zucker scored his first goal in three games since being acquired from Arizona at the trade deadline and Roman Josi had two assists as Nashville improved to 11-0-2 during its streak.
“We knew it was a big game,” Josi said. “They’re one of the best teams in the league and I felt like we played a really good game for 60 minutes. I felt like maybe in the beginning there (they had) a couple good chances, but after that I felt like we played fast, we were relentless and didn’t give them much time. It’s just a great game for us.”
–Field Level Media