Kraken Find Net Front ‘Presents' In Opening Win

Prized newcomer Mason Marchment was talking after the Kraken’s first ever win in a season or home opener about the mid-game adjustments Thursday night that swung things in their favor.

He specifically mentioned “keeping it simple” on plays like his first ever Kraken goal that put them ahead to stay early in the second period of a 3-1 victory in a game largely controlled beforehand by the visiting Anaheim Ducks. Marchment and his 6-foot-5, 212-pound frame sprinted to the opposing net front, where he one-timed a pass from Brandon Montour following an earlier back-end steal and rush up the ice by the defender.

“That’s what good teams do,” Marchment said. “You can come out in the first period and not have your best, but as long as you come together in here as a team and get better as the game goes on, that’s all you can really ask.”

Montour’s stellar night after missing all of preseason recovering from ankle surgery plus the net front finish by Marchment was just what the Kraken needed after being outshot 20-5 up to then in a game tied one apiece. Marchment’s ability to head to the net and produce is the main reason the Kraken acquired the winger last June from the Dallas Stars for a fourth-round pick in last July’s NHL Draft and a third rounder next summer.

In fact, all three Kraken goals involved net front work, be it Eeli Tolvanen screening Ducks goalie Lukas Dostal on Vince Dunn’s first period snapper to open the scoring or Jared McCann’s conversion of a bang-bang pass from Matty Beniers for some crucial insurance early in the third. Kraken goalie Joey Daccord made the goals stand up, especially in an opening frame that saw the Ducks outshoot his team 17-5 but still head to intermission tied at one.

Daccord stopped 35 of 36 shots overall and on one first period sequence made three consecutive stops while already down on the ice as the Ducks repeatedly crashed the net front. Anaheim’s only goal that period was the very first of Beckett Sennecke’s career in his NHL debut off a Dunn giveaway deep in his own end.

“I think doing the things that aren’t pretty are going to be the keys to us being successful this year,” Daccord said.

Indeed, new Kraken head coach Lane Lambert had spent much of the preseason preaching about executing the finer details of a game. And one of the biggest of those is a net front presence Lambert terms “critical” to help turn the tide in games such as these, where a tightly structured Ducks team under new coach Joel Quenneville was making life very difficult all night long.

“There’s little details and little things within the game you know make the difference between winning and losing,” Lambert said. “There’s a number of those things, but certainly net presence is one of them. The goaltenders are too good in this league that if you don’t get in front of them and take away their vision a little bit at times, you’re not going to have a lot of success.”

McCann, who also missed the entire preseason due to injury, said there was some “positive yelling” in the dressing room during the first intermission as the Kraken regrouped and reinforced what they needed more of. The opening night pregame festivities and extended player introductions may have thrown the team’s timing off somewhat – added to the fact they hadn’t played in eight days since their last preseason game – but the result was some sloppy play that needed to be cleaned up.

“To be honest, I think we just kind of dumbed it down a bit,” McCann said of the team’s play from the second period onward. “Obviously, we’re getting used to the ice again and all that stuff. So, we just tried to keep it simple and dumb it down and just tried to get pucks to the net, get bodies to the net.”

It was enough for the Kraken to prevail against an Anaheim team that spent much of the game looking vastly improved under new coach Quenneville, making his bench return four years after resigning from the Florida Panthers amid fallout over revelations of his role in the Chicago Blackhawks scandal of more than a decade prior. The Ducks weren’t allowing many chances at all until Marchment headed for the net front and scored on the pass by Montour.

But turning the tide in games this way was the very reason the Kraken acquired Marchment, who scored 22 goals in each of the past two seasons for Dallas. They’ve wanted a guy that can not only get to the net and absorb a pounding in doing so, but who also won’t miss in close when afforded a chance.

Marchment knew he couldn’t miss after the effort by Montour, who stole the puck in his own end, poked it ahead and outraced a defender down the right side before dishing it out front to his new teammate.

“Monty made a great play,” Marchment said. “He broke up a play, made a great play to me in the slot. I just tried to find a hole for him, and he put it right on my tape.”

And Marchment put the exclamation point on the execution part of one of Lambert’s “little things within a game” that proved just enough to swing a victory out of one of those games – especially a close season opener — the Kraken might have lost not too long ago.