Down But Far From Out in Detroit

Hockey games turn on all sorts of plays and puck bounces. Late second period in Detroit it appeared this opening game of a four-game road trip was trending in the Kraken’s direction with two goals in 70 seconds from veteran Jaden Schwartz and rookie Tye Kartye.

The final turn of this rollicking matchup started with Detroit young star Lucas Raymond hitting a post with 20 seconds left in overtime. The Kraken threesome on the ice moved the puck swiftly to the Detroit end, where Jared McCann zipped a puck net-front to Jordan Eberle to beat the clock and Detroit’s six-winning streak in a 5-4 overtime win.

Eberle referenced the last and winning turning point as a “scramble” and said his squad was rewarded for a night of hard work: “The whole night I thought we deserved a lot better. We just kept fighting. It was nice to score late [in the third period] ... I think we played well the whole night and did a lot of little things well.”

The overtime scramble started with some 10 seconds remaining in the five-minute overtime and two Red Wings picking themselves up from falls on the ice. McCann took advantage by grabbing and loose puck, staying patient to worry Detroit goalie Ville Husso about whether he was going to shoot. Instead, McCann moved the puck net-front to Eberle, who beat the aforementioned and much younger Raymond from the ice surface to the slot. Eberle shoveled the puck into a gaping net before falling to the ice a second time in the 10 seconds.

“I was pretty gassed getting to the other end there,” said McCann about the OT goal. “I saw the puck come off the glass and all three guys were kind of on the ice. I saw Ebs beat his guy off the wall and just tried to try to lay it in there for him so he could tap it in.”

Coach Dave Hakstol praised the resilience of his team: “To be able to push back, we’ve done it a few times, we haven’t been rattled, we haven’t gone away after giving up a lead. We did that again tonight and it’s nice to stay with it. The guys battled really hard and that’s an important win for us.“

Kraken Lose Lead on Three Power Plays

But in the first four-and-a-half minutes of the third period, the home-squad Red Wings scored two quick goals to tie matters at three goals apiece. The second goal came 32 seconds into a four-minute high-sticking minor called on NHL-tested forward Devin Shore, who dressed for the Kraken for the first time Tuesday with Andre Burakovsky sidelined for six to eight weeks. Shore drew blood on the face of Detroit forward Christian Fischer.

The stellar Kraken penaltykillers snuffed out the second two-minute segment of the four-minute minor (the first penalty erases, the second two-minute clock starts) but couldn’t stop the second-best power play in the NHL when summer trade acquisition Alex DeBrincat connected for his ninth goal of this still-early season. It appeared starting goalie Joey Daccord, who made a number of big saves to keep this game in check, slid too aggressively going left to right in his crease and over-skated his position.

The Red Wings looked like they would hold on to take a 4-3 win for their sixth win in a row (including all four home games) after dropping their season opener. But there was yet another turn of the NHL tides when the Kraken were awarded two power play opportunities late in the third period. Once the puck dropped on the faceoff of the last penalty of the period (hooking on DET captain Dylan Larkin), SEA coach Dave Hakstol pulled goalie Joey Daccord in favor of an extra attacker for a 6-on-4 setup.

That extra attacker was Jared McCann, who 22 seconds later dramatically tied this engaging game at four goals apiece. His linemates and fellow power-play participants Matty Beniers (his second of the night) and Jordan Eberle (he broke a five-game scoreless streak) notched the assists.

Second-Period Scores Give Kraken a Lead

In a matter of 70 seconds later in the second period, the Kraken’s top two goal scorers this season-to-date broke open a tight 1-1 game to fuel victory in the first of four games on this road trip that will close the scorebooks on October. Jaden Schwartz scored his second goal of the night and fourth of the season at 17:54 of the middle frame, skating hard with a banked pass off the neutral ice boards.

Schwartz next abruptly pulled up to laser an old-school slapshot past Detroit goaltender Ville Husso. The Detroit goalie, who was 0-1-1 against the Kraken last season with a 4.48 goals-against average and .857 save percentage, looked caught between angling up on Schwartz or watching for a pass to Seattle linemate Oliver Bjorkstrand streaking into the zone right down the middle “slot” lane.

Two shifts later, Kraken summer free agent signee and defenseman Brian Dumoulin took control of the puck in the Seattle end, finding an open Kartye center-rink with a stretch pass that turned into a breakaway. Kartye, who moved up to play with Matty Beniers and Jordan Eberle on the first line as one of the adjustments for the Andre Burakovsky injury, scored his second goal of the season (and last three games) on an authoritative approach and zinger shot upper left corner.

Kraken Convert First on Power Play

Going into Tuesday’s game, the special-teams hype was all about the Red Wings power play (39.1 percent success rate, No. 2 in NHL) and Seattle penalty killers (93.8 percent, fifth overall). But it was the Kraken’s power play that scored first on a second-period man-advantage to tie this entertaining and well-played affair at 1-1.

Seattle scored when Vince Dunn’s shot from the blue line landed wide but took a funny and fortunate bounce back out to net-front and Schwartz found it for his third goal of the season.

Matty Beniers earned the secondary assist and the goal would not be scored without him. Beniers won a puck battle deep in the Red Wings zone, wresting the puck from standout young Detroit defenseman Moritz Seider to keep the puck in the offensive zone. The encounter was a showdown between the last two NHL rookies of the year with Beniers the 2023 Calder Trophy winner and the German-born Seider taking home the honor at the 2022 NHL Awards.

Beniers vs. Seider, Round 1

Beniers and Seider had an earlier showdown in the first period. Deep in the Detroit zone, Beniers, who had an extra hop in his step all night, was battling for a puck when Seider hit him high in the back of the helmet. As the tie-up in the corner continued, Beniers found his way to Seider, who was bodying Kraken linemate Jordan Eberle. Beniers took on Seider and both were whistled off for two minutes each for roughing. Notable on the scrap: Vince Dunn rushed into the fray from the blue line, taking a run at Seider to stand up for his Kraken teammates.

One Hall of Famer Models Another

Before the season, Detroit general manager Steve Yzerman was talking with The Athletic Red Wings reporter Max Bultman about his off-season strategy to improve his team and move toward qualifying for the playoffs.

“We need more goals,” Yzerman said to Bultman in early July. “My expectation is we’ll get a couple more out of all these guys, and that’ll increase our scoring. I think we’re going to be a better defensive team collectively. That will help us as well.

Vegas won [the 2023 Stanley Cup] because they had great contributions up and down their lineup, they got important goals from a lot of different people. That’s ultimately how you win. If you rely on too few guys, injury, cold spells, whatever [can happen]. Generally, the teams that are winning are going a long way, they have depth.

“I would throw Seattle into the mix there,” said Yzerman, actually mentioning the Kraken first when asked for a blueprint for summer acquisitions. “What a tremendous season they had. We played that team, and I’m watching them, and they had a bunch of 20-goal scorers.”

One of those new Red Wings and 20-goal scorers, of course, is former Kraken forward Daniel Sprong (he scored 21 goals and added 25 assists for Seattle in 2022-23). He fired x shots on goal Tuesday night, hit a post on a third-period power play, and got decked by Kraken D-man Brian Dumoulin in a first-period scrum.

Yzerman won three Stanley Cups in 1997, 1998, and 2002 as captain of the Red Wings and is considered a major contributor/builder/hockey operations executive of the Tampa Bay rosters than back-to-back Cups in 2020 and 2021. Yzerman returned to the Original Six franchise to eventually take over for long-time GM Ken Holland (who left amiably and landed the Edmonton GM job).

Ron Francis, his Kraken counterpart and fellow all-time great and Hockey Hall of Famer, is similarly credited with building a foundational roster for the now-elite Cup contender Carolina. It appears Yzerman, who faced and admired Francis’ on the ice when both were players, is modeling and yet again admiring the Kraken GM’s effort as a team builder in the salary cap era. Fun facts about Francis and Yzerman. Both were drafted fourth overall, Francis in 1981 and Yzerman two years later in 1983. Francis played 23 seasons and Yzerman logged 22.