BUFFALO, New York – Kraken head coach Lane Lambert said heading into this key matchup that his team needed to come out hard and fast against a squad that had played a game here fewer than 24 hours prior.
And Chandler Stephenson and Kraken linemates Kaapo Kakko and Bobby McMann certainly heard that message, with their trio jumping on the Buffalo Sabres for goals in each of the first two periods before the home team rallied to tie things the latter half of the contest. Playoff caliber goaltending by Philipp Grubauer then carried the game beyond regulation and overtime to salvage at least a point before Tage Thompson and Jack Quinn handed the Kraken a 3-2 loss by scoring the only goals of the shootout round.
It was the third straight game in which the Kraken have taken things beyond regulation, losing to Florida in a shootout on Tuesday night, then beating Tampa Bay in overtime on Thursday. They briefly moved to within two points of Nashville for the final Western Conference wild card spot pending the outcome of the predators’ game against Montreal.
Stephenson opened the scoring nearly 13 minutes in, taking a Kakko pass in close and going top shelf on goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen with McMann also drawing an assist. McMann then scored his seventh goal in eight Kraken games, beating defender Rasmus Dahleen down the right-wing boards and outing a shot behind Luukkonen to put the Kraken up by two just more than 13 minutes into the second period.
Dahleen atoned somewhat with four minutes to go in the middle frame, beating Grubauer with a clean wrist shot on the power play after an initial save for the 100th goal of his career. Grubauer up to that point had made 24 consecutive saves to start the contest and finished the game with 32 stops overall.
The Sabres then tied it up with 8:21 to go in regulation when Peyton Krebs skated into the right circle and beat Grubauer with a wrister.
Buffalo entered the game riding the NHL’s hottest record the past three months, but having lost three straight including a Friday night defeat at home against Detroit.
What’s been clear the past two games is that the Kraken have found another level that had been missing much of the past month since the Winter Olympics break. As they had against Tampa Bay two nights prior, the Kraken played an engaged brand of hockey where they battled for every puck and immediately responded to any physical liberties taken by their opponent.
Never was that more evident than when hulking 6-foot-7, 231-pound Sabres defenseman Logan Stanley leveled Shane Wright in the neutral zone late in the opening period. Stanley appeared to catch Wright with a forearm to the head area, though the forward was low to begin with and the hit was ruled clean.
Jared McCann, freshly inserted in this game back from a lower body injury, immediately went after Stanley, as did Vince Dunn, causing a scrum to erupt before any punches were thrown. But only a couple of minutes into the second period, 6-foot-7, 255-pound Kraken defenseman Jamie Oleksiak challenged Stanley to a fight near center ice.
It was Oleksiak’s first bout in 2 ½ seasons, dating back to November 2023. The duo locked arms in a tense stalemate for several moments until Oleksiak, who’d taken an initial punch, got a hand free, landed two blows – knocking Stanley’s helmet off – and then threw him to the ice.
Wright, for his part, left the game and did not return.
Right before the Oleksiak fight, Grubauer had made a terrific stop on Mattias Samuelsson on a bang-bang play right at the net front. The puck then came back to Thompson at the point for a one-timed blast that Grubauer snared artfully with his glove. Later, Grubauer made a terrific kick save on a puck redirected at the net front by Jason Zucker.
Grubauer also had some help behind him, with Ryan McLeod hitting the crossbar on a last second shot right at first period’s end that would have beaten the buzzer had it gone in. Then, with the Kraken up 1-0 in the second period, Sam Carrick hit the right post on a shot from 10 feet out. The puck then ricocheted through the goal mouth and struck the opposite post while staying out.
That proved huge because instead of a tie game, the Kraken won an ensuing faceoff seconds later and McMann raced down the ice to score and put the Kraken ahead by two goals. Once again, as was the case on Stephenson’s initial tally, the entire line was in on the scoring.
