Kraken Hang Tough But Lose Late

EDMONTON, Alberta – Kraken speedster Bobby McMann stood in the losing postgame locker room echoing the sentiments of teammates about how this season’s first test against an elite foe had gone.

They’d taken a 3-1 defeat to the high flying Edmonton Oilers off a tiebreaking, broken play goal by Leon Draisaitl with only 2:27 left in regulation. That came after nearly two full periods of the Kraken, once they’d stopped taking a slew of early penalties, matching Edmonton’s speed, getting a tying McMann power play goal and then nearly a go-ahead marker in the third off his net front feed to Jordan Eberle.

“I think we deserved a better result,” McMann said.

Indeed, the Kraken might have avoided losing for the eighth straight time and ninth in the franchise’s first 10 games at Rogers Place Arena had a Ryan Shea keep-in at the blue line not deflected off Connor McDavid’s knee along the side boards. The puck bounced straight to Draisaitl alone in front and he wristed it past Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer to put Edmonton ahead to stay.

McDavid would add an empty net goal in the final minute to drop the Kraken to 1-1-0 ahead of Sunday’s home opener against the Calgary Flames at Climate Pledge Arena. But for the longest time in this one, fortified by the speed of McMann and the return of Mackie Samoskevich off injured reserve, the Kraken not only kept pace with the Oilers but seemed to be getting the better of them.

“You sometimes realize that’s the game of hockey,” McMann said of the bad bounce goal for Draisaitl, who’d been stymied multiple times previously by Grubauer. “You want to put yourself in a position where maybe something like that doesn’t matter as much because maybe you’re a goal up or something like that.”

The Kraken had actually done quite a bit in search of that go-ahead goal after McMann’s tying power play effort midway through the contest when he went top shelf, short side on goalie Devon Levi off Eberle’s behind-the-net feed. Levi made several tremendous second period stops from there as the Kraken outshot the home side 10-4.

Then, early in the third, McMann got a great power play chance from the high slot but fired the puck directly into Levi. Not long after, McMann provided an even better chance when he stole the puck behind the net and fired it out front for a goalmouth one-timer by Eberle that Levi somehow snared.

“It was a good read by him,” McMann said of Levi. “Sometimes, you’ve got to tip your cap a little bit. Ebbs I think still got a decent shot off there. So, sometimes they’ll make the save and sometimes they trickle in.”

Officials took a long video replay look to ensure Levi’s glove wasn’t already across the goal line when he caught the puck. But the call finally stood.

“I felt like I got some good wood on it and just really in tight,” Eberle said. “He made a great save. I wasn’t sure if it was in or not.”

Eberle and McMann both agreed the three early minor penalties taken by the Kraken right after an opening Edmonton goal had delayed hopes of getting their own speed game untracked. Edmonton had opened the scoring fewer than three minutes in on their first shot on net, a short side snipe from a tough angle deep in the left faceoff circle by Owen Michaels. 

The Kraken were forced to kill off penalties one after another from there as they fought to contain Edmonton’s speedy forwards. They also took two additional offsetting retaliatory minors that left things at 4-on-4, which isn’t a place anyone wants to be against an Edmonton team that thrives on open space. 

The Kraken opted to use Samoskevich, playing his first official game after being out with an upper body injury the prior nine days, in both 4-on-4 situations as a speed equalizer. Between Samoskevich and McMann, the Kraken feel they now have an added speed dimension to stay with teams such as the Oilers so long as they play their game and don’t hand opportunities to opponents.

Somehow, the Kraken weathered the early penalty barrage – thanks largely to Grubauer, who made the first of two timely stops off Draisaitl one-timers – and then began turning the tide once they stayed out of the box.

“When you give teams respect and too much room they’re going to create chances like in the first,” Eberle said. “And then because you take some penalties, we were kind of on our heels. 

“But I liked our response after that. I think we’ve got to continue to…keep building here, get some confidence and keep rolling.”

Kraken head coach Lane Lambert also liked the response and how his team shut the Oilers down in the second period and much of the third. 

“There wasn’t any rhythm with the first period,” he said. “Some guys only played like maybe two minutes. So, when they started to get their rhythm going and their flow going a little bit, I thought we settled in quite nicely.”

That included slowing the Oilers down through a “committed” game built off the Kraken’s ever-increasing speed.

“You can use your speed in two different ways,” Lambert said. “You can use it on offense. You can use it on defense. And I thought we did a good job for the most part of having gaps and tight gaps and tracking pucks well when we needed to.”

Kraken defenseman Brandon Montour at one point late in the second period even finished a check on Oilers star McDavid that sent him toppling partway into the home team’s bench. The Kraken certainly did not appear cowed by their Pacific Division rivals in the kind of game that bodes well if they maintain their quicker pace and all-around play.

For McMann, the goal-scoring speedster who’d nearly added to his nightly total, the Kraken can pull plenty from this outing to use against the Oilers in future contests. And in other games, starting with Sunday’s quick turnaround home opener rematch against a Flames team they throttled 6-1 in Thursday’s season debut.

“We should be focused on the parts of our games where we’re rolling our lines, skating well and making it hard on their guys,” McMann said. “We’re a fast team and we’ve been relentless on them, on the last two (Alberta) teams here for extended periods of time. 

“And I know we’ve had extended offensive zone time, so that’s kind of our focus and what we want to build off.”