WINNIPEG, Manitoba – There was a time for much of Monday night’s opening period where the Kraken looked as if they’d pull a repeat of their prior victory in this building back in the season’s opening month.
They’d taken a lead on the Winnipeg Jets and other than yielding an early breakaway chance had largely shut them down defensively. But things quickly changed in an eventual 6-2 defeat when a series of penalties led to three straight Winnipeg power play goals that sent the Kraken reeling towards a fourth consecutive loss.
Jordan Eberle had opened the scoring for the Kraken nine minutes in with a nice second-effort backhander behind Connor Hellebuyck after a hard-working shift in which the visitors kept the Jets hemmed in their own end. But for yet another night in what’s become a repeat occurrence, the Kraken could not generate results beyond the initial tally until they were already down multiple goals.
Jared McCann scored early in the third period to get the Kraken back within a goal but that was as close as they’d come. Brad Lambert, nephew of Kraken head coach Lane Lambert, raced into the right circle just four minutes later and snapped a puck past Joey Daccord, who’d come on in second period relief of Philipp Grubauer, to restore Winnipeg’s two-goal margin.
Connor then added his second of the game with under five minutes to go and then Vladislav Namestnikov added an empty netter to seal it.
All three prior Winnipeg goals came on the power play and at the net front, with Jonathan Toews banging home a first period puck that took a strange hop off the end boards and popped out in front of a surprised Philipp Grubauer. Gabriel Vilardi scored a go-ahead goal midway through the middle frame on a loose puck that eluded a couple of Kraken players and then Kyle Connor added another power play marker just two minutes later on a shot that deflected in off a defenseman.
The Kraken pulled Grubauer after that and inserted Daccord. By that point, with 6:40 to go in the second period, the Kraken were being outshot 13-1 in that frame alone – eventually finishing in a 14-4 deficit -- and all the early work they’d done had gone for naught.
Kraken coach Lambert had shuffled his lineup considerably for this one, pulling McCann off the top line and inserting Bobby McMann there instead alongside Eberle and Matty Beniers. Lambert also split up the top defensive pairing of Vince Dunn and Adam Larsson, putting Cale Fleury up top with Dunn while Larsson went to the second pairing with Ryker Evans and Brandon Montour bumping down to the third duo with Ryan Lindgren.
Lambert’s forward line moves seemed to pay off early as Eberle scored for only the third time in his last 19 games, with Beniers drawing an assist. Grubauer had allowed the Kraken to go in front by stopping an early breakaway try by Mark Scheifele, then stopping him on the rebound try as well.
By the period’s midway point, the Jets had managed just four shots – two of them on the Scheifele breakaway alone – and were being shut down largely the way they did when the Kraken came in here for a 3-0 win back in October. But unlike that game, where the Kraken carried their 1-0 lead until there were under two minutes to go in regulation, this one lasted barely three more minutes in that opening period.
Berkly Catton was sent off soon after Eberle’s goal and a penalty kill unit ranked second worst in the league at 72.8% efficiency couldn’t get it done. By the time Connor’s goal was deflected in, the Kraken efficiency had slipped to 71.7% just a hair above the 71.6% for the NHL-worst Vancouver Canucks in the penalty kill category.
McCann’s goal 2:28 into the third came from the high slot after he’d gone 1-on-1 against forward Namestnikov and used him as a partial screen in scoring, just like Eberle, only his third goal in his last 19 games as well.
