Kraken Fall Short on Eberle’s Night

With Thursday’s contestants both desperate for standings points in pursuit of a wild-card invitation to the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the visiting Washington Capitals honored the urgency just a couple of shifts more than the Kraken, taking a 2-1 decision. The two decisive shifts for Washington took advantage of a pair of Kraken unforced errors to score their goals.

The visitors notched a slim 1-0 lead late second period when Joey Daccord couldn’t cleanly handle a dump-and-chase puck coming off the backboards of the Kraken zone. Daccord, an elite puck handler among NHL goalies, got a bad break from a rolling puck he couldn’t quite flatten and control. His clearing attempt was more knuckler than fastball, bouncing off incoming Capitals forward T.J. Oshie, who was credited with his 11^th goal of the season and first this year by deflection off a goalie clearing and possibly his first-ever in what was his 999^th NHL regular-season game.

With the game knotted nearly 12 minutes into the third period, Kraken forward Andre Burakovsky left a drop pass for Oliver Bjorkstrand at the Capitals blue line. But the dropoff skidded past Bjorkstrand, who possibly wasn’t expecting it. Instead, young Washington forward Connor McMichael jumped on the idle puck and skated up ice on a breakaway, beating Joey Daccord on the backhand. Both Capitals goals were unassisted on the score sheet.

Coach Dave Hakstol liked his team’s start but was unhappy about not tapping into the energy of the home crowd, amped up from a pre-game ceremony to mark Jordan Eberle passing the 1,000-game mark.

“Mainly the second period, we didn't generate anything,” said Hakstol. “Offensively, we didn't come up with enough pucks in the [Washington] zone. We were one and done, didn't have any [rebound and/or retrieval] opportunities in there.

“Part of that is we spent a lot of the middle portion with 10 minutes on special teams. There was a four-on-four stint and then another two penalty kills in a row. That takes some guys out of the game, takes the flow out of the game.”

Hakstol, understandably, didn’t pin the loss on Daccord’s imperfect clearing attempt nor the unattended puck between Burakovsky and Bjorkstrand. He did call them mistakes and said all players involved can learn from them.

Bjorkstrand said he thought the puck on Burakovsky’s drop pass would slide more but that it stalled instead.

“It's a winnable game,” said Bjorkstrand. “We just need to be better. It's obviously an important game for us to win. I think, yeah, we have maybe up to show a bit more out there. But we're still in it.”

Revving Up in the Third Period

The Kraken, now 2-21-4 in games in which they trail after two periods, came out flying early third period, first with Grade-A scoring chances and then evening the score on a Bjorkstrand power play goal that finally got past Caps goalie and star for the night, Charlie Lindgren. The Washington tripping penalty that set up the power play was drawn by Jordan Eberle, proving yet another positive detail of his 200-foot game. The goal is Bjorkstrand’s 18^th of the year.

Fete for Eberle

Kraken veteran forward Jordan Eberle, the latest member of the NHL 1,000-game collective, said in an exclusive conversation last week that he expected to be emotional when first seeing his parents, siblings, in-laws, and their families when they all arrived in town. For those family members, the emotions were likely flowing during Thursday’s pre-game ceremony when a special video narrated by s Eberle’s wife, Lauren Rodych-Eberle, played on the twin boards.

The ceremony included Kraken owner Sam Holloway and GM Ron Francis, who is fifth overall in that games-played society with 1,731, just two games behind ex-Pittsburgh teammate and fellow hockey icon Jaromir Jagr (Francis assisted on 110 of Jagr’s goals over seven-plus seasons). Holloway gifted Eberle with a crystal from Tiffany’s, compliments of the NHL, while Francis handed the traditional Silver Stick (daughter Collins appeared intrigued by the shiny object) to the team leader he just re-signed for two more seasons on a team-friendly deal. Other gifts included a magnum of champagne, high-end red wine, Alaska Airlines round-trip tickets, and a commissioned portrait painting of No. 7.

On hand with his own sizeable group of family and friends was Washington forward and Mountlake Terrace native T.J. Oshie, who appeared in his 999^th NHL game Thursday, notching the game’s opening goal in an attempt to sully Jordan Eberle’s night. The fam no doubt will be driving up to Vancouver for Oshie’s own 1,000^th game Saturday against the Canucks. In a 1,000-game hat trick of sorts, Eberle’s former New York Islanders teammate, Nick Leddy, now with St. Louis, has appeared in the 995 games going into weekend action.

Ex-AHL Stars Duel in Goal

The first period here was scoreless with both teams testing the two goalies, Kraken starter Joey Daccord and his counterpart, Charlie Lindgren. Thursday’s goalie duel is a strong case study for developing players in the American Hockey League. By many accounts, Daccord was the best goaltender in the AHL last season and Lindgren was arguably the same during the 2021-22 season. Daccord faced three Grade-A chances in the first frame and Lindgren turned away nine Kraken shots.

Daccord was much busier in the second period, facing 12 shots on goal while Lindgren stopped all of three SOG by Seattle. The energy outage for Seattle was not helped by fighting off two penalties on defensemen Ryker Evans (interference) and Dumoulin (tripping) in the period. Feel free to review both calls to see if you agree with the referees’ decisions.

But a bigger question mark was the Kraken not taking advantage of a Washington squad playing the second night of back-to-back games, flying from Edmonton after falling to the Oilers in a 7-2 wipeout that puts both LA and Vegas on notice that only one automatic playoff bid will be available to those Pacific clubs. The Caps outshot the Kraken 19 to 13 and out-chanced them 18 to six over the first 40 minutes.  

Resilience Required

Win or lose Thursday night, Dave Hakstol provided a capsule take earlier in the day about his team’s tensile strength for staying relevant in the Western Conference wild-card playoff chase. Tuesday’s gut-wrencher overtime loss to Vegas was certainly a test of players’ emotional and mental resilience.

“We didn't do a lot of talking yesterday [Wednesday practice],” said Hakstol after Thursday’s morning skate. “We came to the rink, we got a great skate in for 30, 35 minutes. A lot of that was I wanted to feel what the players were thinking and feeling. There was no frustration. Nobody was down. There were some guys that had a real edge or were upset and had a little anger about the outcome the night before. And for me, those are real positives, because those are the kinds of emotions that you turn into a real good [next] performance... determination is there and very strong.”