Kraken Blanked By Oilers In Chippy Affair

Kraken power play regular Brandon Montour spent Saturday afternoon’s somber postgame lamenting the lack of home team fireworks other than those supplied behind the play by resident pest Mason Marchment in their latest defeat.

Facing an Edmonton Oilers squad giving up goals by the gallon of late, the Kraken failed to get anything past netminder Stuart Skinner despite six power play chances for Montour and company and a clear-cut breakaway opportunity for Berkly Catton to score his first NHL goal. Instead, some Marchment subplots that irked the Oilers all game were the biggest thing going for the Kraken in a 4-0 loss that marks their third consecutive defeat and fourth straight game of scoring two goals or fewer in regulation.

“There’s not much to like in that game,” Montour admitted afterwards. “Obviously, it’s a team that’s behind us, but close and in the same division. And we let one get away. They’re a good team over there and they’ve obviously been through a lot the past couple of years. They have experience and you’ve just got to be up for those games.

“Obviously, we were not. So, learn from that and then forget about it.”

The two-time defending Western Conference champion Oilers, now just a point behind the Kraken in the Pacific Division, weren’t about to forget about Marchment’s role in this one. Marchment’s first period hit behind the play that knocked the helmet off defenseman Darnell Nurse had the Oilers targeting the Kraken forward the rest of the way in attempts to goad him into a fight.

Marchment and Nurse were finally assessed misconducts after a brief tussle in the game’s waning minutes with the Oilers already ahead comfortably on goals by Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Leon Draisaitl, Zach Hyman and Connor McDavid. The brief Marchment-Nurse skirmish had been preceded by separate fights pitting Freddy Gaudreau and Connor Clattenburg while Tye Kartye got the better of Alec Regula, meaning the misconducts were more precautionary than anything else to avoid further escalation.

The teams play a rematch Thursday night in Edmonton.

Marchment had indirectly led to the game’s opening and decisive Nugent-Hopkins power play goal in the first period when he was whistled off the ice moments prior for goaltender interference despite being shoved into netminder Skinner from behind by Curtis Lazar. The Kraken protested to no avail and the Oilers, with the third-best power play efficiency in the entire league, quickly put one past Joey Daccord with some quick passing.

The Kraken, though, were afforded multiple power play opportunities of their own, including a 5-on-3 advantage for 1:45 late in the first period, but failed to score. They went 0-for-11 with the man advantage in two home losses this brief homestand.

“We got a couple of looks,” Montour said. “At 5-on-3 there were a couple of looks, but you’ve got to get one of those.”

McDavid took another Edmonton penalty in the period’s final minute right after the 5-on-3, but the Kraken again couldn’t score. Right before the penalty call, Marchment’s high hit on Nurse got the Oilers after the Kraken forward like bees from a hive that had just been smashed by a baseball bat.

Marchment declined to drop his gloves and fight when challenged, which incensed the Oilers even more and seemed to throw them off their game for a considerable amount of time.

“I mean, having a 5-on-3 and all of those power play chances in the first, you’ve got to get something going there,” Kraken centerman Chandler Stephenson said. “We were just chasing it after that.”

Stephenson conversely was part of the Kraken penalty kill unit chasing the Oilers around ahead of both their power play chances cashed-in on.

“I mean, it’s hard,” he said of shutting them down. “Obviously, we’ve got a week here to look at things to work at and improve upon and see what we can do better.”

Draisaitl gave the Kraken another power play opportunity in the second period after nailing Marchment in the head with the second of two elbows he’d attempted to throw at the winger during a scrum in the corner.

“He was involved and that’s a big part of who he is,” Kraken head coach Lane Lambert said of Marchment. “Part of his game is getting under people’s skin a little bit.”

The officiating crew certainly got under Lambert’s skin the opening period when failing to notice Lazar had blasted Marchment into the goalie from behind.

“He tried to explain it,” Lambert said of the referee’s initial words after the call. “But then I think that after he takes a look at it, he probably realized it was a hard call to make at a critical time. We can’t afford to give that team power plays and we certainly don’t want to be giving them free power plays. It certainly wasn’t a penalty.”

The Oilers scored an ensuing power play marker late in the second period when Hyman redirected a puck flung into the high slot by Draisaitl. Earlier on in the frame, Draisaitl had snapped home a puck off an odd-man rush following a Kraken turnover in the neutral zone.

But in between those goals, with the score still 2-0, Catton had a clear-cut breakaway chance, only to see his deke move thwarted when Skinner stuck his pad out at the last instant. McDavid put things out of reach in the final frame with a short side wrister past Daccord from the left circle.

Lambert’s team has scored just two goals in losing the last three games and only 10 goals the past half-dozen contests.

“Clearly, a lot of times when you don’t score on a 5-on-3, it sort of reaches up to bite you in a game,” Lambert said of the thwarted power play chance late in the first with the Kraken seeking to tie things before intermission. “We had a good look at that. We had a long time to have that 5-on-3 and the fact we didn’t capitalize on it was disappointing.”

Lambert felt a handful of Kraken power play chances “could have gone in the net for us but didn’t” and added the team will just have to keep working on things in practice this week.

“We talk about it a lot,” he said of the power play. “We can move pucks quicker. When we get teams sort of on the ropes when there’s a shot and a rebound, we’re too slow to move the puck. And therefore then, they’re able to reset.

“A lot of power play goals in this league are scored after shots. And then the penalty kill is out of structure, and you take advantage of that. We’ve got to be quicker with our decision making.”

Kraken power play “quarterback” Montour agreed the afternoon’s big difference was the Oilers’ ability to make those quick decisions with the man advantage.

“They obviously have a very good power play,” Montour said. “They had two. We had zero. So, there’s the game.”