GAME RECAP: Kraken 5, Oilers 2

EDMONTON, AB - The Kraken's vengeance was swift and without mercy.
After the Edmonton Oilers put up seven goals at Climate Pledge Arena last week, the Seattle Kraken exacted their revenge on Tuesday night with a four-goal second period in a 5-2 victory at Rogers Place.
"I don't think their game changed too much," defenceman Brett Kulak said. "I think it was just us letting our foot off the gas a little bit."
The Oilers jumped to a two-goal lead early in the middle frame after Connor McDavid notched his 33rd goal of the season, but the Kraken answered back with four straight tallies in the frame to turn a two-goal deficit into a two-goal lead before Alex Wennberg added an empty-net goal in the final three minutes of regulation.
Forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins added a goal in the defeat, while netminder Stuart Skinner was relieved by Jack Campbell in the middle frame after allowing four goals on 11 shots in the period.
The Oilers have lost five straight on home ice (0-4-1) and fall to 9-11-1 at Rogers Place heading into Thursday's continuation of the four-game homestand against the New York Islanders.

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FIRST BLOOD

Klim Kostin made up for a giveaway in his own defensive end inside the eight minute-mark of the first period by drawing a tripping penalty from Daniel Sprong on the ensuing sequence, setting up the first meeting of the contest between Edmonton's league-best power play (32.1 percent) and Seattle's second-worst penalty kill (67.9 percent).
Thanks a 2-for-2 evening in their last meeting at Climate Pledge Arena on Friday, the Oilers man advantage was operating at 5-for-11 (45.5 percent) against the Kraken this campaign coming into tonight.
A Tyson Barrie point shot was redirected into the vicinity of Leon Draisaitl, who quickly kicked it to his stick for a rebound shot that slid through the crease. Luckily for him, Nugent-Hopkins brought his protractor to Rogers Place tonight and was in position to pot the 1-0 goal from a tight angle for his 19th marker of the year.
The Nuge's 19 goals this year is already eight above his total of 11 last season.

SAVE OF THE GAME

Leave it to Stu to keep us ahead after 20 minutes thanks to a big save in the final five minutes of the opening frame.
Draisaitl's cross-ice pass on a zone entry struck a skate on the way through to send the puck out to centre ice on a trajectory that perfectly lined up with Sprong, who found himself on a breakaway after being the last Kraken back to Seattle's end. The forward tried to beat Skinner low glove side, but the 24-year-old read the play and flashed out the left pad to deny the Kraken their equalizer.

Coach Woodcroft elected to withdraw Skinner from the crease for Campbell after the four-goal Kraken second period in a bid to spark something in his group rather instead of just being a decision based on his performance.
"He might want to have that the fourth one, not the goal but the shot that led to the rebound, he might want to have that one back. But Skinner has been rock solid for us," Woodcroft said. "I thought it was an opportunity for Jack to get some playing time. Jack went in under tough circumstances, made some saves, and I had already called the timeout and I was just trying to slow the game down a little bit and jolt our team. It had nothing to do with Stuart's play."

PLAY OF THE GAME

When you have your 17-game point streak snapped one game shy of a new career best, start anew and try to beat it again.
That's what Connor McDavid did on Tuesday night.
With all the commotion happening around the Kraken bench with a could've-been-called Too Many Men scenario against Seattle, McDavid found space and separation to pick up a pass from Mattias Janmark and burn defenceman Carson Soucy wide before tucking his 33rd goal of the season inside the left post past a hapless Martin Jones to lift Edmonton to a two-goal lead just 48 seconds into the second period.

TURNING POINT

Everything after McDavid's early goal in the middle frame came up Kraken.
Four unanswered goals from the visitors beginning with Matty Beniers' power-play goal 4:44 into the second period turned a two-goal lead into plenty of questions defensively for the Oilers through 40 minutes down by two.
"I thought we fell asleep for a ten-minute span in the second period there, and we made some uncharacteristic errors in areas that we tip typically have a lot of pride in and they ended up in the back of our net," Head Coach Jay Woodcroft said.

Since December 3, the Kraken's 6.7 percent power-play efficiency has been the lowest in the NHL, but Beniers battled in front on Seattle's first man advantage to bat one past Stuart Skinner out of mid-air to halve the Oilers lead. With a delayed penalty on the way 31 seconds later, Beniers turned provider to set up Jaden Schwartz at the back post for an easy equalizer, with former Oilers blueliner Adam Larsson recording an assist to stretch his Kraken franchise-leading point streak for a defenceman to seven games.
"I think tonight in particular, it was just hunger and determination around our net," Kulak, who missed his assignment at the back post on the tying goal, said post-game. "We're not picking up sticks, not boxing guys out hard enough, and I speak a lot of for myself... as an individual, you look at your own game and you see spots you did well in spots where you didn't do good. There were a couple of times I wasn't good enough around our net in our own zone, and it cost us a couple of goals."

The Oilers lamented two defensive-zone breakdowns before the period was done to fall behind by a pair of goals. It was Yanni Gourde first who connected on a turn-around shot following a victorious puck battle in the slot to lift the Kraken into the lead before a lost draw by the Oilers in their own zone led to Wennberg serving a nifty feed to Jared McCann for the two-goal Seattle lead with 4:12 left to go in a frustrating second period for the Oilers.
"We just weren't tight on checks," Hyman said. "We had a couple of face-off goals, which we talk about all the time. We have face-off meetings where we go over things and we talk about it. Just mental lapses and just not being hard on the puck. Not one guy throughout the entire lineup."
An empty-net goal from Wennberg in the final three minutes with the Oilers down a pair of goals sealed the deal for the Kraken, who hand Edmonton their fifth straight loss at home and sixth loss in their last seven contests at Rogers Place.

PARTING WORDS

Hyman on finding consistency:
"If we had that answer, we wouldn't be where we are. So I think it's consistency. It's doing it every single night and we talk about it, and you've just got to go out there and do it, and you got to do it for the entire game. They talk about it a bunch.
We're up 2-0 and then you fall asleep for half the period, whatever it is, and then you're down two. So I think it's finding consistency throughout our game, and when things aren't looking pretty, falling back on the things that we know we can do -- structure, getting pucks behind their D, making it hard on them, just little things like that. When things aren't pretty, we're still able to play consistently and I think we've got to find that."

Nurse on working through defensive struggles:
"You know what, you have the game plan and know to stop it. It's on us to go out there and execute all these questions. They're great questions, but at the end of the day, we can talk about this as much as we want. We can beat the dead horse as long as we want, but we just got to go out there and play and get back to work tomorrow and take it one day at a time."
"If we're going to come in and beat our heads against the wall and get down ourselves, we're not going to get very far this year and there's lots of hockey to be played. But with that said, we're not in the position at all where we want to be or where we think we're capable of being at this point. With that said, kind of just like my last answer, we talk about we just got to come in here and work tomorrow and take it one day at a time. We can talk about all we want."

Coach Woodcroft on calling a timeout after the Kraken tied the game and Edmonton's response:
"I have faith in our group. I have faith in our leadership group tonight. I made that call to take a timeout to try and settle the group down and spur something. I just felt that the energy on the bench and the energy on the ice wasn't where it needed to be. In the end, it didn't work. We gave up two more in that ten-minute span -- again, things that I feel are within our control. I mean, if you look at some of those goals, two of them came off faceoffs, which is typically a strength, specifically in coverages for us. I think we gave up one on the penalty kill that we could do a better job around our net on, and then certainly when it was a six-on-five situation on a delayed penalty, I didn't think those were goals necessarily were something the other team did to us. I think those were situations we could handle better."