Officially six seconds; actually 5.2 seconds. That’s how far away the Seattle Kraken were from notching a regulation victory over the visiting Winnipeg Jets on Sunday. Instead, they suffered a 3-2 overtime loss.
Blake Wheeler scored for the Jets on the power play and with their net empty at the 19:54 mark of the third period to tie the game 2-2. Fifty-four seconds into overtime Mark Scheifele scored the game winner on a 2-on-1 rush after Kraken forward Andre Burakovsky turned the puck over in the offensive zone. Burakovsky rushed the puck up ice, held on to it for too long, and lost it while trying to split two defenders.
Winnipeg went 2-for-7 with the man advantage with the tying goal coming after a Carson Soucy roughing penalty that Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol called undisciplined. As has been stated before, the best penalty kill is to simply stay out of the box in the first place.
“You try to find a way to learn from it, I think that’s the biggest thing,” Kraken forward Jordan Eberle said. “Try to take away something, try to learn from making mistakes and understand the situation in games … the line between winning and losing is so fine, you give good teams like this opportunities, and every team’s good, they’re going to eventually capitalize, it’s that simple.”
Kraken Scoring
Eberle tallied his fourth goal of the season to open the game’s scoring at 7:30 of the first period on the power play. Assists came from Vince Dunn and Andre Burakovsky. Eberle controlled a rebound in front of the net and quickly swiped it five-hole (between the legs of) Jets goalie David Rittich.
The lone goal of the second period tied the game and came on the Jets power play from Scheifele. This, after he drew the hooking call that sent Kraken defenseman Adam Larsson to the penalty box.
Seattle would retake the lead at even strength when Brandon Tanev scored his fourth goal of the season at 7:02 of the third period with assists to Oliver Bjorkstrand and Yanni Gourde. Tanev was able to control a bouncing puck on a rush just in time to fire a shot from the slot glove-side past Rittich.
The one point in the gives the Kraken nineteen on the season, good for third place in the NHL’s Pacific Division.
“Obviously it’s not the result we wanted as a team, but we got one point there and at the end of the day you learn from this and move forward and get ready for the next one,” Tanev said after the game.
The next one is at the Climate Pledge Arena on Thursday night against the New York Rangers.
— 27-year-old left-shot defenseman Gustav Olafsson played his first game of the season for the Kraken after being called up from Coachella Valley of the AHL earlier in the week. He replaced Cale Fleury in the line-up, who first got a crack at replacing injured D-man Jamie Oleksiak. Olafsson played 10:14 on Sunday, had two shots on goal and finished a plus-one.
