“We got our asses kicked tonight (today), that’s what I take from it,” Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol said after Monday’s 4-0 road loss to the San Jose Sharks.
We described it as “somewhat listless” in our game summary immediately after it was over, while Kraken forward Yanni Gourde said his team simply didn’t skate.
“Our group is good enough that we should be able to impose the pace of the game every single night,” he said. “Yeah, they were quicker than us.”
Gourde accidentally opened the scoring for the Sharks on a strange and unfortunate play in the Sharks offensive zone, left wing face-off circle. After he tied up with the opposing center, Gourde reached forward and pulled the puck back briskly to win the draw. The puck zipped through traffic, through the legs and past the foot of Kraken defenseman Vince Dunn, and just inside the near post past goalie Martin Jones.
“Bad luck, bad bounce, but at the end of the day I think we iced the puck just before that,” Gourde said. “There’s different plays in the game that kind of trickle down to that play.”
The Kraken never seemed to recover. They turned pucks over, leading to two more 2nd period goals and a 3-0 deficit. The Sharks added an empty netter in the third.
“They were quicker and harder at the puck,” Hakstol added. “I could use a lot of different adjectives I guess, to talk about it, but they (the Sharks) worked at a level that they were winning and dictating those battles.”
Kraken Move On
The Kraken have an opportunity to practice at least once before hosting the Boston Bruins on Thursday. The B’s are the NHL’s top team with 43 wins and 91 points and might be a bit ornery with the Kraken since Seattle handed Boston its first home loss of the season, 3-0 back on January 12th.
The Sharks own the worst home record in the NHL while Seattle came in with one of the league’s best road records. With Monday’s loss, Seattle blew a chance to hop into a first place tie in the Pacific Division with the Vegas Golden Knights. Instead, the Kraken remain in third place with 70 points and the same number of games played as the teams closest to them in the standings.
They’ll remain at Climate Pledge Arena for a Sunday game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, another very good club the Kraken beat on the road in January.
