It wasn’t pretty for the Seattle Kraken on Thursday night in Detroit. It’s definitely not how Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol would have drawn it up, but his squad overcame a soft goal, two glaring D-zone turnovers that led to Red Wings goals, and a track meet in the 3rd period, to somehow come away with a 5-4 overtime victory.
“We felt like we kind of gave our goalies a tough time tonight with making saves and obviously we didn’t make it easy for ourselves,” Kraken forward Jared McCann, who tallied two goals, said postgame. “We need to clean it up and be better tomorrow.”
“We had them back on their heels, they didn’t have a whole lot of life, and we fed that a little bit, with a couple of the turnovers, with the goals that we gave up, but we were able to push back, answer, and settle things down,” Hakstol said after the win.
Every day the Seattle Kraken literally bounce back and forth in the Pacific Division and Western Conference wild card standings. With the win in Detroit they hopped back into third place in the division. With the Calgary Flames losing to the Toronto Maple Leafs 2-1 at home, the Seattle Kraken are now seven points clear of the top non-playoff team with 21 games to play.
Seattle could conceivably go 10-and-11 over the final stretch and still reach the post season. That would give them 94 points. They won’t want to finish in that manner, but it’s a nice feeling to know that some of the pressure intensity has been relieved a bit. In that scenario the Flames would have to go 14-and-7 to jump Seattle.
By the way, a 13-and-8 record closing out the season and the Seattle Kraken would reach the remarkable 100 point mark.
Blue Blue Jackets Vs. Seattle Kraken
It’s been a tough season in Ohio’s state capital for the resident NHL team. The Columbus Blue Jackets are in serious contention to finish with the fewest points in the league and win the best odds for the NHL Draft Lottery and a crack at generational top pick Connor Bedard.
The Seattle Kraken beat the Blue Jackets 3-1 at Climate Pledge Arena back on February 6th with a performance that was more dominant than the score indicated.
Seattle will want to “settle things down” and repeat that execution in the re-match Friday night in a game that starts a little after 4 pm pacific time.
