It felt like a game of no-hit shinny between the Kraken and the visiting Jets; a lot of skating with not a lot of progress. The post-trade-deadline tilt — that moment hit at 3 pm eastern on Friday — lacked sufficient urgency for the home team.
Then again, their non-playoff season has been a foregone conclusion for a couple of weeks now.
Winnipeg 3, Seattle 0.
1st Period
The goaltending match-up featured Laurent Brossoit for Winnipeg and Joey Daccord for Seattle.
Winnipeg had the better chances in the first 16 minutes, but none of them Grade-A. At least not until moments after I typed that sentence … Nino Niederreiter of the Jets took a pass in the slot and fired a dandy chance wide.
Off the big carom, the Kraken ended up on a 3-on-1 going the other way that was broken up on a diving play by Winnipeg defenseman Dylan Samberg.
2nd Period
More of the same. Not much. Decent neutral zone rushes were shut down before they turned into anything at either end. Or as I snarked on twitter/X at the time: “Can count Grade-A chances through the first 26 minutes on one hand. And that’s if 2 of your fingers had been amputated. No score.”
And again, right after being typed; a good chance for Winnipeg that hopped off a stick.
The second period continued and we learned that veteran Kraken forward Jaden Schwartz left with an upper body injury and wouldn’t return.
The stat board said hits were 14-13 in favor of Winnipeg. Not sure what constituted a hit!
3rd Period
The Kraken saw their best scoring chance from newly re-signed veteran forward Jordan Eberle about six minutes into the period. He was stoned by Brossoit on the left doorstep.
Not long after, following some moderate pressure from the Jets, Winnipeg capitalized when the Kraken failed to clear the zone. Josh Morrissey pinched at the left point to keep the puck in and Vladi Namestnikov found Mark Scheifele alone down low. He deked and tucked the puck through Daccord.
At 8:31 Seattle picked up the games first power play. Scheifele went to the box for tripping Andre Burakovsky on a partial breakway. Burakovsky crashed into Brossoit when he went down, but it was Scheifele briefly going to the dressing room dinged up. Niederreiter served the penalty.
Statistically the Kraken have the special teams edge on the Jets this season, but nothing panned out.
At 11:28, Adam Lowry, son of Kraken assistant coach Dave Lowry, crashed traffic in front and banged home a rebound to give Winnipeg what would appear to be an insurmountable lead.
Kyle Connor hit the goalpost behind Daccord with 5:28 remaining.
Nik Ehlers added an empty-netter.
Earlier Kraken:
— Kraken Sign Eberle To A 2-Year Deal
