Kraken 4, Kings 2
Nice win. The Kraken beat a very good division opponent on Saturday night at Climate Pledge Arena when they took down the 3rd place Los Angles Kings.
“Great to see Jaden (Schwartz) get the hat trick,” Seattle head coach Dan Bylsma said postgame. “Can’t be understated the line of Matty Beniers and Jaden and (Kaapo) Kakko, what they keep doing for us night in and night out, and they get the first two goals, and it was great to see Schwartzy get the hat trick there at the end.”
Schwartz scored with two well placed wrist shots and an empty-netter. The latter was Seattle’s only shot-on-goal in the 3rd period while giving up 17.
Even with the head-to-head victory, Seattle finds itself 12 points behind LA in the Pacific Division. The sea monster also sits eight points out of a Western Conference wild card spot with four teams to hop over.
Not bloody likely.
Now the club looks for moral victories on a larger scale. Forget game-to-game moral victories, as in, “we lost, but we played a really good game.” Now it’s, “we’re pretty much out of it (without saying so), but we’re seeing signs of coming together as a team, connecting, and making progress.”
“We’re working on our consistency in our game, and that second period was fast and physical and we managed the puck to give us a chance in the offensive zone, and I think our second period, I don’t want to measure it up to every other one, but was certainly, exactly how we want to play,” Bylsma said.
There are no “should wins” for this hockey club. Tempted to label the visiting Buffalo Sabres as one of those on Monday afternoon? Forget about it. There is no predictable consistency to Seattle’s game.
It was inexcusable consecutive Kraken losses to the “lowly” Anaheim Ducks, San Jose Sharks, and San Jose Sharks again at the end of November that put Seattle on their irreversible downward track.
The Kraken are still ahead of both of those teams in the standings, although the Ducks are just one point behind with a game in hand. If that holds up, the stark reality becomes the fact that both of those clubs will have higher NHL draft picks come summer.
Now what? Kraken General Manager Ron Francis can sit on his hands until after the upcoming two-week break in February for the Four Nations Face-Off being held in Montreal and Boston between NHL’ers from the USA, Canada, Finland and Sweden.
After that there will be two-and-a-half weeks to the NHL trade deadline and the Kraken should get busy unloading players.
It’s what happens when you’re stuck somewhere in mediocrity.
