Kraken Sink 5-1 to Wild After Early Breakaway Mistakes

Seattle's season has been built on playing with the lead: grab a advantage, hang on, and occasionally give one back before clawing out of it. On Saturday against the Minnesota Wild, the Kraken never had that luxury. They were chasing from the first minute and lost 5-1, and the game unraveled in a second period that left them without much to show for it.

Credit where it's due: Seattle recovered from an ugly start and played well for the rest of the opening frame. Here's the thing, though. Minnesota is skilled and organized, and it made the Kraken pay for every lapse. Coach Lane Lambert didn't dress it up. "They played a solid team game," he said. "It was tough to penetrate a little bit, and in order to do that, you've got to win a few more battles."

Two breakaways, two goals

Both of Minnesota's early chances came from Seattle turnovers in its own zone. The first arrived roughly 20 seconds in. Kirill Kaprizov worked the puck low in the Wild end and then sprinted up ice. Adam Larsson pinched down the boards and lost the battle to Joel Eriksson Ek, who punched the puck past him and sent it up the wall to Kaprizov, already across the red line.

Vince Dunn lost track of Kaprizov in the process, and suddenly Kaprizov was alone with Joey Daccord. He sold a shot, pulled Daccord down, went to his backhand and chipped it into a mostly empty net. Dunn took ownership afterward. "It's a very untraditional forecheck, and I know they're going to take off," he said. "I need to be more aware and be that safety for our guys."

Lambert was blunter. "There were two or three mistakes made on it, so not good," he said. "Certainly not the way you want to come out of the gate."

The response was encouraging. About 10 minutes later Berkly Catton tied it at 1-1 on a sharp give-and-go with Kaapo Kakko, and the Kraken controlled most of the first period from there. They could have headed into the intermission with the lead.

The second-period swing

Seattle opened the second with a power play, the kind of opportunity that can seize momentum. Neither unit cashed in. As the penalty to Blake Coleman, called at the end of the first for running over Daccord, wound down, Shane Wright headed for the bench to swap with Dunn.

Then the wheels came off. Kakko passed to Wright at the point while Wright was still skating off, so Wright stopped and took the puck. Dunn had already jumped over the boards, then retreated when he realized Wright wasn't coming off. Wright tried to force a pass back to Kakko below the goal line, and Matt Kiersted jumped the lane. Kiersted quickly fed Coleman with a stretch pass, and Coleman, fresh out of the box, skated in and beat the goalie to make it 2-1.

That's a breakdown in pure awareness, and Lambert treated it that way. "It was just a complete lack of awareness by us of what's going on behind us in terms of guys coming out of the penalty box," he said. "It just can't happen."

Daccord's hard night

It's hard to pin the loss on Daccord. Neither of the two breakaway goals was his fault, and Olli Maatta's wrist shot from the point, which made it 3-1 at 11:33 of the second, floated through a crowd of bodies. There was little to do about that one.

The fourth goal stung more. Seconds after Jesper Wallstedt robbed Ryker Evans at the other end, Minnesota came up the ice on a 3-on-2. Matt Boldy's shot from distance looked like an easy save, but it hit Daccord's stick and took a bad hop a couple of feet in front of him. Before he could collect it, Eriksson Ek was there to pop it up, and it dropped behind Daccord and over the line. That made it 4-1 at 13:00 of the second, and it effectively ended the game. Daccord's reaction said he knew it, too.

Lambert noted that the goal came right after a strong stretch from his goalie. "I thought he made some good saves," he said. "It was just a short rebound there, and especially after he had played very well during the four-minute penalty kill just before. But at the end of the day, we have to generate a little bit more offensively."

The numbers now tell a harder story. Daccord is 3-3-0, and his three losses came against strong opponents, with 4, 5 and 8 goals allowed. His goals-against average has climbed to 3.95 and his save percentage has dipped to .882. Those are not the figures of a goalie who's been left completely alone. He'll need a steady outing soon, both to settle his own game and to take pressure off a team that can't afford to keep falling behind.

Down 4-1 and no answer

Seattle has shown it can bounce back from blown leads. What it hasn't shown much of is the ability to recover from a deficit. When things have gone wrong this season, they've tended to go badly wrong, and this game fit that pattern.

The second period was the real problem. Seattle gave up three goals in that frame and managed a single shot in the full 20 minutes: a backhander from Wright on the opening power play, about 30 seconds before the turnover that set up Coleman's goal. That means the Kraken went more than 19 minutes without a shot. Heading into the third trailing 4-1, the script practically called for a flood of pressure. It never arrived.

Minnesota added a fifth goal later in the game, and Lambert kept his assessment simple. "Give them credit," he said. "They played a pretty sound, solid hockey game."

My read: Seattle's problem Saturday wasn't effort in the abstract. It was a run of small mistakes, in the defensive zone, on a change, and in front of the net, that a well-organized team punished immediately. Fixing the forecheck protocol and the bench-change timing would be a good place to start, and Daccord needs a quieter night to reset his numbers.