Kraken Find Offense, But Defense Collapses In Loss

EDMONTON, AB – Kraken winger Jared McCann wasn’t feeling many postgame positives after a record-setting blowout defeat despite scoring his first goal in more than seven weeks.

McCann had a front row power play seat when the Kraken yielded a critical shorthanded goal by Matt Savoie early in the second period at a point Thursday night’s 9-4 loss to the Edmonton Oilers was still a hockey game. With McCann tangled up along the left-wing boards after the Kraken lost an offensive zone faceoff, Savoie sneaked behind defender Vince Dunn in the neutral zone and took a breakaway pass from defenseman Evan Bouchard that got his explosive team off to the races along with him.

“I think we just got lost looking at the puck,” McCann said. “I think I can do a better job of getting to that D-man (Bouchard) a little bit quicker. So, you know, it’s tough to find any positives from a game like that.”

This walk on the defensive wild side at Rogers Place was certainly atypical not only because the Kraken yielded a franchise record nine goals, one more than given up in a 9-8 overtime win over Los Angeles back in November 2022 and an 8-5 defeat in San Jose in November of last year. No, it was the way in which the goals here were surrendered by a systematically sound defensive team that raised quite a few eyebrows both outside and inside the visitors’ dressing room.

The Oilers got breakaways and partial chances in alone on goalies Joey Daccord and Philipp Grubauer seemingly out of nowhere all night. Edmonton also threw passes around seemingly at-will on the power play, scoring four times, while getting another goal in the third period when Jani Nyman gave the puck away along the side boards with a poor pass attempt.

Savoie’s breakaway effort was a turning point, coming as it did following two Kraken scores late in the first by Eeli Tolvanen and Freddy Gaudreau that left the visitors trailing just 3-2 at intermission in a game they were being badly outplayed in.

Connor McDavid, who notched a hat-trick in this one, had opened the scoring for Edmonton in that first period followed 17 seconds later by a Vasily Podkolzin goal from below the right faceoff circle Daccord would clearly like to have done a better job on. Leon Draisaitl added the first Edmonton power play goal not long after that and the Oilers seemed destined to run the Kraken out of the rink before Tolvanen and Gaudreau countered.

But then came the Savoie shorthanded marker and the Kraken were never quite the same.

“This feels like we go one way or the other, right?” McCann said. “Like, we’re either really dialed in defensively and not scoring goals or we’re giving up six. So, it’s frustrating.”

McDavid broke things open shortly after Savoie’s goal by scoring his second of the night to make it 5-2 and spell the end for Daccord. Right before that goal, the Kraken had their second 5-on-3 power play chance against the Oilers in two games, but failed to score up two men for 37 seconds.

Then, not long after the first penalty expired, Mattias Janmark nearly had Edmonton’s third clear-cut breakaway of the game but was slowed when Brandon Montour slashed him from behind. Montour wound up penalized and McDavid scored on the ensuing power play.

Not long after, with Grubauer now in goal, Zach Hyman swept past a defender and briefly got in alone before hoisting a backhander over the goalie’s glove for a four-goal Edmonton lead. It was 37 seconds after that, with the game now pretty much settled, that McCann buried a rebound chance behind goalie Calvin Pickard for his first goal since Oct. 14 in Montreal ahead of a long injury absence.

But Janmark scored in the third after Nyman’s giveaway, McDavid capped the hat-trick on the power play and Savoie scored his second of the night and fourth Edmonton power play goal to cap the home team’s scoring with half a period to go and fans chanting, “We want 10!” Nyman added the fourth Kraken goal in the final seconds, but it did little to ease the frustration of head coach Lane Lambert in the postgame aftermath.

“The irony of the whole situation is I thought that was one of our best offensive zone games of the year,” Lambert said. “We threw 70-some pucks at the net. We had plenty of opportunities to score. We did some good things. The irony of the whole thing is we did some good things. We had some positive situations, so we have to build on that.”

But Lambert wasn’t thrilled about the negative situations, to say the least.

“Their power play scored four,” he said. “We gave up a shorthanded goal when the score was 3-2 and we had a chance to get back into the game, because we’re not aware of somebody behind us and it ends up in a breakaway mistake. And I didn’t think our goaltending was great tonight. So, if you add it all up, it equals nine (goals allowed).”

Lambert was terse when asked to expand upon the sequence leading to the Savoie breakaway goal.

“We’ve got to win the faceoff, we have an extra man,” Lambert said. “If you don’t win the faceoff you’ve got to jump in (and pressure the defenders). And we can’t just let the guy (Savoie) get behind us. I mean, that’s just plain and simple. There’s some awareness there.”

Lambert was equally abrupt when asked what he says to teams after a game such as this one.

“Nothing,” he said, staring straightforward with a glare.

Gaudreau didn’t have much to add beyond his coach on those fronts. One of the team’s better defensive forwards, whose quick hands offensively have been a bonus since his return from a prolonged injury absence, said what transpired all night long was inexcusable.

“They’re the type of team that will capitalize on their chances,” he said. “And if you give them too many, they will find a way. We did exactly that. We gave them too many and they have high skills, obviously. We all know that.”

As for McCann, who now has played three games since returning from his own injury absence, breaking the scoring ice will hopefully amount to a positive step for a team needing more consistent offense. But he knows any offensive additions can’t come at the expense of team defense.

“We’ve got to dial it in here and be better leaders for our team,” McCann said. “And I think it starts with (top line forwards) me, Matty (Beniers) and (Jordan) Eberle.”

McCann also knows that the team needs to keep this four-game losing streak from extending into something much more serious as in seasons past, starting with Saturday night’s home game against the Detroit Red Wings.

“It’s a slippery slope, right?” he said. “We’ve got to stop it against Detroit.”