Cann-ing the Cats

SUNRISE, FL - It was a night for the Panthers to say “thank you” to two former players, Brandon Montour and Josh Mahura, but they– along with their Kraken teammates -- weren’t exactly generous guests. The Kraken found the ability to shake off the post 4 Nations Face-off rust to score first and last in the game.

With Jordan Eberle back on the ice with his team for the first time in 40 games, the power play found a way to click thanks to Kaapo Kakko’s tally. Joey Daccord’s work in net survived Florida’s offensive bursts, especially in the final minutes of 5-on-6 play, and Jared McCann scored his second game-winner of the season to seal the deal.

“Winning always feels good,” Shane Wright said. “Especially against a top-end team like that. And it was a great game, great effort, and great win, for sure…(we kept) it simple, made hard plays and just winning pucks. I think we executed pretty well.”

Seattle ends the season series with Florida 1-0-1 and has gained at least a point in six of the eight games the two franchises have met.

How did it all go down? Let’s dig in.

Post-Break Power

After defending a Panthers power play, the Kraken got a chance with the extra skater and made the most of it. After Nate Schmidt tripped Kakko, Jordan Eberle skated out with the power play in his usual spot net front. The first unit set a tone – winning the faceoff and controlling possession with crisp passing and confident puck and player movement. When the second unit took to the ice after a Panthers’ clear, they continued the connected play. Vince Dunn kept the puck in play with an in-air retrieval at the blue line. Then, after battling for possession along the boards, Wright sent the puck to Matty Beniers in the bumper spot. Beniers quickly fed Kakko on the left flank and the player who drew the penalty pressed to the net and beat Sergei Bobrovsky low for the first goal of the game. With the secondary assist, Wright notched his eleventh point (4-7-11) in as many games.

“At times, we've shown we're a dangerous power play,” Bylsma said. “When we execute, when we break pressure, we have a lot of guys who can put the puck in the back of the net. With both units tonight it was great to see (the puck) finally go in at the end of that power play, because we had four or five good chances with the other guys as well.

“(Wright’s assist) is just relieving pressure, getting the puck in the middle to Matty. Matty over to Kakko. Just, an exclamation point…Kakko put in the back of the net

“Those guys are the future of the Kraken and we’re counting on them to step up to be able to win hockey games.”

Connected Cats

The second period was a grind for Seattle as the Panthers seemed to finally shake off their rust. Daccord was strong in net drawing loud “ohhhhh!’s” in reaction to his defiance against the Panthers’ shots most notably a sprawling save on a wrap-around chance by Evan Rodrigues and a shutdown response to a point-blank laser from Sam Reinhart from the left circle. But it was a fast-passing sequence that pulled apart the Kraken enough to get Florida their first goal.

Beginning in the defensive zone, the Panthers sent the puck up to the neutral zone with one pass where Anton Lundell moved with it into the offensive zone and sent the puck net front where Eetu Luostarinen was there to tip it over Daccord’s right pad and into the net to knot the game at one.

Challenge Accepted

The Panthers thought they scored again when Mackie Samoskevich put the puck in the net off a shot from the slot, but a closer look revealed Rodrigues tangled up with former Panther, Josh Mahura in the Kraken crease. A sure discussion with battle-tested video coaches Tim Ohashi and Brady Morgan led Dan Bylsma to challenge for goaltender interference and sure enough, the goal came off the board due to the fact that Rodrigues' “presence in the crease and his contact on Joey Daccord’s stick impaired his ability to play his position prior to Mackie Samoskevich’s goal” which violates rule 69.1 per the NHL situation room.

The Kraken are now 7-5 all-time on goaltender interference challenges including a 2-1 this season. On all challenges this year, Seattle is 4-2.

“Joey was quite adamant that there had been some contact,” Bylsma said. “Steve Briere, our goalie coach, and Brady were pretty quick to find the stick coming down on top of Joey’s stick and moving his paddle there… those guys were pretty strong that this was one we wanted to challenge, and we got a good result.”

Wright Cann

The stalemate lasted until just under just over seven minutes into the third. McCann had been playing a smart game – he avoided getting into a scuffle with AJ Greer as the two swapped shoves and keeping himself out of the box paid off. Less than a minute later, Wright broke out of the zone and moved through the neutral zone before spinning and sending a pass to Adam Larsson in the slot. The “Big Cat” tapped the puck over to McCann who used that powerful release to score his fifteenth goal of the season and also regained the lead for Seattle. Wright now marked his second straight multi-point game and the third time he’d done so in the last four contests.

That goal would stand as the game-winner as the Kraken defense took over from there. Even through 6-on-5 play, the pressing Panthers couldn’t get a puck through Seattle’s layers.

“There's a lot of hectic plays,” Daccord said. “I feel like a lot of times six-on-five is just going to be ‘throw pucks at the net and hope for a bounce, hope for a bounce to an open guy,’ or a shot in off a leg or something. I thought our guys did a good job of staying calm, chipping pucks out when we needed, and taking an extra second try to make a play if we had the time.”

Tip of the Cap!

With fourteen weeks having passed since Eberle’s first game, head coach Dan Bylsma said the team planned to integrate their captain in slowly both at even strength and on the power play but in 14:03 minutes, Eberle showed why he’s such a solid piece of the Seattle line up. On that first power play he set up a scoring chance with his expert passing and with under two minutes to go in the first period, he got to the slot and took a pass from Brandon Tanev before spinning and creating a chance of his own off the backhand, and he was out on the ice in the final minutes as Seattle battled to secure the win. “He didn’t play scared,” McCann said.

Postgame Instant Analysis

A Look at the Game by the Numbers:

• This game was won on solid defensive effort. The Kraken created 45.7-percent of all shot attempts in 5-on-5 play which translated to 41.9-percent of all shot quality. 15 of the Panthers’ shots were blocked and Joey Daccord stopped 1.3 more goals than he should have based on shot quality earning his 24^th quality start of the season.

• One line did come out on the positive side of offensive generation – the Matty Beniers line with Jaden Schwartz and Kaapo Kakko. They were plus-10 in shot attempts with 63-percent of all shot quality in 13:07 of time.

• Notably, the Beniers line performance came against one of the top 10 lines in the league – Florida’s combo of Sam Reinhart, Aleksander Barkov, and Carter Vergaeghe.

• Kakko led all skaters in the game in O-zone possession time (1:03) and he led his team in controlled exits with seven.

• Three Kraken skaters were among the top five players in the game according to Game Score. Adam Larsson and Vince Dunn were first and second overall and Joey Daccord ranked fifth.

• Jaden Schwartz led his team with seven shot attempts and .65 individual expected goals.

Here’s a look at our data-driven Instant Analysis from Sportlogiq (Click HERE for how to read this graphic):