The Seattle Kraken headed to Nashville, Tennessee to face the Predators, Thursday night. This was the second game of their season-opening six-game road trip. After a rough start against Las Vegas two nights previous, they were looking to earn their first-ever regular-season franchise win.
The Kraken once again surrendered a goal early in the first period to put themselves in a hole when Predators forward Eeli Tolvanen snapped a shot past Kraken netminder Philipp Grubauer following a chaotic faceoff scramble.
Outside of Tolvanen’s goal, the first period was largely controlled by the Kraken, as they had 12 shots on net to the Predators’ four.
As a result, the visitors got late powerplay goals by Jared McCann and Brandon Tanev to carry them into the first intermission leading 2–1.
In what will be a season full of “firsts”, the long-range McCann goal was their first franchise power-play goal.
Nashville was much more engaged in the second period, tying the Kraken in shots on goal 13–13, which resulted in a goal for each team.
Predators captain Roman Josi tallied a long-range powerplay goal of his own, just under five minutes into the middle period, on a feed from Filip Forsberg. Nashville was on a two-man advantage at the time.
Seattle grabbed the lead back at the mid-way point of the period, as Alex Wennberg took a feed from new Kraken forward Alex Barré-Boulet on the back door and easily swept the puck into a gaping net.
Barré-Boulet was claimed on waivers from the Tampa Bay Lightning earlier in the week and made his Kraken debut in the game.
The Kraken carried a one-goal lead into the third period and struggled mightily to keep the Predators from tying the game. Nashville outshot the Kraken 13–1 in the final 20 minutes of regulation, but Grubauer was stellar.
Late in the game, with the Nashville goalie pulled for the extra attacker, Brandon Tanev put the only third period Kraken shot on goal into the back of the net, for the insurance goal.
Nashville put pressure heavy on, in the final minutes of the game, and a wide-open Mikael Granlund was able to cut the Kraken lead in half with 40 seconds remaining in regulation.
Fortunately, the Kraken defenders were able to hold off Nashville in the final seconds of play to secure their first regulation win in franchise history.
Anchor points:
⚓ Clearly, getting outshot 13–1 in any period is bad, but in the third period with a one-goal lead is playing with fire. This is obviously something that needs to be tuned up.
⚓ The Kraken were basically victimized at the faceoff dot, as well, winning only 44%. Jared McCann (33%) and Morgan Geekie (40%) were the worst while Alex Wennberg (52%) and Riley Sheahan (50%) won at least half of the draws they took.
⚓ The Kraken were the more physical team on the ice, as they were credited with 22 hits to 16 Nashville hits. Tanev had four hits and four penalty minutes to go with his two goals.
⚓ Barré-Boulet made the most of his team-low 9:05 of time on ice, with his first NHL assist.
⚓ Possession numbers pretty heavily favored Nashville, as they had a 53% 5v5 Corsi and 53% 5v5 Fenwick. Shot heat maps show that Seattle mostly shot from the perimeter while Nashville focussed on shots in the lower slot.
⚓ Vince Dunn became the first Kraken player to get into a regular-season fight when he squared off against Yakov Trenin.
⚓ The Kraken are off today. They will faceoff Saturday, in Columbus, against the Blue Jackets The puck drop is scheduled for 4 p.m. PT.