After winning their first game Sunday night, the Seattle Kraken traveled to Alberta to face Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers in the team’s first-ever road game. Unfortunately for the Kraken faithful, this contest left them with a poor taste in their mouths and brought them back down to earth.
Starting this game in goal for the Kraken was Chris Driedger, who gave up one goal on eight shots Sunday against Vancouver.
The Oilers opened the scoring at the 14:10 mark of the first period, with defenseman Darnell Nurse beating Driedger from just inside the blue line. Driedger was partially screened by two of his own players and Nurse surprised the Kraken goalie to give the Oilers a lead they never relinquished.
Seven minutes later, the Kraken got themselves into some penalty trouble, with infractions by Carsen Twarynski and Will Borgen. That opened the door for the most dangerous power play in the NHL, and it did not take long to capitalize. The Oilers picked right up where they left off last season, methodically playing tic-tac-toe and finishing with Jesse Puljujarvi snapping a quick shot past Driedger for a 2–0 Oilers lead.
Just two minutes later, the Oilers took a 3–0 lead with newcomer Zach Hyman getting his first goal as an Oiler in highlight fashion. Connor McDavid circled the Kraken zone twice while wowing the crowd with his smooth moves and, eventually, fed Hyman for a tap-in back-door goal after mesmerizing the Kraken defense.
After 20 minutes, the Oilers led in goals 3–0 and shots 13–10, which ended up being all they would need.
The home team put two more goals on the board in the second period, as former Blackhawks and Coyotes forward Brendan Perlini scored the first of his two goals, and McDavid got his third point of the night with a power play goal. The Oilers’ captain looked to be in mid-season form, setting up his teammates and making the visitors look inferior.
Despite the lopsided score, the Kraken were able to muster up several quality chances, due to sloppy defensive play in the Edmonton zone and some strange bounces. Alas, none resulted in goals on the scoreboard, as Mike Smith made a few desperation saves and Mikko Koskinen playing solid in the final half of the game.
The only scoring in the third was a rocket from Perlini, again, making a case to make the Oilers’ regular season roster with his second of the game. The lone positive of the night was that Seattle outshot Edmonton in the final two periods 23–20.
Anchor points
⚓ You simply cannot get out-dueled by one of the worst (and potentially oldest) goalie tandems in the league in Smith and Koskinen. Joey Daccord was brought in for mop-up duty in the third period, but the damage was long done and Edmonton was not pressuring much. That said, Dreidger was not given much help. Other than the first goal, he was left hung out to dry on at least two of the four goals he surrendered.
⚓ Ryan Donato continued to show that he was a wise, under-the-radar pickup, leading the visitors with four shots on net.
⚓ This might be a taste of what could happen more often this season. If the Kraken cannot play well in their own end, opponents will start to expose the talent gap. They just do not have the top-end talent to run with the other top-tier players, yet.
⚓ The Kraken went 0–4 on the power play while the Oilers went 2–5. Special teams simply just need to be better on both ends.
⚓ That said, Seattle scratched most of their skilled players, including three of their top centers, three top wings and two of their top defensemen. Dennis Cholowski, Joonas Donskoi, Jordan Eberle, Haydn Fleury, Mark Giordano, Yanni Gourde (injured), Philipp Grubauer, Adam Larsson, Jared McCann, Gustav Olofsson, Jaden Schwartz, Carson Soucy and Alexander Wennberg all had the night off.
⚓ The Kraken are back at it tonight in Calgary against the Flames. Puck drop is at 6 p.m. PDT.