Seattle Kraken fall behind early, lose to Maple Leafs
The Seattle Kraken fell behind by two goals after the first period and never recovered en route to a 6-2 loss to Toronto on Monday night at Climate Pledge Arena.
Alexander Kerfoot opened the scoring for the Maple Leafs at the 3:56 mark of the first. Calle Jarnkrok responded for Seattle with his ninth goal of the season, but then Michale Bunting and Ondrej Case scored back-to-back goals to send Toronto into the first intermission with a 3-1 lead.
Kraken starting goaltender Philipp Grubauer was replaced by backup Chris Driedger at the start of the second, but Mitchell Marner still scored a power-play goal at the 9:15 mark to stretch the Maple Leafs’ advantage to 4-1.
“Just trying to change a little bit of the momentum at that point in time,” head coach Dave Hakstol told reporters about the switch. “We were in a hole and just getting back in that point. You’re at a point where you give up another and now you’re in a real deep hole. Really you want to just change the momentum and push the other way.”
At the beginning of the third period, David Kampf scored a short-handed goal to put Toronto up 5-1. Jared McCann responded three minutes later with Seattle’s first power-play goal of the night, but it wasn’t enough to swing the momentum in the Kraken’s favor.
Jake Muzzin added an unassisted goal for Toronto with less than 2 minutes left to produce the final score. Asked what went wrong on Monday, forward Jared McCann said, “Take your pick.”
“D-Zone wasn’t great,” he said. Obviously, we left some shots through that shouldn’t have gone it. It’s frustrating. That’s something we got to work on in practice and go from there.”
The Maple Leafs lead the NHL with a 30.5 power-play percentage. They lived up to that standing on Monday, scoring on both their power plays. Seattle managed just one goal in four opportunities.
“We couldn’t get a whole lot going on our power play,” Hakstol said. “It was nice that we got one finally at the end. Hopefully that … gives us a little bit of momentum and loosens us up a little bit.”
Seattle has lost two of its three games since returning from All-Star weekend. The Kraken remain in last place in the Pacific Division and their 36 points rank behind every team in the NHL but Arizona (28 points) and Montreal (23).
“We’ll do our regular review after a game,” Hakstol said. “Practice time is very limited. ... We’ll have the luxury of choosing one or two things that we can hit in practice before we get on the plane and head to Winnipeg.”
The Kraken will now head out on the road for a three-game swing, starting with Winnipeg on Thursday. They will then face Calgary on Sunday and Vancouver on Monday.
This story was originally published February 14, 2022 at 8:41 PM with the headline "Seattle Kraken fall behind early, lose to Maple Leafs."
