Kraken’s eight-game win streak snapped by Lightning at home

Vince Dunn scored to extend his career-high point streak to seven games (four goals, seven assists) but the Kraken’s franchise-best, eight-game win streak ended at home with Monday’s 4-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

During a seven-game win streak in November and December, it often felt like the Kraken were seeing how much they could get away with. This time, they did it right and went further, with consistently better team defense.

A couple of lapses led to goals by the Lightning, who have won two of the past three Stanley Cup championships. In the first period, no one grabbed the puck as it trickled across the faceoff dot and Corey Perry pushed it back to Ian Cole at the blue line . Cole’s blast had plenty of tipping potential and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare took care of that in front of Seattle goaltender Philipp Grubauer.

That 1-0 score lasted until 6:44 of the third period. Dunn had snuffed out a Brayden Point breakaway chance earlier in the game. He couldn’t keep control of the puck behind Grubauer midway through the third period, however, and Nick Paul moved up to make it 2-0.

Grubauer had just one start so far in 2023, in a 4-3 win against the Buffalo Sabres on Jan. 10. He had to make up for lost time in the first five minutes of the game as the Lightning buzzed around him. Grubauer stopped Anthony Cirelli alone in front, two from Perry, a Ross Colton shot that looked to have glanced off a teammate and a chance through traffic from Erik Cernak.

At the other end, Vezina and Conn Smythe -winning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy’s last regular-season shutout was in Seattle on Nov 26, 2021. He was approaching another Monday, but Dunn’s goal midway through the third ended the bid.

Dunn took a long shot right off a faceoff that went in without a teammate’s help to make it 2-1.

The Lightning twice dumped the puck into the empty net with Grubauer pulled for the extra attacker to balloon the final score.

Oliver Bjorkstrand had a hand in three of four penalties through two periods. He drew two for the Kraken and took the third. Andre Burakovsky had a choice rebound served up on the second Kraken power play, but it didn’t make it through. The Lightning almost made it 2-0 in the final seconds of Bjorkstrand’s slashing penalty, but Grubauer hit the splits, sliding the puck safely out of the crease with his outstretched skate.

Second-period chances included Brandon Tanev almost capitalizing on a strange carom off the boards, Ryan Donato’s pass not quite getting through to wide-open Jared McCann off the rush and Jamie Oleksiak’s point-blank chance being turned away.