Kraken road trip ends under avalanche of Colorado goals in 6-3 loss
For the final game of a forgettable road trip, Kraken coach Dan Bylsma gave his lineup a significant change and sent a message to his roster in the process.
The result? Well, that remained the same as most of the road trip.
The Kraken finished off an ugly five-game road trip with a 6-3 loss to Colorado on Tuesday night. It was Seattle’s fourth straight loss after opening the trip with an eight-goal outburst in Montreal and dropped the Kraken to 5-8-1 with an extended homestand on the horizon.
The Kraken played much better than what they showed the previous three games in losses to Toronto, Ottawa and Boston, but it was the changes to the lineup even before Seattle took the ice that were most noticeable.
Bylsma scratched Oliver Bjorkstrand and Tye Kartye and inserted Ryan Winterton and John Hayden into the lineup in his most drastic shake-up to date. Clearly Bylsma was seeking some sort of spark, especially following consecutive shutout losses.
The moves also came with the underlying message that seemingly no one on the roster is protected from potentially being benched. It would be one thing if Bylsma had sat just Kartye or even given rookie Shane Wright the night off.
And while the case could be made that there are others just as deserving of being sat, the decision to sit Bjorkstrand provided that clear message from Bylsma.
“We’ve talked about, and I’ve talked about high expectations for our team and how we want to play, and I think we all can be better in that regard,” Bylsma said after the morning skate. “And yes, the message is not just Oliver. It’s to the whole group.”
Even with the lineup changes — which also included shuffles to the defensive pairings — the Kraken were again playing from behind and ultimately never led in their fourth straight loss. Nathan MacKinnon continued to show why he was the league’s MVP last season. MacKinnon assisted on five of Colorado’s six goals, but it was the two in the first period that were most important.
MacKinnon shook Wright and Eeli Tolvanen and found Chris Wagner for Colorado’s first goal 2:28 into the game and he created the chaos around the goal that led to Ivan Ivan’s goal late in the period that gave the Avalanche a 2-1 lead.
The Kraken scored for the first time in 136 minutes and 26 seconds when Matty Beniers threw the puck off the skate of Jaden Schwartz parked in front of the net just after a Seattle power play ended at 12:58 of the first. And they pulled even at 2-2 in the opening seconds of the second period on Jared McCann’s sixth goal finishing a steal and pass by Chandler Stephenson.
But the second period was controlled by Colorado’s power play that entered the game second-best in the league.
Artturi Lehkonen gave Colorado a 3-2 lead in his first game of the season after shoulder surgery, slamming a shot over Philipp Grubauer’s glove. That was followed by a confusing and lengthy delay featuring multiple reviews and ultimately ended with Mikko Rantanen’s goal.
The Kraken challenged the goal, saying the play was offside. That challenge was initially granted. But Colorado coach Jared Bednar pointed out that the puck entered the offensive zone off a shot by Yanni Gourde at the other end of the ice and ricocheted untouched. That meant Lehkonen was not offside and allowed the goal to stand.
Seattle pulled within 4-3 with 2:29 left when Matty Beniers redirected Brandon Montour’s shot past Colorado goalie Justus Annunen. But the hope of an unlikely late comeback ended when Rantanen scored an empty-net goal 23 seconds after Beniers scored and Colorado added another power play goal with 1.2 seconds left.
Annunen faced just 20 shots, while Grubauer made 25 saves on 30 shots in a performance that was better than his final stat line looked.