Kraken return home expecting a booming Game 3—knowing they could’ve had more at Colorado

While the rest of the hockey world marvels at the split they just got on the road to begin their first-ever playoff series, these don’t-call-us-upstart Kraken wanted more.

And they could have — should have? — more.

The Kraken are returning home to play in what promises to be one of the loudest, wildest scenes in Seattle’s sports playoffs history Saturday. They know that while in Colorado they allowed the defending Cup champions to escape immediate, serious trouble in their best-of-seven series.

The Kraken flew out of Denver Friday morning for Game 3 Saturday night at Climate Pledge Arena as disappointed they don’t have a 2-0 series lead on the heavily-favored Avalanche as they are encouraged by a split of two road games to begin Seattle’s Stanley Cup playoffs debut.

After a stunning, 3-1 win in Game 1, the second-year Kraken were rolling with a 2-0 lead after one period in Colorado Thursday night. Seattle seemed on the verge of becoming the first team to make its franchise debut in the NHL’s postseason with two road wins.

It was so quiet inside Denver’s Ball Arena, you could hear the sky falling on the Avalanche.

“It was like we were shocked,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar told reporters in Denver following Thursday’s game.

But his Avalanche dominated the second period to tie Game 2. They won it with 7 minutes left in the third period, on Devon Toews’ wrist shot off a rebound that beat Kraken goaltender Philipp Grubauer.

The Kraken lost more than a playoff game. They lost a massive opportunity to be up 2-0 and playing Games 3 and 4 inside their glittering arena at Seattle Center that is going to be off the hook Saturday and Monday.

Now is the time for the young Kraken’s veterans of Stanley Cup playoff runs Jaden Schwartz (90 career NHL postseason games), Yanni Gourde (71), Justin Schultz (69) and Jordan Eberle (64) to lead their team back home.

“Yeah, it helps,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said of his veterans’ playoff experience while on a Zoom call Friday morning from Denver, before the team’s flight back to Seattle.

“I mean, down to (Thursday) night, you are going to be disappointed with the outcome last night. But where that veteran leadership comes in is flipping that page really quick (Friday) morning and just, you know, knowing the job at hand.

“You want to win a hockey game when it’s 2-2, 10 minutes to go. You want to push through the finish line on that, regardless of how you’ve gotten there during that game.

“So that disappointment’s natural. And that’s OK. But the veteran leadership comes in this morning where we get up, grab breakfast here and get ready for Game 3.”

Gourde, 31, won two Stanley Cups with the Tampa Bay Lightning before the Kraken selected him in the NHL expansion draft two years ago. The veteran center told reporters in Denver following the loss Thursday night his team simply needs to be calm, to slow down.

“We’ve just got to manage the game a little better, slow the game down a bit. We know what to do: Go back to our roots and what works for us,” Gourde said. “When we do that we are a successful group. We don’t have to chase the game. We don’t have to change the way we play. It’s just going back to what we do.”

Friday, Hakstol agreed his Kraken don’t need to change much for Game 3.

“We did a lot of the same things we did in Game 1, we did that in the first 20 minutes of Game 2,” Hakstol said.

“The second period got away from us (Thursday) night. They got the momentum. And by momentum, I mean more specifically than that. They started with the puck an awful lot (Thursday) in the second period. You look in the momentum and the shift in momentum that that builds, whether it’s off turnovers, off of playing defense tired and just getting line changes at tough times.”

Seattle got beat through the neutral zone by the quicker Avalanche while changing lines on Colorado’s game-tying goal Thursday, off a stretch pass to Valeri Nichushkin in the second period. That was the second of two goals the Avs scored 48 seconds apart. Those erased the Kraken’s two-goal lead — and the chance to seize control of the series.

“They started with the puck fresh more than we did in the second period,” Hakstol said, “and that really stalled our momentum.”

Power(less) plays so far

Neither team has a goal on the power play through two games. Seattle is 0 for 5 in the series.

Seattle’s coach said the Kraken aren’t looking at making major changes or to add to their power-play plan in the one day they have between each game of this series.

Hakstol wants simple stuff. Pass less. Shoot more.

The slap shot Jared McCann took that Colorado goaltender Alexandar Georgiev stopped with 1 second remaining on Seattle’s second and final man advantage in Game 2 was the Kraken’s only power-play shot on goal Thursday.

“You saw us get the puck to the net at the end of that second one (Thursday), right? And that’s the key,” Hakstol said. “We’ve gotten in the zone. We’ve gotten set up enough. But we’re too much on the perimeter, too much on the outside.

“We’ve probably got to shoot a few more pucks. Get inside. Find some of those seconds (rebound shots off the goaltender), and then good things happen.”

Seattle was 21st in the NHL in power-play goals rate at 19.8% during the regular season. That was when they were getting three power plays per game, on average.

NHL officials tend to let more go and call fewer penalties in the higher-intensity, tighter-checking postseason. The teams combined for 90 hits Thursday. The officials called only four, minor penalties.

The Kraken’s penalty-killing unit has kept scoreless Nathan Mackinnon (111 points on 42 goals and 69 assists in the regular season) and what was the league’s sixth-best power play this season.

On one of Colorado’s four power-play opportunities — more than one fewer on average than the Avalanche averaged per regular-season game — Seattle left winger Brandon Tanev converted a Colorado turnover in its own end into a short-handed goal for Seattle, on a wrist shot over the glove of Georgiev.

That gave the Kraken their shocking, 2-0 lead in the first period of Game 2, and a prime chance to return to Seattle with a 2-0 series lead.

Instead, Colorado dominated the second period and scored the game’s final three goals to even the series.

“Power plays are going to be at a premium. We’ve seen that,” Hakstol said. “We’ve had a couple each game. So you really have to...you’ve got to make good on them. You may not have a great rhythm, because you are not going to have that many. So you’ve just got to be on it.

“And for us, maybe simply a little bit, rather than complicate it more.”