ANAHEIM, California — Playing the part here of what their coach termed a “real good, consistent road team” — as they’d done 24 hours prior in San Jose — was seen as the Kraken’s ticket to capping a successful back-to-back road trip against divisional foes.
That doesn’t mean the kind of hockey meant to entertain opposing home fans; more like frustrate them. But the Kraken kept the Wednesday night home crowd at the Honda Center a little too entertained early on and it cost them big in a 4-1 loss to the Anaheim Ducks that let two more crucial Pacific Division points slip away.
The Kraken’s victory in San Jose on Tuesday had been produced with a combination of tight defense that pounced on loose pucks and quality goaltending that didn’t give an inch.
That wasn’t the case this time around as first-period goals by Trevor Zegras and Derek Grant put the Kraken in a hole before Troy Terry made it 3-0 on the power play fewer than two minutes into the second to delight the 14,762 thoroughly entertained home fans.
From there, the Kraken tightened up defensively and did get back in it with a Ryan Donato powerplay marker late in the second on a one-timed, cross-ice pass from Jordan Eberle.
But it was too late to avoid a defeat that sends them to 10-16-3 on another night when goalie Philipp Grubauer wasn’t at his finest in the early going. Grubauer wound up in a goalmouth collision with Sam Carrick after the latter was shoved from behind by Jaden Schwartz.
Both players were penalized — Carrick for not doing enough to avoid Grubauer — while the goalie looked to have grazed his head against his goalpost in crashing to the ice.
Chris Driedger, who’d stopped 33 of 34 shots the night before, came on to replace Grubauer to start the third period with the Kraken having narrowed their deficit to two goals. But Carrick restored the three-goal cushion at 8:19 by playing a carom off the end boards and firing it home from the side of the net before Driedger could get over in time.
Driedger had given up a pair of similar goals off end board caroms in Buffalo last month before going out with an injury.
The first-period goals by Anaheim both came on long rushes up the ice, something the Kraken had avoided against the Sharks. Zegras carried the puck into the Kraken end, cut across the ice and, using Rickard Rackell as a screen, easily beat Grubauer with a wrist shot to open the scoring 10:04 in.
Jared McCann had been guarding Rickell and wound up falling into his own net.
Then, just over five minutes later, the Kraken were on the power play when Grant picked up the puck and raced down the left side. Grant was allowed to get a little too deep into the left faceoff circle, though Grubauer still appeared to have the angle on him with nobody in front to obstruct his view.
Still, Grant was able to place a shot under Grubauer’s left pad to make it a 2-0 game.
Grubauer struggled his first time out against the Ducks in a 7-4 loss at home last month, allowing multiple goals from long distances or with a clear view of shots from difficult angles. While the Grant goal wasn’t horrible given how deep in the zone he’d gotten, it was the kind of shot the Kraken expect Grubauer to stop more often than not.
Unlike Tuesday night, when Dreidger was stopping almost everything and his defensemen were bailing him out the few times he didn’t, none of that mutual help was occurring in the early going of this one.
Mark Giordano took a penalty just 45 seconds into the middle frame and Troy Terry made it a 3-0 game on the ensuing power play by jumping on the kind of loose puck the Kraken had gotten to so often the night before. As the puck bounced around off a couple of skates, Terry was allowed to coral it in the slot and wrist one over Grubauer’s left shoulder after he’d dropped to the ice early on the play.
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