DENVER — For the vast majority of this game, with cheers of “Gruuu!” raining down on the visiting goalie, the Kraken seemed destined to exit their nine-day COVID-19-imposed layoff with a result far stellar than anything seen the past month and a half.
They’d been taking it to one of the league’s better teams, bolstered by goals from Marcus Johansson, Jared McCann and Colin Blackwell and standout goaltending by onetime Colorado Avalanche netminder Philipp Grubauer. But then, some bad habits creeped back in and a questionable goal off a skate led to a disheartening 4-3 loss to Colorado on a Monday night the Kraken likely deserved better.
Nazem Kadri scored the eventual winner with 5:43 to play on a rare odd-man rush allowed by the Kraken. Kadri capped the 3-on-1 chance from the left faceoff circle by beating Grubauer with a short side blast into the top of the net. Fewer than three minutes before, the Avalanche had tied it at 3-3 on a goal off the skate of Devon Toews.
The initial shot came in, bounced off the backboards and then was deflected into the net by Toews off his right skate. It indeed looked as if Toews twisted his skate to direct the puck toward the net, but the Kraken’s video appeal failed to change the call.
Calle Jarnkrok had a chance to tie it on a one-timed, point blank chance in the game’s dying seconds but failed to convert.
It was a tough end to a night in which the Kraken yielded an early goal, the first of two by Nicolas Aube-Kubel, only to bounce back and quickly tie it on a power play marker from Johansson. Then, after killing off an early second period penalty, the Kraken took their first lead of the night when a bad-angled shot from the right corner by McCann found a hole and got by goalie Pavel Francouz.
Then, a Blackwell goal made it 3-1 with just under six minutes to go in the middle frame as he redirected a Jamie Oleksiak blast from the right point.
The home crowd at Ball Arena was stunned, having expected to see their streaking, Stanley Cup favorite Avalanche bury a Kraken side that lately had played its expansion-team role to perfection. As the period wound down, the chants of “Gruuu!” became louder as Kraken goalie Grubauer, making his first appearance in Denver since being claimed from the Avalanche in the expansion draft, seemed to be turning back the clock from what had been a dismal season.
Grubauer just moments before Blackwell’s goal had made a stellar stop of a Nathan Mackinnon blast to get the handful of Kraken fans and a good deal of the home crowd cheering his name as they once had during his standout seasons here. Still, Grubauer couldn’t stop everything and the old Kraken bugaboo of yielding a goal right after scoring one again reared its ugly head fewer than three minutes after Blackwell’s goal.
Grubauer made a couple of stops in close but then the second rebound wound up on Aube-Kubel’s stick before deflecting off defenseman Carson Soucy’s skate and into the net. Aube-Kubel had opened the scoring early in the first when the Kraken yet again got caught up ice for an odd-man rush that ended with him taking a drop pass and wristing the puck home.
But those recurring missteps aside, this wasn’t your typical Kraken affair.
Despite being without Jaden Schwartz until the middle of next month, the Kraken found ways to generate offense early and often. It started with Johansson being placed in Schwartz’s usual tough-work role on a line with McCann and Eberle.
Johansson did the work in close on the Kraken’s first goal, positioning himself in front of the Avalanche net. McCann hit Eberle with a nifty cross-ice pass to the left faceoff circle and then Johansson did the rest by redirecting the ensuing shot beyond Francouz.
Then, on McCann’s go-ahead marker in the second period, it was again Johansson standing near the net. He didn’t get a piece of the puck as the tough-angled shot came in, but his presence likely distracted Francouz just enough to let the puck on by him.
