SEATTLE — The Blackhawks had no answer for the Kraken’s offense throughout the season series, and that trend culminated Saturday in a 7-3 loss.
Hawks goalie Petr Mrazek certainly wasn’t great, stopping only 24 of 31 shots against, but he wasn’t the only problem.
“We weren’t as defensively sound as we wanted to be,” Seth Jones said. “Coming through the neutral zone and on the rush...we just put Petr in some tough spots [with] turnovers right in the slot. They score a lot of goals; they’re going to capitalize on some of those plays.”
The third pair of Jarred Tinordi and Wyatt Kaiser — two defensemen who had never played together before — struggled mightily. A Tinordi turnover directly led to the Kraken’s fifth goal, and he finished minus-five before leaving late when he re-aggravated his nagging hip injury.
The Hawks were still in the game for a while, though, thanks to two goals by Jones and two points by Reichel in the latter’s final NHL game of the season. Jujhar Khaira nearly cut the deficit to 5-4 in the second period, but his tap-in was overturned as offside.
Not until a Caleb Jones error gave the Kraken their sixth goal with eight minutes left was the game put out of reach.
“We started turning pucks over and started going sideways and got off our game plan,” coach Luke Richardson said. “And then we turned pucks back at the blue line. They’re just too quick a team to turn pucks backward. They’re going to just eat you up.”
The Kraken — who entered the night with a ridiculous 11.6% team shooting percentage — buried 19 goals in three games against the Hawks this season, losing 5-4 and winning 8-5 in their two visits to Chicago. Daniel Sprong and Jamie Oleksiak each tallied three points Saturday.
Jonathan Toews logged exactly 16 minutes, tallying five shots, one penalty and a minus-two rating.
Elsewhere around the NHL on Saturday, the Ducks earned one standings point in a seesaw 5-4 overtime loss to the Coyotes, moving up to 57 points and helping the Hawks’ tanking objective.
The Blue Jackets lost 4-0 to the Rangers and remain tied with the Hawks at 56 points each — with three games left for both teams. The Hawks return home having lost 10 of their last 11 games.
