LOS ANGELES — A three-game win streak, while hardly a Seattle Kraken goal when this inaugural season began, nonetheless looms rather large now that the campaign is just five weeks from ending.
Saturday night’s game against the Los Angeles Kings marked only the fifth time this season the Kraken even had a shot at completing a trio of victories. And as with previous opportunities, the Kraken again couldn’t get it done in a 4-2 loss at Crypto.com Arena that saw them limited offensively by a stifling two-way approach that could send the surprising Kings to the playoffs.
Gabriel Vilardi and Anze Kopitar had put the Kings ahead by a pair with goals late in the first period and early in the second. But Kraken newcomer Daniel Sprong gave the visitors some life with a goal that showed off some of his multifaceted skills.
Sprong first displayed some of his natural speed in taking the puck on his own side of the neutral zone, blowing by flat-footed defender Sean Durzi at center ice and sprinting down the right side toward the Kings’ net. Upon reaching the right faceoff circle, three defenders in hot pursuit, Sprong again displayed some pinpoint shooting by snapping the puck past goaltender Jonathan Quick to get the Kraken on the board at 2-1 with more than half a hockey game to play.
Unfortunately for the Kraken, that would be as good as things got. They failed to generate much on an ensuing power-play chance, then saw Kings defenseman Jordan Spence score his first NHL goal on a long wrist shot through traffic from the right point to make it 3-1 with 4:13 to go in the middle frame.
And that would be all the Kings needed to take the first of back-to-back games against the Kraken here over a three-night span. Durzi added a fourth Kings goal on the power play early in the third period when a shot caromed off the end boards and straight to his stick before Grubauer could get over to cover the open side of the net.
Morgan Geekie scored with four seconds to play but it was too little, too late.
There is nothing in hockey’s official or unofficial rule book that designates a three-game win streak as the sign of a good team. But failing to register a successive trio of victories at any point in a season typically tells a sorry tale of an inability to generate any positive momentum.
To hear the Kraken players tell it, a lack of momentum and consistency has indeed been a season-long affliction. The consecutive wins heading into Saturday’s contest marked the first time since January they’d even managed that. On the flip side, the Kraken have allowed negative momentum to snowball at various points, with three losing streaks of at least six games — including a season-long stretch of nine straight defeats.
And while the Kraken have managed to stay close in many of those losses, they’ll be the first to mention that results are what matter in professional sports. An inability to turn chances into results is largely what got their new teammate, Sprong, traded to the Kraken from the Washington Capitals along with some draft picks for Marcus Johansson last Monday.
One of the first things Sprong opined was that he needed to make the most of any opportunities in close. That he did for the second straight game, making sure not to miss the net with his chance.
But on a much broader scale, the Kraken, despite staying in this game with some tight checking, couldn’t convert a victorious result given their own scoring chances were few and far between. Instead, it was the Kings capitalizing with greater frequency starting with Vilardi’s first period deflection goal on an Olli Maatta shot from the left point.
Then, it was Kings captain Kopitar finishing the play when a nice dish from Alex Iafallo gave him an in-close chance on Grubauer from the right side. Kopitar shoveled the puck to his left, past Grubauer’s poke check attempt, then backhanded it into the net.
Spence’s goal to put the Kings up by two was more luck than skill, threading the needle through a bevy of players. But that’s kind of how things have gone this season for the Kraken, who now must look from scratch to start their next streak attempt.
