Kraken in a Wild Showdown

SEATTLE – It took the Minnesota Wild exactly 26 seconds to take the air out of Climate Pledge Arena on Saturday night. The Kraken never got it back.

Minnesota beat Seattle 5-1, snapping a two-game skid of its own and sending the Kraken to 7-4-1 on the young season. The Wild (7-3-2) had started their five-game road trip 0-1-1, and they needed this one. They looked like a team that knew it.

For Seattle, the night had a familiar shape. The Kraken got a jolt of life late in the first, then watched a one-goal game turn into a three-goal game inside of 11 minutes in the second. Joey Daccord was good for stretches. It wasn’t enough, because the guys in front of him couldn’t generate enough offense to climb back.

Kaprizov Needs Half a Minute

Kirill Kaprizov didn’t ease into this one. Off a Wild breakaway, he skated down the left wing, got past defenseman Vince Dunn, cut across the front of the net and lifted a backhander over a sprawling Daccord. That’s 26 seconds into the game, and the building went quiet.

It was Kaprizov’s 12th goal in 12 games this season. That ties him with Edmonton’s Leon Draisaitl for the NHL lead, and it’s a pace that should make every goalie on Minnesota’s schedule a little uneasy.

Dunn took responsibility afterward. He called Minnesota’s forecheck “very untraditional.” He said he knew the Wild would take off the other way, and that he needed to be more aware and be the safety valve for his teammates. That’s the right way to own it, and it’s worth noting how quickly it happened. Seattle had barely settled into the game.

Catton Fires Back

To the Kraken’s credit, they didn’t fold. Michael McCarron tripped Berkly Catton, and Seattle went to the power play. The man advantage expired, and one second later Catton tied it at 10:13 of the first.

It was a clean passing play, and it started on the back end. Brandon Montour worked it from the blue line to Kaapo Kakko at the net front. Kakko didn’t hold it. He moved it across to Catton, who lifted a wrist shot that hit Jesper Wallstedt’s shoulder, went off the post and in.

Kakko explained the idea after the game. Montour keeps the pressure on all the time, and Kakko’s job is to find the soft spots down low near the net. He knew Catton was coming into the play as well. The pass was just there to be made.

Catton finished the night with five shots, the most of any Kraken skater, and his goal extended his point streak to four games. He has five points in that stretch (one goal, four assists). Seattle got a lot of mileage out of that line on the power play, and at 1-1 with the building into it, there was a real feeling the game could swing.

It didn’t.

The Second Period Gets Away

The turning point was a sequence that started as a Seattle opportunity. Late in the first, Blake Coleman fell onto Daccord while trying to play the puck and was sent off for goaltender interference. The penalty ran into the second, so the Kraken began the middle frame on the power play.

They couldn’t convert, and that’s where it flipped. Coleman exited the box, and just 11 seconds after his penalty ended, he was gone. Seattle had a bad change, and Minnesota defenseman Matt Kiersted saw it and sprung Coleman with a stretch pass. Coleman went in alone and snapped one off the right post and in. It was 2-1 at 2:11 of the second.

That is a brutal way to give up a goal. Seattle had just had the man advantage, got nothing, and then gave up a breakaway on the change. Coleman liked the bounce and credited Kiersted for the heads-up play, and he’s right to. It was a good read and a good pass.

From there, Minnesota took over.

• 11:33: Olli Maatta stepped into a wrist shot from the point, through traffic and past Daccord’s glove. It was 3-1, and it was a shot Daccord never really saw.

• 13:00: Joel Eriksson Ek made it 4-1, just 1:27 later. Matt Boldy fired from the top of the left circle, Daccord made the save but couldn’t smother the rebound, and Eriksson Ek won the race to it. He partially fanned on the puck, but it popped up, floated over Daccord and across the line.

That fourth goal is the one Kraken coach Lane Lambert singled out. It was a short rebound, he said, and it hurt, especially because Daccord had been strong on the penalty kill earlier in the game. Two minutes of Minnesota pressure, one soft bounce, and a one-goal game was a three-goal game.

Minnesota coach John Hynes pointed to the second period as the difference. His team managed the puck better, got to its game more, and was more effective in the offensive zone.

The Third Period

There wasn’t much drama. Seattle pulled Daccord for the extra attacker with 7:05 left in regulation, looking for a way back in. It didn’t work. Coleman hit the empty net at 16:24 for his second of the night and the 5-1 final.

Coleman’s line deserves a mention. He played with McCarron and Bobby Brink, and he said afterward that the trio had good looks and is still building chemistry. Hynes liked the whole lineup’s effort, and the stat sheet backs it up. Minnesota’s depth showed up on a night when Kaprizov’s early goal could have been the story by itself.

Where the Kraken Lost It

A few things stand out when you look at the game as a whole.

They controlled the faceoff dot and still lost by four. Seattle won 41 of 63 draws (65.1%). Matty Beniers went 10-for-17, Ben Meyers 6-for-7, and Freddy Gaudreau 6-for-11. Minnesota’s Danila Yurov, by comparison, won just 6 of 19. Faceoffs are supposed to turn into possession, and possession is supposed to turn into chances. That didn’t happen.

The power play stayed quiet. Seattle went 0-for-3 with the man advantage, and Minnesota was 0-for-2. The

Kraken’s best special-teams moment, the Catton goal, came one second after a power play expired, so it counted at even strength.

The offense dried up. Seattle put up 24 shots, and Wallstedt stopped 23 of them. Hynes’s team blocked 16 shots and made it hard to get to the net. Lambert said the Wild played a solid team game, were back with numbers, and were hard to penetrate. To get through that, he said, the Kraken have to win more battles.

Daccord has been hung out to dry. He made 31 saves, but he’s now allowed at least three goals in four straight starts. That’s a stat that needs context. Over that stretch he’s also seen eight goals go in against Florida, and he’s faced a Detroit team and a Utah team that scored three each. Goaltending is part of the conversation, but the team in front of him has given up a lot too.

What It Means

The Kraken are still in a decent spot at 7-4-1, but this was a reminder of how thin the margin is. Three of Seattle’s last six games went past regulation. Two of the last three results were a shootout win over Detroit and a 5-3 win over Utah. The Kraken have been grinding out points, and on Saturday they ran into a team that wasn’t going to let them grind.

The Wild have now won six straight against Seattle, and they have points in seven straight games against the Kraken (6-0-1) dating to Oct. 12, 2024. Quinn Hughes picked up an assist, giving him 499 career points. He has a point in 10 of Minnesota’s 12 games this season.

There’s also bad news on the Seattle injury front. Forward Jared McCann was placed on injured reserve Saturday with a lower-body injury. Lambert said the timeline would be “a bit,” and the NHL’s status report headline put it at 10 weeks. That’s a significant loss for a team that’s already searching for offense.

Up Next

The Kraken return to Climate Pledge Arena on Wednesday, Oct. 28, to host the Toronto Maple Leafs at 7 p.m. PT. After that, it’s a quick trip to Calgary on Friday, Oct. 30, at 5 p.m. PT.