No Excuses- Seattle Kraken Lose Game 3
The Seattle Kraken dropped Game 3 last night, 6-4 to the Colorado Avalanche. I find me sittin’ by myself, no excuses then I know (sorry, Alice in Chains reference). In a series with massive momentum shifts, the Avalanche reclaim home ice advantage after beating the Kraken in their first ever postseason home game.
The Avalanche star power was in full force. No excuses for the Kraken; Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, and Cale Makar single handedly beat the Kraken. This tells you how great these three players are.
The Avs have three of the top ten players in the world. Those three are so much better than everybody else on the ice. The Kraken need to go back to what was working and fast.
The momentum is all in Colorado’s favor. As predicted, Game 3 featured more scoring. Both teams are past the ‘feeling out‘ stage and are now doing their thing. The Kraken have much better depth than Colorado and should be able to limit the scoring chances of Colorado’s 3rd and 4th lines.
The positives for Seattle is that the team scored 4 goals, and the top line started to heat up. Matty Beniers scored a clutch goal, and Jared McCann and Jordan Eberle finally registered a point in the series with an assist each.
Jaden Schwartz has been elite. If you have watched the games he looks like he’s ‘been here before’. His composure and leadership on the ice are worth of donning the ‘C’ next season.
Goalie Phillipp Grubauer allowed 5 goals, and for the first time this series, did not look like the dominating goalie that he has been. For the fans who have hit the panic button, a goalie change is not needed (yet). It is common after a tough loss like this to consider a move in net, especially when you have Martin Jones who won 27 games in the regular season.
I guess all things considered, this is a good problem to have. Do not let this become a distraction. Grubauer is the starting goalie. He has played incredibly well. Stay the course.
It is clear that the Kraken need to make some coaching adjustments before tomorrow night’s game. The Avalanche have the opportunity to essentially put the Kraken away with a win. It is almost impossible to come back from being down 3 games to 1.
As mentioned before, the Stanley Cup playoffs are a marathon, not a race. The team needs to not panic, but regroup, and figure out which adjustments to make to slow down Avs top end talent. In my opinion, tomorrow night will decide (not officially) this series. Stay tuned.
I still think the Kraken win this series in 6 games.
Fear the deep!