All good things must come to an end.
Beating the Seattle Kraken has become an inevitability for the Oilers in the past couple of years. That changed on Thursday when the league’s newest team snapped a nine-game losing streak against an exhausted, injured Edmonton squad.
After falling 4-3 to the Dallas Stars in a playoff-calibre game in Edmonton on Wednesday, the Oilers jumped right on the plane to Seattle for a game against the Kraken the following night. With the visiting team down their top two players because of injury, this reeked of a scheduled loss for Edmonton.
The Oilers got through the first period tied 0-0 and then the wheels fell off in the second. Seattle rallied for five goals in the middle frame and chased goaltender Calvin Pickard from the net heading into the third. The two teams exchanged goals in the final 20 minutes and the Kraken cruised to a 6-1 victory, their first against Edmonton since January of 2023.
Head coach Kris Knbolauch said after the game that he hopes this poor showing was just a “one-off” for a team that had strung together some strong efforts recently.
“The efforts for the last few games had been really good,” Knoblauch said. “Some of the games maybe could have went other ways, but tonight, we definitely didn’t deserve to win. Hopefully, that’s just a one-off.”
Leading scorer Leon Draisaitl went down with an injury a couple of weeks ago in a win over the Utah Hockey Club and captain Connor McDavid was injured in the following game against the Winnipeg Jets. The Oilers beat the Kraken in their first game without both star forwards but have dropped back-to-back games since.
They’ll now return home to host the Calgary Flames on Saturday for the third and final regular season Battle of Alberta. The Flames are six points back of the St. Louis Blues for the second Wild Card spot in the Western Conference so this is another game that’ll bring a playoff energy to Edmonton.
“[We’ll] get some rest tomorrow and back at it again on Saturday,” Winger Zach Hyman said after the game. “It’s an easy one to get up for. We haven’t played those guys in a while, and they’re in the hunt for a playoff spot, so it’ll be a good game.”
The only positive to draw from Thursday’s game in Seattle came from the out-of-town scoreboard. The Los Angeles Kings played the Colorado Avalanche on the road and lost 4-0. They’re still two points up on the Oilers for second place in the Pacific Division with one game in hand.
