Kraken fall in Game 5, setting up elimination game at home

DALLAS – Falling behind by two goals before the 6-minute mark wasn’t how the Kraken wanted to begin their biggest game in franchise history.

They’d come out Thursday night doing all they’d pledged: Hitting the Dallas Stars at every opportunity, getting quality shots off early on the shaky opposing goalie and causing general disruption overall. But the seeds of this 5-2 loss in a pivotal Game 5 were sewn by the two early goals allowed just 98 seconds apart, a deficit the Kraken spent the entire night trying to overcome before falling just short.

Wyatt Johnston and Roope Hintz got the early Dallas goals to electrify the American Airlines Center crowd in a period otherwise dominated by the Kraken. Joe Pavelski added another for the Stars just 35 seconds into the middle period for a three-goal cushion.

But the Kraken countered just 84 seconds later when Adam Larsson got them on the board with a wrist shot from the right faceoff circle, followed by Jared McCann notching his first of the playoffs through traffic before the 8-minute mark to get his team within a goal. But that was as close as the Kraken got despite several near misses at tying it.

Hintz then scored his second of the game for some key insurance on a bang-bang pass from Pavelski with 8:40 to go.

The shot hit the inside top of the net before bouncing back out without being ruled a goal, but the tally was confirmed within moments via replay review following a play stoppage.

Radek Faksa added an empty-net goal in the final minutes with Grubauer pulled for an extra attacker.

Dallas leads this best-of-seven Western Conference semifinal series 3-2 with Game 6 scheduled for Saturday afternoon at Climate Pledge Arena.

The Kraken had been all over the Stars in the opening minutes before a missed poke check in their defensive end led to a puck coming back across to Johnston right on Philipp Grubauer’s doorstep. The sensational Dallas rookie didn’t miss putting his team ahead on just their second shot of the game.

Before the crowd had settled down much, Hintz carried the puck into the left faceoff circle and – using defender Will Borgen as a partial screen – unfurled a snapshot that Grubauer was slow to react to as the puck sailed over his glove into the net. That made it 2-0 on just three Dallas shots and sent the Kraken into desperation mode from there. They began trying to flatten every Stars player crossing their path and ran their shot total up to a 14-5 edge by period’s end.

But they couldn’t score before intermission. Just seconds after puck drop to start the middle period, Pavelski cruised into the high slot for a premium scoring chance that Grubauer initially stopped but on which he couldn’t control the rebound.

Pavelski had the puck come right back his way and fired it home for his seventh goal of this series to lead all players.

That might have been the game right there had the Kraken not kept pressing the pace, with Jordan Eberle sliding the puck across to Larsson for the Kraken’s first goal with just 1:59 elapsed in the period.

The quickness of the goal effectively erased Pavelski’s early score and the Kraken kept on coming from there.

They had plenty of good scoring chances before McCann’s first career playoff goal on a rather harmless looking shot that sneaked through a maze of players and deflected in off a Dallas skate.

The crowd tensed up from there, realizing the home team was suddenly in a hockey game and being badly outplayed.

The Stars responded by tightening things up in their end, but Tye Kartye still had a great chance to tie it from point-blank range before Stars forward Faksa deflected the puck away at the last instant.

Much as they had in the opening minutes of the game, the Kraken came out hard in the third period but couldn’t put anything past Oettinger. Dallas tightened into defensive shell, managing just one shot through the first 11 minutes of play.

But on their third shot of the period, Hintz put the puck behind Grubauer.