Devils hand defenseless Kraken 8th loss in past 10 games
NEWARK, N.J. — About the best support Kraken goalie Joey Daccord received all night came midway through Monday’s game when the video replay folks overruled what would have been a fourth goal against him.
But that brief reprieve from a New Jersey Devils onslaught, with goaltender interference the savior, couldn’t make a difference in a game where the undermanned Kraken defenders abandoned their netminder. This 3-1 loss was mostly done by the halfway mark, with the Devils outshooting the Kraken 27-7 to that point and Daccord seeking a place to hide from screaming rubber flung at him from all directions.
Will Borgen finally got the Kraken on the board in a three-goal game with a wrist shot from the top of the right faceoff circle right at the 10-minute mark of the final period. By then, it was still mainly Daccord keeping the Kraken with any signs of life.
An early lower-body injury to Kraken defenseman Brian Dumoulin meant his team was down a defender for more than 2½ periods, forcing a scrambling of pairings the rest of the way. The Kraken did get defenseman Justin Schultz back after he missed Saturday’s game due to personal reasons, so he’ll be ready to go on Tuesday against the New York Islanders if the injury keeps Dumoulin out.
But in any event, the Kraken, who’ve lost eight of their last 10, need to figure things out. They didn’t look sharp heading into the All-Star break and have gotten even worse with the 11-day layoff between games.
Daccord kept things scoreless until the final seven minutes of the opening period when Tyler Toffoli slapped one by him from the high slot off Brandon Tanev’s skate to open the scoring. The power play goal was the first for the Devils following a slump of 0-19.
But things escalated in a hurry by the middle period, when Matty Beniers gave the puck away in his own end and Devils scoring star Jack Hughes put one by Daccord up high from a terrible angle at the side of the net. Beniers took one more shift after that goal, then waited 11 more minutes before seeing the ice again.
By period’s end, he was back taking a regular shift and on the power play, but his team was down 3-0 by that point — with Dawson Mercer slamming home a rebound off an odd-man rush — and only the video replay crew kept it from being 4-0.
Fewer than six minutes remained in the period by the time Yanni Gourde registered the first Kraken shot off a breakaway chance. But Devils backup goalie Nico Daws — subbing for the ill and injured Vitek Vanecek — made the stop.
New Jersey held a 16-0 edge in shots that second period before Gourde’s chance. And though the Kraken managed to slow the shot barrage against them a bit, they’ve still yielded 70-plus in their first two games back off the break.