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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Kraken fall into early hole during blowout loss to Red Wings

Kate Shefte Seattle Times

There would be no unlikely comeback Sunday afternoon as the Kraken plunged too far, too fast.

The Detroit Red Wings scored their first two goals 11 seconds apart and didn’t stop there. Visiting Seattle trailed by four less than eight minutes into the game and trudged through a 6-2 drubbing.

Seattle goaltender Philipp Grubauer was chased from his second straight start and Joey Daccord, who played the previous day in Buffalo, entered in relief with the Kraken already down 3-0.

Not great, Bob.

“We can’t get to our game,” assistant coach Bob Woods told KHN during the intermission. “You can’t spot teams leads and expect to come back all the time. It’s frustrating for everybody in there, and we’ve got to…figure that out.”

In two of the Kraken’s three victories since Dec. 14, they had to erase multigoal leads. One day earlier against the Sabres they recouped two Buffalo goals and went on to score six unanswered.

But the Kraken (18-22-3, 13th Western Conference) have had a hard time with weekend back-to-backs, and that trend continued. This is their fifth of the season, four of which have come on the road. All five Sunday games have been losses, and three of those were shutouts.

You can say this, and maybe only this, for the Detroit game — it wasn’t a shutout. Oliver Bjorkstrand ended an 11-game goal drought Saturday and made it two games in a row, ending Cam Talbot’s shutout bid with two minutes remaining in the second period. The Kraken were already down 6-0.

One other thing worth noting is Matty Beniers’ line with Kaapo Kakko and Jaden Schwartz looked a little better than the rest. Beniers scored on a setup from Schwartz to make it 6-2 Red Wings nearly eight minutes into the third period.

All three games so far on this five-game road trip have finished 6-2. Columbus and Detroit won by that score and Buffalo lost.

The third-ranked Detroit power play scored three times. Bjorkstrand’s goal came on the man advantage as well, for Seattle’s 23rd-ranked unit.

Grubauer allowed three goals on four shots and lasted just 6:16. The defensive meltdowns didn’t stop when Daccord (16 saves, .842 save percentage) entered. He allowed a goal on the second shot he faced, 97 seconds after the previous one.

Adam Larsson, Shane Wright and Eeli Tolvanen all foolishly closed in on puck carrier Erik Gustafsson along the boards, leaving Vince Dunn to fend off three Red Wings players alone. He tried to cut off the pass but Patrick Kane was waiting at the back door to whack in Detroit’s fourth of the day.