SUNRISE, Florida – A somewhat bewildered Shane Wright stood trying to dissect what happened to the Kraken in a road trip finale in which he scored the only goal that could have mattered for his team.
Wright’s tying first period conversion of a Berkly Catton net front pass in Saturday’s eventual 8-3 loss to the Florida Panthers nearly got a sluggish looking Kraken team to the first intermission on even footing. But then a pair of Carter Verhaeghe goals with roughly two minutes to go in the period and another by him to complete a natural hat trick along with a Niko Mikkola marker the opening seven minutes of the middle frame put this one away.
“Hard to pinpoint just one thing,” Wright said of what went wrong. “Just not our night. They were obviously a much better team. We’ve got to get home and forget about them.”
Forget about the Panthers certainly, on a night they became the first team in NHL history to record natural hat tricks of three uninterrupted goals in three consecutive games between Verhaeghe’s effort here and two prior contests that saw Brady Tchachuk accomplish the feat. Sam Bennett had a Florida hat trick as well and Sam Reinhart also scored for the Panthers while Freddy Gaudreau and Ryker Evans countered for the Kraken along with Wright.
Kraken goalie Joey Daccord gave up a career high eight goals on 38 shots though the fact he was left in for the duration is an indicator few, if any, were truly his fault.
But the Kraken won’t want to forget much else about a five-city, 10-day road trip that saw them go 3-1-1 as they now return for six of the next seven contests at Climate Pledge Arena. And though none of the Kraken, including head coach Lane Lambert, was citing fatigue as a factor after this one, the reality is it looked like this trip had dragged on about two days too long.
The Kraken had done well to build their record early in the trip as the mileage they incurred began piling up. After regulation wins in Detroit and Washington, D.C., they blew a two-goal, third period lead in Philadelphia ahead of prevailing in a shootout, then mounted a late rally for an overtime loss at Tampa Bay before the forgettable outcome here at Amerant Bank Arena.
“I mean, it’s seven out of 10 points so it’s not that everything’s bad news right now,” Wright said. “Obviously, it sucks to end that way but I think that overall, as a whole, the road trip was good for us. Really a lot of good points for us.”