The six-game trip the Seattle Kraken just completed was supposed to make or break their playoff chances.<\/p>\n
It did neither.<\/p>\n
Despite going just 1-3-2, the Kraken (32-30-11, 75 points) remain only three points out of the Western Conference\u2019s second and final wild-card spot entering a Thursday home game against the Utah Mammoth (38-30-6, 82 points), who lead the West\u2019s wild-card chase.<\/p>\n
However, the Kraken did drop into sixth place in the tightly bunched race.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know where we are,\u201d Seattle center Matty Beniers said of the standings after a 3-0 loss at Edmonton on Tuesday. \u201cObviously, tonight was very important, and we didn\u2019t get it done. But there\u2019s just no reason to dwell on it now. It\u2019s learn from it and win the next one. And then, it\u2019s win the next one. And that\u2019s the mentality that we have in here.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Kraken scored just 13 goals on the six-game trip.<\/p>\n
After Seattle fell behind 2-0 in the first period on Tuesday, coach Lane Lambert reunited the top line of Beniers, Jared McCann and captain Jordan Eberle to no avail.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s easy to say that we\u2019re just not scoring and that\u2019s why we\u2019re losing,\u201d McCann said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019re doing a lot of good other things. We\u2019re creating good offense and playing good defensively. But we\u2019re just not finding the back of the net.\u201d<\/p>\n
McCann believes there is still time for a playoff push.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got to worry about our game,\u201d he said. \u201cObviously, the division right now is a little crazy with how things are going with all the teams and that they all have a chance still to make the playoffs. It\u2019s obviously a blessing. And we\u2019ve got to take advantage of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mammoth have taken control of the West\u2019s wild-card race despite going just 8-7-2 since the Olympic break. They own a four-point edge on the Los Angeles Kings, who occupy the second wild-card spot, and a five-point advantage over the next teams in line, the San Jose Sharks and Nashville Predators.<\/p>\n
Utah has been idle since a 6-2 victory Saturday at Los Angeles. Alexander Kerfoot and Logan Cooley each scored twice while Mikhail Sergachev had four assists.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve almost got, like, a youthful excitement to our team, where we haven\u2019t had any scars,\u201d said Kerfoot, referring to the franchise\u2019s last playoff appearance in 2020 as the Arizona Coyotes. \u201cFor the most part, we\u2019re not scared of much, not scared of failing, and so we just got to kind of enjoy the moment, keep that as long as we can, realize that these are hard games to win and the job is far from done, but we\u2019re in a good spot.\u201d<\/p>\n
This will be the third and final regular-season meeting between Utah and Seattle. The Mammoth won the first two, both played in Salt Lake City. Utah came out on top 5-3 on Dec. 12 as Nick Schmaltz had a goal and two assists, then triumphed 6-3 on Jan. 17 as Nate Schmidt produced two goals and two assists, including the go-ahead goal with 5:30 remaining in the third period.<\/p>\n
Mammoth coach Andre Tourigny said the four-day break between games gave his team a chance to recover and refocus.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s important at this time of the year,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a different break than others in the sense that we need to take it really seriously and manage it right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The six-game trip the Seattle Kraken just completed was supposed to make or break their playoff chances. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5130],"tags":[5,4188,4,2686,234,5318],"class_list":{"0":"post-536276","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-kraken","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-kraken","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-kraken","13":"tag-seattlekraken"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116334365617816083","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}