January 4, 2023 by Ryan Lotsberg

The Edmonton Oilers beat the Seattle Kraken 7-2 in Seattle on Friday night. The Oilers were up 2-0 in the rematch in Edmonton on Tuesday night. The Kraken apparently took being outscored 9-2 in four periods and some change personally. They exploded for four goals in the middle frame. The Kraken beat the Oilers 5-2, handing them their fifth straight home loss in the process.

Call Outs:

The Oilers had a 11:04 stretch where they played terrible hockey, and it cost them dearly. They surrendered four goals in that time. Seattle got a bit of a lucky bounce on a powerplay goal, and that gave them a spark. Jaden Schwartz tied the game just 31 seconds after they got their first one. The Kraken started outworking the Oilers and taking it to them. Mistakes happen, but the Oilers can’t have lengthy lapses like that and expect to win games. Once again, they shot themselves in the foot with their sloppy play.

Schwartz got lost before his goal. The Kraken were all over the Oilers in the offensive zone, and there was a delayed penalty being called on the Oilers. Tyson Barrie lost his man somewhere along the way and found himself standing in the slot covering air. Brett Kulak went out to block a shot attempt, but he let Schwartz go below the goal line. Kulak drifted towards Barrie, which meant that they were both covering air. Schwartz snuck behind the two and received a great pass from Matty Beniers, and he tucked it past Stuart Skinner.

Related: Call Outs, Standouts, and Shout Outs: Oilers Beat Stars 6-3

Evan Bouchard had a chance to clear a rebound in the high slot. Yanni Gourde checked Bouchard’s stick, which prevented him from clearing the puck; but Bouchard’s movements just looked slow on the play. The puck bounced to Eli Tolvanen whose backhand hit Gourde before he fired it home. 

Bouchard looked particularly bad there, but I’m cutting him a tiny little bit of slack after seeing that Gourde checked his stick. Gourde was Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’s man. Nugent-Hokins was there, but he lost position on him and basically let Gourde check Bouchard and then score.

The fourth Kraken goal was a pretty passing play. Schwartz took a shot from the corner. Skinner got a glove on it, but the rebound bounced into the slot right to Alex Wennberg. Wennberg cut across the slot then passed it back across the grain to a cutting Jared McCann for an easy goal. McCann was Kulak’s man. Kulak had him high in the zone, then got caught puck watching as McCann darted by him. Skinner will want that shot from the corner back, but Kulak has to do a better job of staying with his man there.

Standouts:

Connor McDavid scored his league leading 34th goal of the season. He received a sweet touch pass from Mattias Janmark in the neutral zone, saw a lane, and blew past Carson Soucy before casually sliding it past Martin Jones.

Shout Outs:

Darnell Nurse was the only Oilers defenceman to finish the night with a plus rating. Nurse had three shots, four hits, and a block in 24:44 of ice time, and the shots were 23-16 (58.97%) at five-on-five with Nurse on the ice.

Nugent-Hopkins notched his 19th goal of the season and his seventh powerplay goal. Janmark now has an assist in each of the last three games. Klim Kostin led the team with five hits in only 8:47 of ice time.

That was a missed opportunity for the Oilers. They could have gone two points up on the Kraken and a point ahead of the Flames with a win, but instead they sit two points behind the Kraken and a point behind the Flames. The worse news is that the Kraken have three games in hand on the Oilers. They’re still within striking distance, but they’ve made the chore a little bit harder on themselves because they fell asleep for 11:04 on Tuesday night.

They will have to regroup and try to find a way to beat Ilya Sorokin and the New York Islanders on Thursday night.