Kraken 3, Islanders 2: Strong effort falls short as Isles sag late in the third

The Isles picked up where they left off in Vancouver, but Seattle’s late push took both points.

The Islanders played about 50 minutes of a really good, almost ideal road game in Seattle on Saturday afternoon, but a mistake and a bounce in the third period ended up leaving them without a point to show for their efforts.

The 3-2 outcome stings, but their approach, really picking up where they left off the other night in Vancouver, was a promising sign. Nothing flashy, but all four lines looked in sync again as they put pucks to good places and consistently covered for each other to keep plays alive.

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After a strong start by the Islanders, they conceded the first goal on a bit of poor luck. Brandon Tanev circled the net and sent a shot that bounced off Yanni Gourde’s upper body and dropped into the net behind Ilya Sorokin.

That was at 8:10, but the Isles didn’t let it dent their play. And at 13:38, for the second game in a row Pierre Engvall scored on a rebound by going to the net and outmaneuvering his man. Ryan Pulock blasted the initial shot, which caromed perfectly for Engvall, though he had to be quick to get his stick on the puck first.

The reached both intermissions still tied 1-1, as the second period was scoreless and a little less eventful than the first. Still, the way the Isles were playing at 5-on-5 — and surviving a second penalty kill — was promising.

In the third period, the Kraken’s third power play of the game looked like it might be a pivotal moment, pushing the Isles’ luck after their struggling penalty kill had killed the first two. But instead of cashing it in for the lead, the Kraken conceded a shorthanded goal. Noah Dobson got to a bouncing puck in the Isles zone while Brock Nelson drifted deep in the neutral zone to receive Dobson’s bank pass. Nelson broke down the left wing and made a deke, which Kraken goalie Joey Daccord disrupted, but Nelson was able to reach in and shovel the rebound slowly over the line.

If that looked like it would be the feel-good moment on the way to a win, the feeling didn’t last long. Just 37 seconds later, Scott Mayfield took a puzzling route to the left side to join Ryan Pulock, who needed no help, and that left Jared McCann a wide open lane through the middle to receive a pass and beat Ilya Sorokin from the slot with a shot inside the post.

That shift in fortunes seemed to lift Seattle’s spirits, and they steadily improved for their best stretch of the game.

Ten minutes later, a Jamie Oleksiak shot from the point had eyes through a Brock Nelson screen and trickled over the line to give Seattle a 3-2 lead with 3:15 to go. In a desperate move, the Islanders challenged for goaltender interference since Tanev had bumped Sorokin before the shot. But Sorokin had time to push off and face the shot, and the real impactful variable was Nelson’s screen. The challenge, which the Isles probably made only because they’ve seen similar calls puzzlingly given, was denied.

So the Kraken went to the power play to help burn two of the final three-plus minutes left in regulation. Toward the end of a PK shift, Nelson had a golden breakaway chance to get a second shorty and tie the game, but Daccord stopped Nelson’s low-blocker shot from the mid slot.

The Isles had a few more beefs with the officials in the final minute — a bizarre icing waiving of icing when no Islander could’ve legally played the puck, then a refusal to add a few more seconds back on the clock after the Kraken shot a puck off the crossbar of the empty net and out of play. But those moments didn’t really matter. It just wasn’t their day, despite their best efforts.

Up Next

So that’s game three of this five-game trip in the books. They’ll be in Calgary on Tuesday and then wrap it up in Detroit on Thursday.