Kraken open key road trip against Predators with wild-card grip slipping
By the time the Seattle Kraken return home, the Mariners will have started their baseball season and NBA owners will likely have voted on whether the SuperSonics will be one of the league's next expansion franchises.
And the Kraken might have a better sense of their postseason chances.
Seattle opens a lengthy six-game trip Thursday in Nashville, clinging to the Western Conference's second and final wild-card berth.
The Kraken (31-27-9, 71 points) are currently tied with Los Angeles, with San Jose one point back and Nashville two behind.
The Kraken are 4-7-0 since the Olympic break, despite having played eight of their past nine games at home.
That includes a 6-2 loss on Tuesday against Tampa Bay, where three goals were directly linked to turnovers and another resulted from an odd-man rush caused by a sloppy Seattle line change.
"For the most part, it was a fairly even game. Our mistakes were really catastrophic," Kraken coach Lane Lambert said. "Obviously, some really, really poor decisions.
"We're making some mistakes here that you can't make. I'm not going to say they're uncharacteristic because, apparently, they aren't at the moment. But you can't make these mistakes. As for the game itself, we gave them the goals in my mind anyway. And they buried them."
Bobby McMann and Jared McCann scored for Seattle. McMann has four goals and two assists in three games since being acquired from Toronto at the trade deadline.
The Kraken trimmed a three-goal deficit to 3-2 in the second period before Tampa Bay pulled away in the third.
"I think it shows some resilience in this group," McMann said. "We're able to claw back against good teams that are pressing hard. And then I'm also proud to prove the way that we did alter our game and kind of change things up and try and generate more offense, because that's not always easy to do."
The Predators (30-28-9, 69 points) return home after a five-game trip in which they went 2-2-1, including a 4-2 win on March 10 at Seattle. Juuse Saros tied a season high with 43 saves in that game, giving Nashville a chance to come back from a two-goal deficit.
The Predators, who play five of their next six games at home, wrapped up the trip with a 4-3 shootout victory Tuesday in Winnipeg.
"Last game of a road trip, and it's a big one for us," said rookie Predators forward Matthew Wood, who scored in regulation. "Those games are fun to play in -- close games, meaningful games. It was fun to come out with the two points."
Ryan O'Reilly scored the lone goal in the shootout and Saros grounded the Jets.
"I'm proud of the group," Predators coach Andrew Brunette said. "I mean, it hasn't been easy. We've gone through all kinds of different things. It's been a little bit of a roller-coaster ride in a lot of different ways, and we've stayed together. Credit to the veterans, they've hung in there, they've pushed the young kids, they've pushed each other, and they're hungry. I think they want to make a statement. And we're in this fight, and I expect us to continue to be in it."