Jordan Eberle did not spend three months repeating for this.
The Seattle Kraken captain returned last week after undergoing surgery for a rare pelvic injury, just to find his team flounder.
With 22 regular seasonal games left, the Kraken is 11 points behind Vancouver Canucks, which they will host on Saturday night, for Western Conference’s second and final playoffs. Four other teams are between Vancouver and Seattle in the hunt.
With her playoffs Slim, Eberle said that the Kraken would look for some kind of silver lining.
“The biggest thing is that we have (22) games to try to build something, and what happens, but the biggest thing is that you can’t make this season a waste,” Eberle said. “You have to try to build something, whether it is culture … and continue to build and feel good (if) what (we are) to move forward.”
The Kraken played his first three matches after returning from the four nations’ facial outages on the road. They beat the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida 2-1, lost 4-1 at Tampa Bay and followed it up with perhaps their worst performance.
On Tuesday, Seattle fell behind seven goals to St. Louis before the former Blues players Vince Dunn and Jaden Schwartz made in the third period of the 7-2 route.
When asked what his team struggled with the SA Kraken forward Jared McCann: “Take your choice. Quite a lot.
“You have to play for the logo on the front, right? It is an honor to be in the NHL, and there are many other children and other guys in this league who fight a little to get into the game here. So we have to take a long look in the mirror and figure out everything.”
Canucks ends a trip with five games on Saturday, after going 1-3-0. After publishing a 3-2 overtime victory on Wednesday against Los Angeles Kings-where Conor Garland did twice, including the winner of Overtime-led de Ducks 2-0 for a period into the Thursday game but lost 5-2.
“We are a desperate hockey team,” said Canucks coach Rick Tochet. “I don’t care if it’s 4-0, you have to keep playing the playing field. We only had too many guys, instead of going straight, went right or left. A little too much circumference for my taste. …
“We need some guys to get up to the moment, whether it’s an intermediate turn or going to the net. We had shots online with no one who went to the net, so a little disappointed with the cows part of our game.”
This will be the third of four meetings between the rivals this season. The Kraken gathered for a 5-4 overtime victory December 28 in Vancouver and scored three goals in the last 4:45 of the regulation to bind it. Five days later, Canuck’s 4-3 won in a shootout in Seattle after the Kraken counted twice in the third to pull evenly.
-Field level media
