3 takeaways from Seattle Kraken Game 4 win over Colorado Avalanche
By Alex Neier
The Seattle Kraken defeated the Colorado Avalanche in Game 4 of their first-round series, 3-2 in overtime.
For Seattle, if they didn’t win this game, it would have been hard to imagine a scenario where it could come back from down 3-1. They got it done, so here are three takeaways from their pivotal win.
1. Seattle was severely underestimated by a large portion of hockey fans.
That performance by Seattle on Monday officially convinced me, and most likely a lot of other people, that we underestimated what it could do against a legit contender. Seattle came out of the gate Monday night and scored two goals in the first 10 minutes of the game.
The Kraken defeated the Avalanche in a game they had to have Monday.
The Kraken have scored first in every game of this series so far, so their issues haven’t been starting games, it’s been keeping the lead and their play in the second period.
2. Colorado just needs to keep playing their game.
Colorado hasn’t played badly in this series at all really, besides maybe Game 1. Every game in this series has been decided by two goals or less. Colorado still has a good shot of winning this series, because they will be at home for Game % in the new most important game of the series.
Based on what everyone was thinking about this series going into it, however, Colorado has played below expectations. Besides Rantanen and MacKinnon, the other Avs scorers have been pretty quiet. If there’s one area to critique Colorado, it would be that.
3. Both teams will be without key players for Game 5.
Both Seattle and Colorado will be without key players for next game. Cale Makar laid a big hit on Jared McCann, and it was just announced on Tuesday that Makar has been suspended one game for it.
The hit was not clean, but one game in my eyes is fair since Makar doesn’t really have a history of bad hits in the past.
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McCann was the Kraken’s leading goal scorer this season, while we all know how great Makar is. Both teams suffer a loss for Game 5 and will have to find new ways to win.