Philipp Grubauer has become an easy target to describe the underachievement of the Kraken over the past two seasons.
Some of it is fair criticism, especially in the context of the contract he signed as Seattle’s first big free-agent acquisition. At $5.9 million per season, Grubauer is paid like a No. 1 goalie even if that role is now clearly, and rightfully, in the hands of Joey Daccord.
But the raw numbers often don’t tell the entire story with Grubauer, of which Tuesday night against Anaheim became another example where the goalie was tagged with five goals allowed in a 6-4 loss.
“We hung him out to dry,” Kraken coach Dan Bylsma said.
To be clear, there was at least one goal Grubauer allowed that simply can’t happen, a wrister by Jackson LaCombe from nearly 50 feet away in the second period that gave Anaheim a 5-3 lead.
But the first two goals by Anaheim in the second period both came off defensive breakdowns that left shooters unmarked at the right circle waiting for one-time opportunities. Mason McTavish deposited the first and Robby Fabbri finished off the second after a careless defensive zone turnover by Vince Dunn.
Even the two goals Anaheim scored in the first period was partly due to defensive miscues by the skaters charged with making things easier for Grubauer.
“We had the chance to score goals. It’s just the details defensively,” forward Eeli Tolvanen said. “We have to help our goalies too. I feel like they play always good and we just give too many backdoor tap-ins and chances like that. So it’s reset. Right here. Right now.”
But when the final numbers look the way they do, no matter the backstory of how they ended up in the net, it only feeds the narrative that the Kraken can’t win when Grubauer is in the net.
Grubauer finished with 17 saves on 22 shots and Seattle is now 5-15-1 in the games he’s started.
“Obviously, they had a couple backdoor one-timers that it’s tough for (Grubauer) to see those,” defenseman Brandon Montour said. “Just awareness, clean some stuff up. Every time we make a mistake, it seems like it’s in the back of the net, or our goalies have to make big-time saves. Anytime you let up five, six goals, it’s tough to win those games.”
For the first time in 16 days, Grubauer was the first Kraken to put a skate onto the ice — a necessity after Daccord started his seventh straight game on Monday night in Edmonton.
Going back to Grubauer came with the hope the result would be far different from the previous two games he was in net against Columbus and Detroit earlier this month and didn’t make it through two periods in either outing.
Grubauer’s last action came on Jan. 12 in Detroit when he didn’t even make it out of the first period allowing three goals on four shots and was pulled 6:16 into the first period. Getting the hook early on that day was mostly the result of a defense that chose not to show up for the start of that game against the Red Wings.
While Bylsma felt the Red Wings game was an outlier, Grubauer started that road trip by getting pulled in Columbus after allowing four goals on 12 shots in the second period.
“The disappointment of really the Detroit game, it’s not on him. He didn’t get pulled in that game because of bad goals, it was a message more to the team but one that he has to deal with,” Bylsma said before Tuesday’s game. “And just kind of reset the last two weeks a little bit. Get back to what you do well, what you had been doing well and get ready for the opportunities tonight.”
It took less than 90 seconds for the Kraken to be playing from behind after Troy Terry was left unmarked 12 feet in front of the net and beat Grubauer over his glove after a great pass off the wall by Ryan Strome, giving Anaheim the lead just 1:23 into the game.
But Seattle left the first period with a 3-2 lead thanks to goals from Tolvanen, Mitchell Stephens and Jaden Schwartz. Tolvanen scored for a third straight game; Stephens picked up his first goal with Seattle and first since Dec. 28, 2023, with Montreal; and Schwartz finished a 2-on-1 break off another assist from Kaapo Kakko.
The final image of the first period was Grubauer making a trio of spectacular saves, the last a glove stop to rob Trevor Zegras that left defenseman Adam Larsson — playing his 900th career game — stunned with his mouth agape.
“Huge sequence for us, huge sequence for him. He made an outstanding save for us and one that should have snapped us into the game,” Bylsma said.
That’s where the good vibes for the Kraken ended. McTavish and Fabbri gave Anaheim the lead, LaCombe’s goal was the soft goal Grubauer couldn’t afford to allow and Ducks’ goalie Lukas Dostal overcame a shaky first period to be nearly flawless the final 40 minutes.
The Kraken closed to 5-4 with 13:45 left on Shane Wright’s power-play goal as he rebounded Jared McCann’s shot and beat Dostal. But that was it for Seattle and Frank Vatrano’s empty-net goal with 1:16 left pushed the Ducks before the Kraken in the Pacific Division standings.
“Now they’re ahead of us in the standings. I think that we knew that these next two games were going to be really important. It sucks. I felt like we kind of gave the game away,” Tolvanen said.
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