On the ice at Climate Pledge Arena, amid the echo of skates and the sudden hush after every save, jordan staal watched his team’s long run of gains snap. The Hurricanes, who had amassed points in 12 straight games, fell 2-1 to the Seattle Kraken as Joey Daccord turned aside 35 shots and Seattle clung to a one-goal lead.
How did Joey Daccord and the Kraken stop Carolina’s 12-game point streak?
Seattle built its win with two goals and a goaltending night that disrupted Carolina’s usual motion. Kaapo Kakko opened the scoring on a 2-on-1 rush, and Ben Meyers pushed the advantage to 2-0 with a hustle play that produced a rebound finish. Adam Larsson finished the game with two assists, and Daccord’s 35 saves proved decisive.
“I thought our guys did a good job of trying to keep shots to the outside, force them to miss the net, and when they didn’t, Joey made some big saves, ” Seattle coach Lane Lambert said. Daccord himself emphasized rebound control as a key: “A big thing with playing a shot-volume team [like Carolina] is just controlling your rebounds… if I can suck up pucks, get a lot of whistles, put pucks in the corner, that helps our [defensemen] a lot in terms of just killing their motion in the offensive zone and resetting the play. ”
The win also marked a personal run for Daccord, who has won six of his past seven starts. For a Kraken team that had stumbled after the Olympic break, the performance represented a return to the defensive structure Lambert described.
What did Jordan Staal say about the Hurricanes’ performance?
Carolina captain Jordan Staal framed the loss in blunt, immediate terms: “For the most part, it was a good game, but it just didn’t really click [enough] offensively. ” The Hurricanes had been 10-0-2 during the streak that began on Jan. 16 and had won five straight going into the matchup, but Staal highlighted a familiar counterpoint—zone time and chance creation that did not translate into enough goals.
Frederik Andersen, the Carolina goaltender, made 13 saves, and the Hurricanes did force late pressure. Eeli Tolvanen’s holding penalty with under two minutes left and the subsequent decision to pull Andersen for an extra attacker created a 6-on-4 chance, but Carolina could not find the tying goal.
How did key moments and coaching perspectives shape the closing minutes?
Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour pointed to transitional lapses and an inability to convert. “We gave up a few too many, just from [offensive] zone to be honest, just trying to force stuff, and then that transition game for them. … We’ve got to score more than one with the amount of zone time that we had, ” he said. The Hurricanes’ late surge included an overturned power-play goal for Seattle that would have extended the lead earlier, but the disallowed Jaden Schwartz marker changed the sequence of momentum only briefly; less than a minute later Meyers finished the rebound sequence that put Seattle up two.
Nikolaj Ehlers cut the deficit to 2-1 with a goal late in the second, and Carolina’s push in the final moments tested Daccord, but the Kraken’s structure and timely goaltending denied the comeback.
The game threaded together individual plays and systemic decisions: Kakko’s quick shot that squeezed under Andersen, Meyers’ net-front persistence, Larsson’s playmaking, and Daccord’s rebound management. For Carolina, the night was a reminder that long streaks can end on the smallest margins when offense fails to finish.
Back in the arena’s dimming light, jordan staal stood with teammates and watched a streak close. The loss snapped a run that had felt resilient, but the remarks from Staal and Brind’Amour left the sense of a team aware of the immediate fixes it must find—more goals from its zone time and cleaner transitions—if another streak is to begin. Outside the locker rooms, the ice bore the fresh marks of a single game that, for two franchises, might already shape their next steps.
