Panthers offense struggles in Seattle, lose 4-0 to Kraken

The Florida Panthers didn’t have a great road game in Seattle, losing 4-0 to the Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena.

Seattle’s goalie Joey Daccord had 24 saves in his first career shutout. Sergei Bobrovsky gave up three goals on 22 shots for the Panthers.

Florida drops to 17-9-2 on the season with Tuesday night’s loss.

The first 20 minutes of the night didn’t account for much. Neither team scored in a fairly uneventful first period.

Kraken forward Kailer Yamamoto would open the scoring 3:06 into the second with his fourth goal of the year. Will Borgen’s stretch pass broke through the Panthers defense to find Yamamoto, who placed his breakaway shot up and over Sergei Bobrovsky’s shoulder. Seattle took a 1-0 lead.

The biggest struggle for Panthers in Seattle was their power play — or lack thereof.

The Panthers went 0/3 on the man-advantage and failed to record a single shot on their three attempts. They entered Tuesday sitting right around the middle of the league on power play success at 18.8 percent.

“We’re a little tight back there [on the powerplay],”  Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. “We’re squeezing the sticks, not moving the puck or our feet particularly well.”

Florida’s defense was able to limit Seattle to just 10 shots in the opening 40 minutes, but Yamamoto’s goal had the Kraken up 1-0 going into the final period of regulation.

When the third period came around, Seattle kept up their defense, while putting an offensive stamp on the game. 

5:59 into the third, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare beat Bobrovsky to give the Kraken a 2-0 lead. Seattle’s Ryker Evans picked up his first career point with an assist on the goal.

The depth players showed out for Seattle on Tuesday, with the fourth line scoring their opening two goals. 

Former Panther Alex Wennberg would put this game out of reach with 10:47 left in the third — Seattle led 3-0. 

Eeli Tolvanen ended the night with an empty netter to make it 4-0.

“We got to get a guy in front. I felt like their goalie saw the puck all game,” Gustav Forsling said. “We got to do a little better job on the net front.”

Tuesday’s win over the Panthers snapped an eight game losing streak for the Kraken. 

Florida has split the first two of their five game road trip and the remaining games of the trip aren’t going to be much easier.

They’ll be in Vancouver on Friday to face the West’s second place Canucks before going to Edmonton the following day to face the red hot Oilers, who have won eight straight games.