One way an NHL coach might try to get a player’s attention is by scratching him from the lineup, making him watch the game from high up in the press box.
That’s what Seattle Kraken coach Dan Bylsma did with forwards Oliver Bjorkstrand and Tye Kartye on November 5 at Colorado.
The strategy seemed to work, as Bjorkstrand scored a goal, and Kartye assisted on another in the Kraken’s 4-3 overtime win against the Vegas Golden Knights on Friday, ending a four-game losing streak. After a weekend off, the Kraken will face the struggling Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday.
Bjorkstrand scored a hard-working goal early in the third period. Golden Knights goalie Adin Hill tried to make a pokecheck, but the puck bounced off Bjorkstrand as he charged to the net and deflected into the goal, giving the Kraken a 3-2 lead after they had been down 2-0.
“I thought his game, in particular, was a great bounce-back game for him,” Bylsma said. “He’s a talented, skilled player with a great shot and scores a lot of goals. His competition was at a great level for him to have success in the game.
And it’s not just the evidence of going to the net and scoring a dirty goal, but on the wall in the first period, at the faceoff (circle), also in the first period, the battle on the wall in the second period in front of our bench. It was great.”
Bjorkstrand, who admitted he needed to be better after being a healthy scratch, was happy to contribute to the win.
“Yeah, it was good,” he said. “I would have been ready in Colorado, but I was ready (Friday), kept it simple. I feel like I played well with the puck and was able to create some chances.”
After a strong start to the season, the Blue Jackets have lost their last five games (0-4-1). They lost 4-2 to the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday, with Ducks goalie John Gibson stopping 38 shots in his season debut after recovering from an emergency appendectomy in September.
Kirill Marchenko had a goal and an assist for Columbus, while Yegor Chinakhov also scored. Daniil Tarasov made 26 saves.
“It’s unacceptable,” said Columbus defenseman Zach Werenski, who was playing in his 500th NHL game. “Enough with the moral victories. We’ve played well enough in a lot of games this year to win, and we end up losing them, and that’s on us.”
“We have to look ourselves in the mirror and find a way to win hockey games. I don’t care if we outshoot them 50-20 or we get outshot 50-20. At the end of the day, we have to find a way to get points in this league and win hockey games, and we haven’t done it.”
The Blue Jackets have only scored nine goals during their losing streak. “Goal-scoring is funny. It goes in streaks,” said Columbus coach Dean Evason. “A few weeks back, we couldn’t miss, and the pucks were finding their way in, and we were getting some bounces.
Now it’s gone the other way a little bit, but there’s nothing we can do about it now except move forward and keep doing those things to get those opportunities.”
Both teams may have lineup changes for Tuesday’s game. The Kraken traded for forward Daniel Sprong, who scored 21 goals for them in 2022-23, from the Vancouver Canucks. The Blue Jackets claimed defenseman Dante Fabbro, a former first-round pick, off waivers from the Nashville Predators.
