Ottawa Senators vs. Seattle Kraken: Prediction, Preview, Picks & Odds - 3/9/2023

Time: 10 p.m. ET

Venue: Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle, WA

Where to watch: ROOT-NW, TSN5, RDS

DraftKings: Kraken -140, Senators +120

BetMGM: Kraken -140, Senators +120

Caesars: Kraken -140, Senators +120

Senators: 32-27-4

Kraken: 37-21-6

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The Ottawa Senators will be playing the Seattle Kraken on Thursday, March 9 in Seattle, Washington.

The Ottawa Senators lost against the Chicago Blackhawks last Monday, March 6 at United Center in Chicago, Illinois with a score of 5-0. The Ottawa Senators currently rank 5th in the Atlantic Division.

Mads Sogaard made 16 saves for the Senators (32-27-4), whose five-game winning streak ended. Sogaard started in place of Cam Talbot, who was a late scratch because of a lower-body injury.

Ottawa remained three points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference.

"I told him throughout the game, 'None of this is your fault. We just completely [hurt] you,'" Senators captain Brady Tkachuk said of Sogaard. "Right from the start, the way we played, we completely left him out to dry. That's just never what we want to do as a team. All the boys we have, [they've] stood on their heads, made big saves and stole us games throughout this whole year. It's honestly unacceptable that we just leave him out to dry like that."

Ottawa outshot Chicago 27-14 through the first two periods.

"Right from the get-go, just attention to detail, odd-man rushes that we gave up … it was everything that we hadn't done in the previous five games, we did tonight," Senators coach D.J. Smith said. "It's tough to explain how well we've played to come out and do this. But you've got to turn the page quickly.

"We were feeling so good playing at home, and then to come out here -- just no rhythm, no feel, team wasn't prepared. That's on me. My job is to get them prepared and to push them every day, and we weren't ready to play today."

As hard as Ottawa tried, Chicago managed a shutout with a final score of 5-0.

The Ottawa Senators have won six of their last 10 games.

The Seattle Kraken won against the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday, March 7 at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle, Washington with a score of 5-2. The Seattle Kraken currently rank 3rd in the Pacific Division.

Jared McCann had a goal and an assist for the Seattle Kraken in their fifth straight win. Matty Beniers had two assists, and Philipp Grubauer made 20 saves for Kraken (37-21-6), who opened a four-game homestand after winning four straight on the road.

Seattle moved two points ahead of the Edmonton Oilers for third place in the Pacific Division. It trails the Vegas Golden Knights and Los Angeles Kings by two points for first after Vegas lost 2-1 at the Florida Panthers on Tuesday.

"We're in a race of our own right now," McCann said. "We're trying to stay ahead of [Edmonton], we're trying to get in a better position for playoffs. We need to be focused every single night. We're going to have to play well every single night."

Jamie Oleksiak gave Seattle a 1-0 lead at 3:41 of the first period off a feed from behind the net by Jordan Eberle.

McCann made it 2-0 at 10:58 with a wrist shot from the left face-off circle to complete an odd-man rush. He leads the Kraken with 31 goals this season, including five in the past five games.

"Just trying to get the puck off as quickly as I could," McCann said. "[Adam Larsson] made a great play in the middle, so did Matty. Just wanted to get the puck off as quickly as possible."

Trevor Zegras cut it to 2-1 just 35 seconds into the second period. With Seattle caught on a line change, Zegras received a saucer pass from Ryan Strome, put the puck between his skates and roofed a wrist shot over Grubauer.

Daniel Sprong gave the Kraken a 3-1 lead at 17:16 with a wrist shot from the left circle that went off Gibson's glove. It was Sprong's first goal since Jan. 17 (13 games).

Eeli Tolvanen scored a power-play goal at 8:29 of the third period, a one-timer from the right circle, to make it 4-1.

"I liked the intelligence of our team," Seattle coach Dave Hakstol said. "We had some recognition that we weren't maybe going to be at our best in terms of energy. As we got through to the second half of the game, we managed it pretty well."

Max Comtois cut it to 4-2 with 1:27 remaining, but Jaden Schwartz scored an empty-net goal with 18 seconds left for the 5-2 final.

The Seattle Kraken have won seven of their last 10 games.

Prediction

Two teams that I want to make the playoffs very badly. Home-ice is a factor. Kraken 4, Senators 3

Senators:

Brady Tkachuk -- Tim Stutzle -- Claude Giroux

Alex DeBrincat -- Shane Pinto -- Drake Batherson

Mathieu Joseph -- Dylan Gambrell -- Julien Gauthier

Derick Brassard -- Mark Kastelic -- Austin Watson

Thomas Chabot -- Jakob Chychrun

Jake Sanderson -- Travis Hamonic

Erik Brannstrom -- Artem Zub

Mads Sogaard

Kraken:

Jared McCann -- Matty Beniers -- Jordan Eberle

Jaden Schwartz -- Alex Wennberg -- Oliver Bjorkstrand

Eeli Tolvanen -- Yanni Gourde -- Jesper Froden

Ryan Donato -- Morgan Geekie -- Brandon Tanev

Vince Dunn -- Adam Larsson

Jamie Oleksiak -- Will Borgen

Carson Soucy -- Justin Schultz

Philipp Grubauer