RECAP: ‘Hawks lose second-straight, Kraken keep winning

SEATTLE – The Seattle Seahawks dropped a second-straight game while the Kraken keep winning. Check out this week’s Washington pro sports recap for an update on the teams over the previous week.

Seahawks

Coming off of the bye week, the Seahawks hosted the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, in what turned out to be a shootout of a game with the Raiders winning 40-34 in overtime.

Seattle’s defense struggled mightily against the Raiders, especially in the run game. The Seahawks gave up 283 yards on the ground in Sunday’s loss, 86 of which came on Las Vegas running back Josh Jacobs’ game-sealing touchdown run in overtime.

With 4:32 left in overtime, Jacobs took the snap, ran off the right tackle and outran safety Josh Jones en route to an 86-yard score. The fourth-year back finished the game with 303 total yards, 229 of them in the run game.

Seattle’s 40 points allowed to the Raiders was the second-most of the season, the most being the 45 points the defense allowed to Detroit in the Seahawks’ win over the Lions. After Las Vegas kicker Daniel Carlson missed a field goal to begin the overtime period, Seattle went three-and-out and punted back to the Raider offense, where Jacobs scored his game-winner on the next play.

The run defense had improved over Seattle’s four-game win streak earlier this season (99.25 yards per game over that span), but the unit is regressing to its early-season struggles over the previous two weeks.

On offense, Quarterback Geno Smith set a new high in passing yards for this season, throwing for 328 yards and two scores completing 27 of 37 passes. The ten-year pro also had an interception in the second quarter. Seattle struggled to run the ball, with rookie back Kenneth Walker III totaling 26 yards on 14 carries. The rookie did reach the end zone twice on touchdown runs of 12 and 14 yards.

Next up for the 6-5 Seahawks is a road game against the 3-8 Los Angeles Rams.

Kraken

On Oct. 29, the Seattle Kraken defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins to kickstart a five-game win streak, which ended with a 1-0 loss to the Minnesota Wild. Now, Seattle is in the midst of a new streak, this one a high-scoring six-game win streak.

Seattle began a three-game road trip on Nov. 25 against the Vegas Golden Knights, winning 4-2 courtesy of first-period goals by center Ryan Donato and left wing Andre Burakovsky. The Golden Knights quickly answered, but Burakovsky added another goal in the second and right wing Jordan Eberle scored in the second to give the Kraken a 4-2 win.

The streak continued with a 5-4 win over the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday. Right wing Daniel Sprong found the back of the net to give Seattle a 5-4 lead and its fifth-straight win, which matched the previous franchise-long set under a month ago.

On Tuesday against the Los Angeles Kings, the Kraken saw their highest-scoring game in the franchise’s young history – a 9-8 win over the Kings that set the Kraken in second place of the Pacific Division. Los Angeles scored the equalizer with under eight minutes remaining in the third period, and Burakovsky scored his second goal of the game in overtime to seal the win, setting a new franchise record for the longest winning streak (6).

Up this week for the 14-5-3 Kraken are three-straight home games against the Washington Capitals (Dec. 1), Florida Panthers (Dec. 3) and Montreal Canadiens (Dec. 6).