Kraken’s Andre Burakovsky week-to-week after injury in first game back from another injury

Andre Burakovsky’s improbably bad luck continued Thursday night, as the Kraken winger was banged up in his first game back from another injury.

“A little bit early to give a real, definitive outcome, but it appears he’ll be week-to-week,” coach Dave Hakstol said the morning after a 2-1 regulation loss against the New Jersey Devils, Seattle’s sixth straight game without a victory.

Hakstol added that the injury is unrelated to the upper-body injury that held Burakovsky out the past six weeks. New Jersey defenseman Kevin Bahl rammed his shoulder into Burakovsky’s along the boards shortly before the Kraken winger exited the second period.

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He returned for the third but took only two shifts. He didn’t play the final 15 minutes.

Burakovsky registered his third assist of the season earlier in the contest on Seattle’s only goal, scored by Tye Kartye.

Thursday night’s game was Burakovsky’s seventh of the season and first since Oct. 21, when he appeared to be injured following contact with the New York Rangers’ Jacob Trouba. He missed nearly half of the previous season and the playoffs with a groin injury that required surgery.

The Kraken signed Burakovsky after he just won the Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche in 2022, putting up a career-high 22 goals, 39 assists and 61 points along the way. When healthy, he led all Kraken skaters in scoring. But they’ve had to get used to operating without him.

“It’s been a tough run in terms of injuries for him,” Hakstol said. “I’m sure for him, there’s a sense of frustration. He’s a guy that’s very important to our hockey team when he’s going in his top gear, and it’s been very difficult for him to put any type of stretch together of that nature.”

Little went right for the Kraken against the Devils. Several of their high-danger chances were fanned on or went wide, then Jared McCann blasted a shot off the cross bar in the third period. Nothing slipped by New Jersey goaltender Akira Schmid, who stopped 37 shots — 16 during a frenzied third period.

It was their best start and arguably best overall effort of the six-game skid.

“We definitely had some good moments there,” Kartye said. “But obviously, not good enough to get the win and that’s what we’re looking for.”

The Kraken could always get into shooting lanes and muck it up around the net more, and right now that need is especially great.

“It feels like we’re just missing the puck [by] a little bit,” center Alex Wennberg said.

“There’s a lot of things we could be happy about, but right now, we’ve just got to start winning games. That’s all that matters.”

Eight Kraken skaters and goaltender Joey Daccord, who wasn’t in net against New Jersey, took part in an optional skate Friday morning. Hakstol said they did off-ice work as well.

The overtime-loss points that had the Kraken in a wild-card spot at Thanksgiving have all but stopped coming. They haven’t led a single game during the current skid. They’ve strung together consecutive wins just twice this season and have never had a winning record.

First thing’s first — stop the slide. Hakstol referenced a “delicate balance” in this scenario.

“You can push too hard in this game and all of the sudden you tighten up and everything looks stiff. We don’t want to get to that point,” he said. “The frustration that can seep in when you play a good hockey game and you don’t get the result, that can sink into your game and take over and overwhelm.

“You have to guard against that and make sure other factors are more important — focusing on the good things that we did and picking out one, two, three things that we can improve on. And let’s go do it.”