The Seattle Kraken have found one team they can handle this season, and it’s not the defending Western Conference champs.
On Tuesday night at Climate Pledge Arena, Vegas came in and took control early, rolled through the middle stretch, and left with a 6-2 win over Seattle. The Kraken are now 2-0 against Calgary and 0-1 against both Vegas and Edmonton.
A rough night had a little bit of everything for Seattle, but the clearest snapshot came in the second period. Brandon Montour broke his stick at exactly the wrong moment on a power play, and Berkly Catton lost his balance at the same time. That left Montour stranded as Vegas turned the play into a shorthanded 2-on-1, with Jack Eichel feeding Mark Stone for a finish before Joey Daccord could get across.
Daccord gave up five goals on 21 shots before Philipp Grubauer took over in the third.
Vegas got four-point nights from Tomas Hertl, who finished with two goals and two assists, and Eichel, who had a goal and three assists. Victor Olofsson added two goals before leaving the game after a dangerous hit from behind into the boards by Ben Meyers.
Seattle did get a little something going late. Shane Wright snapped Carter Hart’s shutout in the third period, and Jared McCann also scored for the Kraken.
The scoring opened with a Vegas deflection goal. Rasmus Andersson’s shot from the right point changed direction off Olofsson and past Daccord for a 1-0 lead. Seattle then lost its coach’s challenge for goalie interference, which handed Vegas a power play, though it didn’t lead to another goal.
The Knights stretched it to 2-0 shortly after Montour was called for interference. Nine seconds later, Hertl buried a Stone no-look pass from close range.
By the time the second period was underway, Vegas had already shown off its full toolkit. Stone’s goal meant the Golden Knights had scored on the power play, at even strength, and shorthanded.
Then Olofsson struck again, this time after Vegas kept hunting pucks and Seattle kept missing sticks. The forecheck forced the issue, and Olofsson made it 4-0 with a shot past Daccord.
Eichel added another when he stripped Bobby McMann at the Vegas blue line and walked in alone for a breakaway finish.
Seattle’s best moment of the night came from Wright, who scored in back-to-back games with a sharp shot from the slot. McCann later got on the board with a power-play goal in garbage time.
The game also got chippy. Marc Gatcomb was called for boarding 15 seconds after puck drop, one of the earliest penalties in a Kraken game. Later, Nic Dowd was whistled for holding only 17 seconds into the second period.
Meyers’ hit on Olofsson is likely to bring an NHL disciplinary hearing after he earned a major boarding penalty and a game misconduct. That left Seattle two men down with 12 minutes left.
With Meyers unavailable, Stone went after Montour moments later. Ryan Winterton then leveled Trevor Connelly, the teams started exchanging shoves near the Kraken bench, and Winterton eventually fought Gatcomb.
The special teams numbers told the story too: Vegas went 2-for-4 on the power play, while Seattle finished 0-for-3.
The Kraken now head out on a five-game road swing, starting Friday in Detroit against the Red Wings. Puck drop is set for 4 pm Pacific.
In Other News...
Kraken Fans Will Be Arguing About This Vegas Loss All Night
Victor Olofsson did plenty of damage against Seattle on a night when the Kraken never quite found their footing, scoring twice in Vegas 6-2 win. The Kraken had chances early on the power play, but they spent too much of the game chasing a mix of penalties and bad puck luck that kept swinging momentum back toward the Golden Knights.
The frustration boiled over as the game got choppier, and Seattles bench had plenty to sort through afterward. Ben Meyers was assessed a major penalty and game misconduct, while the physical edge escalated even further in a contest that already felt like it was slipping away from the Kraken long before the final horn. [Read more 🡒]
Kraken Suddenly Face A Blue Line Concern After Physical Loss
A physical night in Vegas ended with the Kraken dealing with an early scare on the blue line, as Ryan Lindgren exited after taking a hard hit and never returned. Seattle has leaned on its defense to stay organized in tight games, so any injury on the back end immediately raises questions about how the group will hold up if a regular is forced out for any length of time.
Lindgrens departure came in a game already marked by a couple of injury situations elsewhere around the league, underscoring how quickly a heavy matchup can change a teams outlook. For Seattle, the immediate concern is less about the final score than whether Lindgren will be available moving forward, and the team now has to wait for more clarity before knowing how much this one affects its rotation on defense. [Read more 🡒]
Kraken Golden Knights Bad Blood Suddenly Feels Like Something More
The Kraken and Golden Knights already had enough history to make any meeting feel a little charged, and Wednesdays third period turned it into something closer to a grudge match. What had been a tense game on the ice spilled over into multiple fights involving Mark Stone, Brandon Montour, Ryan Winterton and Marc Gatcomb, with tempers boiling after a boarding penalty on Ben Meyers.
Seattle still did not have a postgame update from coach Lane Lambert, leaving the aftermath as murky as the final minutes were chaotic. Montours explanation for his role only added to the sense that the scrum was about more than one isolated incident, while Gatcombs illegal hit on Ryan Lindgren carried a more immediate consequence for Vegas and made the closing stretch feel uglier than routine division rivalry hockey. [Read more 🡒]