To paraphrase the old joke, if the Seattle Kraken were going to get screwed this hard, they really deserved some foreplay first.
Before we take a frame-by-frame look at the weirdness, let’s pause for two clarifications.
One, this story doesn’t really have a villain. The Calgary Flames, 3-2 winners Sunday at Climate Pledge Arena, merely took advantage of circumstances. On-ice officials and the NHL Situation Room were doing what they thought was right – although there’s evidence they weren’t.
Two, the Kraken have earned the vast majority of hardship they’ve endured this season. But what the Kraken suffered at 16:43 of the 1st period against the Flames went beyond the pale. Because when you fall off a ladder, break your glasses, and drop your phone into a puddle in the same motion, it doesn’t matter who’s at fault – it feels like cosmic piling-on just the same.
Unfortunate as this moment in time was, the amazing confluence of events was also rare and fascinating and worth examining, not unlike the way we want to know what caused a 12-car pileup on the highway.
(Images are screengrabs from KHN and Sportsnet.)

The Flames were on a 1st period power play when Yegor Sharangovich found a seam.

Sharangovich appears to be losing the handle (red arrow) as he receives a slash from Jamie Oleksiak.

As the Flame finishes his swing-and-a-miss, the puck continues slowly on its merry way.

To continue the baseball analogy, Kraken goalie Joey Daccord expected a fastball, and instead gets fooled by a change-up.

The puck rolls between his legs and into the net for a 2-0 Calgary lead.

One of the referees, thinking Daccord had smothered the puck – just as Joey thought – blows his whistle. A lengthy confab follows between refs Pierre Lambert and Graedy Hamilton, who eventually decide to blow off the whistle one of them blew. The goal stands.

Earlier in the period, Seattle’s Jaden Schwartz (17) was ruled to have made contact with Calgary goalie Dan Vladar, negating a power play goal he scored moments later that would have given the Kraken a 1-0 lead.
“You never know with these calls, right?” Schwartz said postgame. “Both of the refs (Lambert and Hamilton) told me it was probably a goal. I don’t know if it’s people from Toronto (NHL Situation Room.) Not sure what they’re watching. I think it was a bad call. (Vladar) put his stick in my skates.”

Given that outcome, Kraken coach Dan Bylsma called timeout so his own video team could go to work. They reported what they believed was a similar infraction on Sharangovich. The whiff on his follow-through ended up connecting with Daccord’s arm – actually lifting it up as the puck was sliding under him.
Bylsma explained afterward, “It was my judgement that him hitting our goalie’s stick in the blue paint was a factor for the goalie being able to make the save.”

Remember, this whack came well after Sharangovich had lost control of the puck. But the NHL Situation Room disagreed and awarded the goal, again. Asked how it was explained to him, Bylsma answered, “They judged it was a continuation play, the guy reaching back for the puck. Him hitting our goalie’s stick was a result of that continuation.”

Now, the home penalty box was filled with three unhappy inmates: McCann (left), still serving his roughing double-minor, Oleksiak (right) for his slash, and Oliver Bjorkstrand (center), serving the delay-of-game penalty that accompanies a failed coach’s challenge.

On the Calgary 5-on-3 advantage, Jonathan Huberdeau fires home (red arrow) what would prove to be the game-winning goal, and at the time gave the Flames a 3-0 1st period cushion.
“It was a weird period, tough breaks,” Schwartz offered after the game.
“From going up 1-0 to down 3-0,” Bylsma said, carefully measuring his words, “goalie interference calls, the power play, the 5-on-3 that ensued, a lot of events in that period were not how we wanted them to go. I thought we had a great response in the 2nd and the 3rd.” The Kraken did score the only goals of those two frames, leaving them just short of a tie.