Note: The Kraken “Draft Lottery Standings” table is at the end of this story.
Sports, the cliché goes, are games of inches. For Matty Beniers and the Seattle Kraken, sometimes outcomes are matters of feet, too.
Take the 3rd period of Sunday’s 4-2 Kraken loss to the Capitals in Washington. With less than five minutes to play and the score knotted 2-2, Beniers realizes high-scoring veteran defenseman John Carlson has been left unguarded. (All screengrabs from NHL.com.)
Beniers makes a desperate cross-ice dash toward Carlson while wondering (I’m guessing), “OMG. How did we leave a guy with 715 career NHL points all by his lonesome?”
As Beniers goes into his slide, he barely misses blocking Carlson’s attempt. The puck steams under his left leg and just out of reach of his right skate.
Seattle goalie Joey Daccord readies for the shot. Both his sightline and mobility are limited by Caps 6-foot-4 forward Pierre-Luc Dubois, tied up outside the crease with Kraken defenseman Brandon Montour.
Only it’s not a shot. It’s a pass disguised to look like a shot. A “shot-pass.” Carlson hasn’t earned 715 points – soon to be 716 – by accident. Meanwhile, Washington’s #24, forward Connor McMichael, has gotten inside position on Seattle’s #24, defenseman Jamie Oleksiak.
McMichael said later he’d made eye contact with Carlson. He knew the pass was coming, keeping his stick on the ice and blade open for the deflection, which proved to be the winning goal with 4:16 left. For Daccord, it’s one of those “he had no chance to stop it” goals, as he’s still peeking out the wrong side of the Dubois-Montour duel.
Not as important to the outcome but still frustrating, Beniers comes close to stopping Alex Ovechkin’s empty-net clincher. Beniers is one of six Kraken on ice with Daccord pulled, as Seattle attempts to tie in the final two minutes. Ovechkin fires a no-look backhand from center ice toward the Seattle cage.
Matty again goes for a kick save and a beauty, but comes up empty. Ovi records his 1,600th NHL point and 886th goal, nine short of breaking Wayne Gretzky’s all-time record.
This is how close Beniers came to preventing Ovechkin’s milestone. In other words, his feet were no match for the Great 8’s feat.
I’ll see myself out.
Oh, wait, before I go… the Kraken won one and lost one this weekend, so here’s the up-to-date standings for the postseason NHL Draft Lottery.
