How about that tremendous move by Matty Beniers in the Seattle Kraken 4-3 shootout win Friday over the Canucks in Vancouver?
No, not his dizzying series of dekes to score the shootout winner. We’ll get to that in a moment, plus the bonkers overtime which preceded it. The Kraken center’s best move of the night, though, came before the game.
Sitting in the front row at Rogers Arena was three-year-old Mavrik Turnbull in a Kraken sweater, along with his mom and dad. According to dad Derek’s Facebook account, the family was gifted tickets by B.C. Children’s Hospital, where Mavrik has endured, “7 rounds of chemo, 2 stem cell transplants, tumour reduction surgery, 12 rounds of radiation, and 4 rounds of immunotherapy.”
Beniers was one of three Kraken to respond by delivering a puck during warmups, according to a later Facebook post. Ryker Evans was another, followed by a fist bump through the glass.
Mavrik also got a shout-out on the KHN postgame show, and Evans’ girlfriend reached out to the Turnbull family after the game as well.
Now About That Insane Overtime
The Kraken and Canucks played a game Dec. 29 at Climate Pledge Arena which in many ways mirrored this one. Vancouver successfully killed an overtime penalty, before winning in the shootout when Liam Ohgren beat Joey Daccord for a 3-2 victory.
In the rematch, it was Seattle which had to defend an OT power play, on a borderline penalty called an instant before they thought they’d won the game.
The Kraken Overtime Goal That Wasn’t
The sequence above shows Berkly Catton in the Canucks zone, having just dropped a pass to Vince Dunn. Note that in the far left image, Vancouver forward Elias Petterson is turning back to follow Catton. This makes it tough for Catton to avoid contact (middle image), even though he’s slowing down. Petterson (right image) reacts like he’s just been leveled by a 16-ton safe from a Looney Tunes cartoon.
Petterson, down for the count at far left, can only watch as Dunn (29) fires the apparent game-winning OT goal past Thatcher Demko. But the officials are huddling, and nothing good usually comes out of that.
Catton’s left arm (center image) is still celebrating Dunn’s goal, while his right arm, clutching his helmet, has begun to get worried. As for Kraken coach Lane Lambert (right image), both his arms are worried.
When the goal is not only waved off, but Catton is called for an interference penalty, Lambert and Dunn wear the same open-mouthed disbelief.
0-For-2 Kraken Penalty Kill Gets Biggest Test
The Kraken had been dreadful on the PK, allowing Canucks goals both previous times they were shorthanded. When it mattered most in OT, the coaching staff relied on just three players for the entire two minutes: forward Chandler Stephenson and defensemen Adam Larsson and Ryan Lindgren. (That the Canucks called time out during the PP makes Stephenson, Larsson and Lindgren’s efforts no less heroic.)
Here’s the key sequences, as that trio and goalie Joey Daccord somehow held the fort. The numbers below indicate the time left in the penalty to Catton.
- 1:24: Filip Hronic right circle slapshot; Daccord pad save
- 1:22: Just outside crease, Ryan Lindgren boxes out so Jake DeBrusk can’t get to rebound
- 1:20: Hronic finds loose puck, fires wrister; Larsson blocks
- 1:05: Forward Elias Petterson centers; Daccord “snow angels” to deny DeBrusk’s tip
- 0:36: Brock Boeser long-ranger wrister with DeBrusk screening; Daccord pad save
- 0:20: Boeser slap pass; Stephenson deflects it wide
- 0:13 A dead-tired Lindgren frees the puck from two Canucks along the side boards; his first clear is deflected, his second succeeds
“Yes, Vince,” linesperson Andrew Smith tells Dunn, “You guys and the Canucks are going to a shootout for the second time in five days. Sorry your goal didn’t count.” (He might not have said that last part.)
Beniers Does In Shootout What He Couldn’t In Overtime
In overtime, before the non-goal, before the penalty, Beniers had skated down right wing on a 2-on-1. Canucks goalie Demko stopped both his initial shot and his rebound.
Beniers skated to center ice as the third Seattle shooter. A goal would win the game, because neither team had scored to this point. In the top of the 3rd round, Daccord had gotten revenge on Ohgren, making a pad save.
Matty, 1-for-10 in his career during shootouts, skated over the blue line. He deked, deked again, and again. Finally, he got Demko to move, opening a small window between his pad and the left post.
After tucking the puck into that tiny window, Beniers took a leap to avoid tripping over the goalie’s skate. We’d like to believe it was also a jump for joy. Coach Lambert was certainly feeling joyful, and so were Beniers teammates.
Why not celebrate? The Kraken, so recently mired in a 1-9-1 slump, had improved their unbeaten-in-regulation streak to seven games (6-0-1).
Why not? By winning for this first time this season via shootout after four losses, and capturing games on back-to-back nights for the second time since the invention of the wheel, Seattle climbed into the 1st Western Conference Wild Card slot.
Indeed, why not? For you real dreamers out there, the Kraken are all of a sudden just three points out of first place in the Pacific Division. What a world.