Tye Kartye hadn’t practiced, but the surprise was when Jared McCann came out for warmups, but left early and was replaced in line rushes by John Hayden. But aside from that, these were the lines the Kraken rolled out and what we can expect to see opening day (but hopefully with McCann and Tye Kartye back).
1st period: Penalties, power plays, but no pucks (in the net)
The first period started out a little slowly. The Kraken got three power play opportunities and did not convert on any of them. They did have good puck movement on a couple of them, although there were spots where they were still trying to figure things out — it’s never a good sign when you ice the puck on your own power play. Seattle played with fire a bit with some careless play, but the Oilers were not able to punish the Kraken and we remained scoreless after the first period.
2nd period: Wright on time
If you were bored of no goals, I have good news for you about the second period. There were six of them.
Things got started when Ryker Evans took a shot from the point and Brandon Tanev, who may or may not even be on the team for much longer, got a piece of it and deflected it in.
But the goal of the night was this beautiful spinning backhand shot by Shane Wright, getting net front. This is filthy.
A two-goal lead! What could possibly go wro…
So the Kraken did take a tripping penalty, then they took another tripping penalty a minute after, and giving the Oilers that much time on the power play with McDavid and Draisaitl generally results in bad things for the not-Oilers, and we got that here with McDavid to Draisaitl.
Two-goal leads have not been kind to the Kraken against the Oilers, and just as the building had gotten some life into them, the lead had evaporated with this Travis Dermott goal.
Buuuuuut the newcomers decided they weren’t going to go into the second intermission tied. Brandon Montour, creating space with his skating, is fed the puck by John Hayden and the slapshot drips through across the goal line.
Then 35 seconds later, Shane Wright, with his shot that has developed from “pretty good” to “pheww baby” gave the Kraken the two-goal lead they squandered earlier and we went into the second intermission with the fans feeling fantastic and buzzing about #51 and rightfully so. He is just so much fun to watch and is already so good.
3rd period: Turbo concern and piling on
With a two-goal lead in hand and one the Kraken wouldn’t blow this time, perhaps the most important thing is to get out of the preseason without injury.
And that didn’t look like it happened. Brandon Tanev blocked a shot and he had to go down the tunnel, but he did return to the ice less than five minutes later and seemed fine. Phew.
The Kraken decided they wouldn’t blow this one and piled on two more goals, by Jaden Schwartz and Will Borgen.
Really nice to see Tanev back and setting up Borgen on the goal.
FINALLY the games will count after this. The Kraken open the regular season at home at 1:30pm on a Tuesday (really) against the St. Louis Blues.
The three stars:
⭐⭐⭐ Philipp Grubauer (28/30, .933 sv%)
⭐⭐ Brandon Montour (1g, 1a)
⭐ Shane Wright (2g)