The Brief
After a pair of 6-1 victories over the Calgary Flames, and a tight 3-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers, the Seattle Kraken were blown out by the defending Western Conference champion Golden Knights in a 6-2 loss on Tuesday night.
Victor Olofsson and Tomáš Hertl each scored twice as the defending Western Conference champions outclassed the Kraken for most of the final 50 minutes of play. Hertl and Jack Eichel both had four-point games for Vegas in the victory.
Shane Wright and Jared McCann each scored in the third period to avoid a shutout. The Kraken racked up 43 penalty minutes as Ben Meyers and Brandon Montour were both given game misconducts in the third period.
SEATTLE- The Vegas Golden Knights are just a wee bit better than the Calgary Flames, eh?
After a pair of 6-1 victories over the Flames, and a tight 3-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers, the Seattle Kraken were blown out by the defending Western Conference champion Golden Knights in a 6-2 loss on Tuesday night.
Victor Olofsson and Tomáš Hertl each scored twice as the defending Western Conference champions outclassed the Kraken for most of the final 50 minutes of play. Hertl and Jack Eichel both had four-point games for Vegas in the victory.
Shane Wright and Jared McCann each scored in the third period to avoid a shutout.
"I didn't think we were very sharp. We didn't make very many good decisions that way (with the puck)," head coach Lane Lambert said.
Dig deeper
The Kraken actually got off to a fairly strong start, creating a handful of dangerous chances against Hart, including an early 8-3 edge in shots on goal. Seattle had five shots on goal in a 30-second span midway through the first period, with Shane Wright getting a pair of chances in tight that didn't get through Hart.
"It was there in spurts from the start," Lambert said. "And I got to tell you, like, you got to give them credit. They're a good hockey team. They came within two wins of the Stanley Cup last year. Yes, we beat them three times last year as well, but they play the game and they play it a certain way and it's pretty simple. And there's a lot for us to pick up from that."
But the Kraken's inability to capitalize on their looks would come back to haunt them in short order.
Olofsson scored with 6:58 left in the period as a shot from distance by Rasmus Andersson deflected off of the skate of a leaping Olofsson and past Joey Daccord for a 1-0 Vegas lead. The Kraken challenged the play for goaltender interference, alleging contact with Daccord by Olofsson in front of the goal. However, the play was confirmed a goal and the Kraken immediately had to try and kill off a power play for the failed challenge.
While that kill was successful, the next one, on an interference call against Brandon Montour, quickly failed. Hertl worked to the front of the net and banged a pass from beneath the goal line from Mark Stone through Daccord for a 2-0 lead.
Then, with Seattle on the power play just 17 seconds into the second period, Montour had his stick snap on a shot attempt, which sprung a 2-on-1 rush for the Golden Knights. Eichel found Stone for a short-handed goal that made it 3-0.
"A couple silly mistakes," Montour said. "I mean, they're Stanley Cup finalists for a reason. They're a heck of team over there and we got away from our game. Things like that happen. So we just gotta be smarter, move on now and we've got a tough road trip (ahead)."
Olofsson added his second midway through the period, and Eichel sprung on a breakaway off a Bobby McMann turnover for a 5-0 lead.
Philipp Grubauer replaced Daccord in goal for the third period. Daccord made just 16 saves on 21 shots.
Shane Wright eliminated the shutout chance for Vegas, scoring five minutes into the third period for his second goal of the year. Kappo Kakko found Wright open in the high slot, and he beat Hart with a snapped wrist shot to make it a 5-1 game.
Wright nearly scored a second goal just over a minute later, snapping a wrist shot from a tight angle in the right circle that hit off the left post and rebounded out.
Ben Meyers was given a boarding major and a game misconduct for a hit on Olofsson that sent him to the locker room with 12 minutes remaining. It was a bad hit from Meyers, with a cross-check to the back of Olofsson that drove him into the wall. Olofsson was very slow to his feet and needed assistance to the bench before exiting.
Montour and Stone dropped the gloves for a fight about a minute later off a face-off, with Montour also picking up a game misconduct and being sent off. The fight was likely a result of the bad hit from Meyers on Olofsson.
"Just over the years battling, and maybe trying to annoy him and get under his skin as much as I can," Montour said. "He's a heck of a player. I felt for his own sake, his teammate goes down like that, and you expect in a 5-1 game that maybe their leader would step in and protect his teammate, and he didn't. And I felt like for myself, that was an opportunity for me to get him and get under his skin and obviously it showed that. Good for him to step up and take me on, I guess, in a sense.
"This is a building that we want to be as hard to play against as possible," he continued. "And we got away from ourselves and it showed tonight. Obviously, a little embarrassment on our side to play like that in front of our fans and we don't like to be involved with that. Obviously, the game is out of reach, but guys were fighting to the end. Hopefully, they appreciate that. Our job here is to make this the toughest building we can for us and our group and our fans and we'll bounce back from that."
Hertl scored his second of the night on the ensuing five-minute major penalty to make it a 6-1 game.
More scrapping would soon follow. Vegas took exception to a Ryan Winterton hit on Trevor Connelly. Andersson came at Winterton and Vince Dunn jumped in to his defense. Jeremy Lauzon would pick up a roughing call on Wright shortly afterward as Seattle ended up with a 5-on-3 power play.
McCann scored his first of the year to make it a 6-2 game on the power play. Winterton then dropped the gloves with Marc Gatcomb as a response to his hit on Connelly.
The Source
Information in this story came from FOX 13 Seattle reporting.
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