Everything led up to last night for the Seattle Kraken, as they suited up for their first-ever preseason game in Spokane, Washington. The Kraken hosted the neighboring Vancouver Canucks, and put on quite a show for the home crowd, winning 5–3.
In the first period, Seattle controlled most of the play, but two strange plays put them down 2–0 as they went into the intermission. First, fresh out of the penalty box, Canucks defenseman Jack Rathbone picked up a loose puck at center ice and beat a rather untested Philipp Grubauer at the halfway point of the opening period, breaking the ice at 1–0.
Just over a minute after the Rathbone goal, Brock Boeser took advantage of an unfortunate Kraken deflection and found the back of the net on the power play, assisted by Rathbone and Nic Petan. The one-timer hit the foot of defenseman Carson Soucy and dribbled into the net for a 2–0 Vancouver advantage.
Despite being outshot 13–5 in the opening period, the Canucks a had a two-goal lead. That would only last slightly past the first intermission.
The Kraken fourth line of Nathan Bastian, Riley Sheahan and Brandon Tanev capitalized on some physical pressure to break the scoring open and tally the first-ever Seattle Kraken goal.
With momentum on their side, the Kraken tied the game six minutes later on the power play. Jared McCann roofed a beautiful shot over the blocker of 20-year-old Vancouver goalie Arturs Silovs to knot the game at 2–2.
Seattle took their first lead of the night, on the power play once again, at the 11-minute mark of the middle period. Ryan Donato took a beautiful pass from Jordan Eberle and beat a helpless Silovs. McCann was also credited with an assist on the play, but that lead did not last long.
Just a minute and a half after Donato grabbed the lead, Vancouver forward Nils Hoglander tied the game back up, beating freshly swapped Chris Driedger with a long-range deflection. As Dreidger tried to track a long shot from defenseman Kyle Burroughs, Hoglander redirected it, which totally fooled the Kraken netminder.
This brought the teams to a 3–3 second intermission tie, even though the Canucks were getting outshot 27–8, which set up an exciting final period.
In the third period, the shots were closer, but the Kraken (more specifically Morgan Geekie) took control for a convincing 5–3 win.
Geekie scored unassisted just 50 seconds into the third, and then scored the insurance goal on the power play with just over five minutes remaining.
The tall 23-year-old center pushed a puck right off the faceoff past new Vancouver goalie Spencer Martin for a soft, but game-winning goal nonetheless. His second goal was more of the highlight quality, snapping a wicked wrist shot past Martin to put a bow on the win.
Anchor points
•Fans are going to love Brandon Tanev. The guy is everywhere, which can cause chaos for opponents. His quick feet and knack for getting his nose dirty are just what the Kraken need.
•While this was a nice win, both teams were missing significant players off their rosters. The Kraken were missing Vince Dunn, Yanni Gourde and Alex Wennberg. Vancouver was missing a whole host of top players such as Thatcher Demko, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, Travis Hamonic, Bo Horvat, Vasily Podkolzin and Brandon Sutter, as well as unsigned young stars Quinn Hughes and Elias Pettersson.