Seattle Kraken blow two-goal lead in crushing 5-4 OT loss to Vegas Golden Knights
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON - MARCH 12: Jack Eichel #9 of the Vegas Golden Knights celebrates his overtime goal against the Seattle Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena on March 12, 2024 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images / Getty Images)
SEATTLE - The defending Stanley Cup champions may have effectively ended the season of the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday night.
Jonathan Marchessault scored with 16.7 seconds left to play to force overtime, and Jack Eichel scored the game-winner in the extra period as the Kraken were unable to hold on to a two-goal third period lead in a brutal 5-4 loss that further dented the team's playoff hopes.
The Kraken were so close to getting a critical win in regulation against a Vegas team they are chasing in the standings. But instead of making up two full points on the Golden Knights and the rest of the teams they're chasing for a Wild Card spot, they had the rug pulled out from underneath them. Vegas gets the two points while the Kraken get just one and effectively lose more ground.
"It stings to not hold the lead and walk away with two points," head coach Dave Hakstol said.
Seattle had scored three straight goals in the third period to take a 4-2 lead with 8:30 left to play as the Kraken appeared intent on keeping their playoff dreams viable. Instead, William Karlsson scored less than a minute after Oliver Bjorkstrand gave Seattle the two-goal lead, and Marchessault's second goal of the night in the closing seconds forced the extra session and guaranteed a point for Vegas.
Eichel then delivered the dagger.
"I liked everything pretty much until we scored our fourth goal," center Pierre-Édouard Bellemare said. "... From that point we were on our heels instead of being on the attack like we were in the first 14 of that period. I liked everything but that goddamn six last minutes really."
The Kraken are now nine points back of the Knights and Los Angeles Kings in the Pacific Division, and 10 points back of the Nashville Predators. Seattle has 68 points with 18 games left to play. If you assume Seattle has to get to at least 94 points to have a chance at the playoffs, the Kraken will need to go approximately 13-5 over that stretch to even get to that number.
Per MoneyPuck.com, the Kraken's odds of making the playoffs with a regulation win would have remained just over 20 percent. With the overtime loss, it's effectively been halved down to 10.2 percent.
While they do play one of the weakest schedules in the league to finish the year, the teams they're chasing play comparably weak schedules too.
"I think we had like a good push back, but we need to close that one out," said Matty Beniers, who scored the tying goal early in the third period.
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After a scoreless first period, The Kraken pushed for the opening goal as Adin Hill made saves on Tye Kartye and Jamie Oleskiak to keep Seattle off the board. But eventually, the Kraken found a way through for the opening score of the game. A nice shift of pressure led to Jared McCann setting up André Burakovsky for his third goal of the year and a 1-0 lead.
But almost immediately after taking the lead, Brian Doumoulin was called for a holding penalty against Brett Howden to give Vegas a power play chance. Oleksiak broke a stick on the penalty kill, which left Seattle even more vulnerable, Marchessault found space to the backside of Philipp Grubauer and scored his 36th goal of the year off a great pass from Ivan Barbashev to tie the game at 1-1.
The Golden Knights began to tilt the ice back in their favor toward the end of the period and were rewarded with a fluky goal. Off an offensive zone face-off win by William Karlsson, the puck hopped into the air. Before it landed back on the ice, Pavel Dorofeyev managed to connect on a swing toward the net that seemed to surprise Grubauer for a 2-1 Vegas lead.
As Vegas got another power play chance late in the period, the Kraken's season appeared firmly against the ropes.
But Brandon Tavev and Bellemare came up with big blocks to kill off the penalty early in the third period and gave Seattle a chance to push back. Beniers deflected a Tomáš Tatar shot down through the legs of Hill to tie the game at 2-2 less than two minutes into the third period for his ninth of the season.
Bellemare won a face-off at center ice to start a chance for Seattle with Tanev tipping Bellemare's shot by Hill for a 3-2 Kraken lead. It was Tanev's sixth goal of the year.
Eeli Tolvanen then sprung Bjorkstrand on a breakaway look that he finished top corner over the glove of Hill despite defensive pressure from Alex Pietrangelo for a 4-2 Seattle lead.
Bjorkstrand's insurance goal was immediately needed for the Kraken. Less than a minute after the Bjorkstrand goal, an extended offensive zone stretch caught Seattle out of position as Karlsson ripped a one-timer off a Brayden McNabb pass to trim the Kraken lead to 4-3 with 7:37 remaining.
The Knights pulled Hill with under two minutes left to play as Seattle tried to close out the win in regulation. A Jack Eichel shot from distance was perfectly redirected by Chandler Stephenson to the weakside when Marchessault was waiting for his second goal of the night to force overtime with 16.7 remaining.
"Needed one more little share underneath probably at the goal line or one more guy underneath on the tying goal," Hakstol said. "They fling a puck to the net and make a good play to get that puck to the weak side. We could have a number underneath on that play."
Bellemare wasn't happy with the way they played on their heels in the closing minutes of regulation.
"We're meant to take the puck forward, get the red line, get it deep, go work it, right?" he said. "And so they didn't come off their zone clean, the changes were more like, you know, changing for one another. I felt like after we scored the fourth goal, it was more like kind of a high flip and then like everybody changed, and then they're coming on the next line, right? So it's kind of like, not cool to the next line a little bit. So as soon as you come on the ice, the line were kind of like on their heels because they're coming. And I think that that's 100 percent on us. Unfortunately."
Then in overtime, the Kraken lost both faceoffs, which gave Vegas possession. Play opened up with Pietrangelo firing a shot off the post on one end, and Bjorkstrand and Burakovsky creating a pair of looks in the offensive end the other way.
But after the Kraken couldn't connect on a rush chance for Burakvosky from Adam Larsson, Vegas got to fly back offensively. Pietrangelo lobbed a pass over Bjorkstrand as Eichel drove in alone from the blue line and beat Grubauer to end Seattle's night.
"In a perfect world you'd say 'you know what, we'd love to just get a line change and live for the next day' but we've got a scoring chance also," Hakstol said. "We don't capitalize on a couple of real good opportunities and that opens up the the opportunity going the other direction."