The strain of an opening 10-game gauntlet of powerhouse foes finally appeared to have caught up to the Kraken two periods into a Tuesday night contest that took a very familiar turn for the home side.
Last season, the Kraken rallied from two goals down at home in the third period to defeat the Montreal Canadiens on a record-setting overtime goal by Brandon Montour just four seconds into the extra session. This time around, it was a three-goal final frame deficit overcome with help from two Montour goals although the Kraken couldn’t rally all the way and took a 4-3 overtime defeat.
Cole Caufield scored his second goal of the game on a wraparound just 44 seconds into the extra frame to hand the Kraken their first Climate Pledge Arena defeat in four tries.
Shane Wright added the other Kraken goal of the third period as they rallied for a trio of goals the final 11 minutes of regulation to secure the one standings point and stun a Canadiens team off to a stellar start to their season.
And by the time the second period of this one was done, the Kraken stumbling along at a mere 10 mostly harmless shots on goal, the pace they’d maintained for much of the past two-plus weeks seemed off by a few skate strides.
Still, they made a game of it with a third period push, getting power play markers from Brandon Montrour and Shane Wright to get them back within one with five minutes to go in regulation. Then, Montour’s slapper from the point through traffic evened things with 1:43 to play and sent the home crowd into a frenzy.
Caufield and Juraj Slafkovski had scored first period goals to get the Canadiens, a speedy team riding a stellar 7-3-1 start to their season, off and running again. Alex Newhook looked to have sealed things by adding a second power play marker on the night for Montreal just under six minutes into the final period.
But Montour’s power play slap shot finally broke the scoring ice for the Kraken midway through the final frame. They had their fifth power play chance on the night a few minutes later and Wright made it count by popping home his third of the season off a Montour pass.
Eight of the opening 10 games played by the Kraken were against former playoff teams and a 5-2-3 mark is still something the team can certainly build off from here. But they’ll certainly need to generate more offense than they did in front of Montreal backup netminder Jakub Dobes, who barely broke a sweat in facing five shots in each of the first two periods.
Matty Beniers finally had what at that point was the most dangerous Kraken chance of the night in the second minute of the final period when he sped to edge of the left faceoff circle and unleashed a tough shot toward the far post that Dobes had to make a kick-save on.
Joey Daccord, meanwhile, needed to be on top of things just to keep the Kraken in it by the first intermission. Trailing by two goals, they saw Kirby Dach waltz around a defender and in alone only to be thwarted last-second by Daccord fully extending his left pad to make a stop on the deke attempt.
On a positive note, the Kraken now get a few days of breather space ahead of their next game Saturday against the New York Rangers. Compared to their opening 10 matchups, the slate of opponents – at least, on-paper – lightens up a little the rest of this homestand.
History will note that the Kraken this opening stretch took down formidable former playoff teams Vegas, Toronto, Winnipeg and Edmonton – all of them viewed as current Stanley Cup contenders. They also held late road leads against former playoff teams Montreal and Ottawa before securing points in overtime and shootout losses.
And they won an opening night game over Anaheim, a team currently at 5-3-1 after taking down the two-time defending Cup champion Florida Panthers on Tuesday. So, they’ll need to forget about this loss to Montreal and get back to what they’d been doing well in games prior.
