Among numerous changes to the game-day presentation at Climate Pledge Arena before Saturday night’s Kraken home opener was a team pledge that fans attending would be treated to a fresh array of off-ice giveaways.
Unfortunately, the Kraken players took that commitment a little too literally just 12 seconds in when Yanni Gourde coughed up the puck and onetime Seattle Thunderbirds junior prospect Keegan Kolesar buried it soon after behind goaltender Martin Jones.
Three minutes later, a missed clearance on a penalty kill led to another odd-man rush and goal that put the Kraken on their heels the remainder of a 5-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights.
“It’s just a lack of being ready I think,” Kraken forward Jordan Eberle said. “And then, obviously you’re trying to push back and then … we gave them opportunities and they came back the other way.
“It’s opening night for us, and it’s extremely frustrating when pucks are going in everywhere and then we’re really not helping our goalie out with odd-man rushes. So we’ll go to the drawing board, and we’ll correct some things.”
Having scored four goals in each of their first two contests to take three of four road points against Anaheim and Los Angeles, the Kraken (1-1-1) struggled to generate quality chances in this one.
“The first thing that comes to mind for me is we had [offensive]-zone possession and then were maybe getting too cute and fancy,” Eberle said. “And then, obviously, we turned the puck over and they have chances on breakaways and 2-on-1s and 3-on-1s. … You can’t give that stuff up and expect to win hockey games regardless of where you are with the score.”
The Kraken finally broke through with about six minutes to play in the game when defenseman Justin Schultz took a pass on the fly and beat goalie Adin Hill with a close-range snapper at a time his team trailed by five.
Jaden Schwartz added another late marker on a power-play traffic jam in the final minutes in his 600th NHL game, but it was far too late for any comebacks.
“It wasn’t ideal, obviously,” Schultz said of the game’s tough start. “It was kind of some tough luck there. But I think we just gave them too many Grade A looks tonight. Too many 2-on-1s. The boys are working hard; it’s just you can’t give a team like that those kinds of chances.”
Kraken coach Dave Hakstol had said during Saturday’s morning skate his team would try to harness energy from the opening-night crowd. But he added they couldn’t get distracted by the extra activity surrounding the game.
Unfortunately for the Kraken, that focus went awry the early minutes and sucked much of the energy out of the announced sellout crowd of 17,191, which not surprisingly contained plenty of empty seats given the marathon Mariners baseball playoff game taking place across town. Even those actually in their seats seemed somewhat preoccupied by the scoreless deadlock at T-Mobile Park still taking place as the puck dropped on another Kraken home season.
They’d barely had time to get comfortable in those seats before Gourde lost the puck along the right side boards in his own zone to William Carrier, who broke in 2-on-0 before sliding a pass to Kolesar for the easy goal.
The early marker by Kolesar, a member of the 2017 WHL champion Thunderbirds, was the second-quickest allowed by the Kraken in their short history. They’d yielded a goal by Tyler Motte of the Vancouver Canucks only 11 seconds into a road game Feb. 21.
“Obviously, first shift, I’ve got to do a better job,” Gourde said. “I lose that puck and it’s in the back of the net, so I kind of threw a bit of a knife in there. I’m supposed to be on the ice to bring energy to the team and make the right play. So that can’t happen on the first shift.”
A somewhat surprising starter insertion in place of No. 1 goalie Philipp Grubauer, backup netminder Jones — who’d looked solid in beating the Los Angeles Kings two nights earlier — did what he could to keep the Kraken in it, stopping Chandler Stephenson on a second-period penalty shot. But Reilly Smith launched a three-goal onslaught late in the frame to erase any doubt.
Smith’s goal came just seven seconds after the start of a Vegas power play when a pass attempt deflected off some skates and found him in the right circle, where he wristed the puck over the glove of Jones. Then, just three minutes later, Jonathan Marchessault scored his second of the game on a bad-angled shot that somehow sneaked past Jones on the short side.
Things went from bad to worse with just 16.5 seconds to play in the period when Shea Theodore became the second former Thunderbirds junior player to score, redirecting a harmless looking Phil Kessel shot from a significant distance.
The three goals in just 5:48 ended any lingering suspense.
“We weren’t sharp with the puck right from the start of the hockey game,” Hakstol said. “We were stuck in quicksand for the first 10 minutes of this game and couldn’t get our feet going. From there, once we steadied our game a little bit, we just couldn’t execute with the puck.
“Looking at the number of opportunities we gave them in transition … they killed us on transition, especially in the second period.”