Legend should someday have it that this rumored Northwest rivalry between the Kraken and Vancouver Canucks officially began somewhere between Jared McCann’s second-period goal and Jamie Oleksiak force-feeding an opponent his lunch.
The two moments occurred seconds apart early in Wednesday night’s second period of the Kraken’s 6-1 rout of the visiting and newly coached Canucks. It took the Kraken seven lifetime games before finally registering a win in what can now be called a rivalry of sorts, but they sure made it count by pounding the opposition on all fronts.
McCann’s power-play marker on a short side shot from the left circle was the Kraken’s third goal of the night and second with the man advantage. Luke Schenn then tried to wake up his slumbering team right off the ensuing faceoff and got hammered into submission by the 6-foot-7, 255-pound Oleksiak — whose only real danger in the fight was the risk of breaking his hand with multiple punches landing on his foe’s helmet before throwing him to the ice.
The spirit and stuffing apparently beaten out of them, the Canucks went quietly from there as Eeli Tolvanen scored soon after and Oliver Bjorkstrand made it 5-0 before period’s end as the announced 17,151 at Climate Pledge Arena that hadn’t traveled down I-5 from British Columbia looked on gleefully. The victory enabled the Kraken to surpass their wins and points total from last season and boosted their record to 28-14-5, moving them back into a tie for the Pacific Division lead with the Vegas Golden Knights.
Vancouver broke the shutout bid by Martin Jones with just seven seconds remaining in the second as Conor Garland scored from in close. But Ryan Donato scored for his third straight game on his team’s first shot of the final period to restore the five-goal margin.
Bjorkstrand had gotten the party started about eight minutes into the game with his first of two goals, wristing home a rebound after the Kraken had jumped all over the Canucks in the early going. Vancouver was coming off a prior night’s win in their first game under new coach Rick Tocchet and the expectation had been they’d come out firing in a season where beating the Kraken has been one of their few highlights.
But Brandon Tanev seemingly had a half-dozen scoring chances the opening six minutes alone and Bjorkstrand’s goal pretty much opened the floodgates from there. Fewer than two minutes later, the Kraken played tic-tac-toe with the puck and Alex Wennberg tipped the final redirection past goalie Spencer Martin for a 2-0 lead.
Tocchet immediately called timeout, realizing his team was about to be run out of the rink. The Canucks barely got to intermission down just the two goals and being outshot 18-7, but the Kraken picked up where they’d left off quickly in the second after Tyler Myers took a cheap shot at Matty Beniers and McCann scored on the ensuing power play. Beniers played the remainder of the second period but did not come out for the third.
Schenn began jawing with Oleksiak before the ensuing faceoff following McCann’s goal and — after holding his own momentarily in the ensuing fight — was eventually overpowered by the big man’s right-handed punches.
Whether it was an intended metaphor or not, the Kraken were enacting some payback on the visitors for what’s been a tortuous start of sorts to this regional showdown. The Canucks won the first four games of this series last season, a fifth in regulation right here back in October and then again in a pre-Christmas shootout round in Vancouver after overcoming multiple two-goal deficits.
The continued mastery of the Kraken had been somewhat baffling given the Canucks stumbling through a 19-26-3 campaign that led to the firing of coach Bruce Boudreau in tumultuous and messy fashion over the weekend. Climate Pledge spectators began chanting “Bruce, there it is!” as the third period wound down, mimicking the salute Canucks fans had given Boudreau his final night behind the bench.
Whether this latest chant was by visiting Canucks fans giving Tocchet a Bronx cheer or Kraken supporters rubbing salt in the wound, Boudreau’s former team couldn’t get out of the building fast enough. As for the Kraken, they got it all out of their system as the final period wound down as tempers flared with Tanev taking exception to a Garland hit and roughing him up along the boards as players from both sides converged.