Kraken 5, Canucks 4 in overtime
With five minutes remaining in regulation the Canucks led the Kraken 4-1 at Rogers Arena on Saturday.
Then this happened:
From below the left goalline, Jaden Schwartz banked a shot in off Vancouver D-man Noah Juulsen with 4:45 remaining; what appeared to be the proverbial “too little too late” goal.
But with 1:12 remaining and their net empty, Seattle cut the lead to one when Vince Dunn ripped a shot home from the slot off a Tyler Myers turnover.
Net empty again, Schwartz battled through a crowd to reach a loose puck in the slot off a rebound and he banged it home to tie the game with 50-seconds remaining.
With all the confidence and the momentum, Dunn scored on a breakaway at 2:15 of overtime and Seattle avoided tying its franchise record long losing streak at six. Instead, they start fresh with a home game on Monday against the Utah Hockey Club.
Vancouver played without its top two scorers, defenceman Quinn Hughes and centre Elias Pettersson. “Huggy” almost sat out the last game before the Christmas break, a win over the San Jose Sharks, a match that saw “Petey” leave early after getting dinged up.
Seattle started the afternoon without goalie Joey Daccord, he suffered a hand injury before the break, and Andre Burakovsky, who is ill.
The first period of the matinee on Saturday was a slopfest. The Canucks power play did manage to score quickly on its first chance while the Kraken’s lone power play effort was horrendous.
Brock Boeser picked up his 12th goal of the season on the rebound off a great Philipp Grubauer left pad save at 16:03.
Kraken centre Matty Beniers, without a goal for 19 straight games, had the best two chances of the period for Seattle. The snake-bit forward whiffed on the first opportunity and fired the second one into Vancouver goalie Thatcher Demko.
The action moved along; there were only five face-offs in the 1st period and Vancouver won four of them.
Then, wouldn’t you know it, after not capitalizing in the 1st period, Beniers snapped his goalless streak with a shot Demko would like to have back to start the 2nd period. The young centre tied the game at the 1:18 mark with a waffling puck from the high slot that went in off the netminder’s glove.
Canucks fireplug/waterbug Conor Garland gave Vancouver its second lead of the game, what seemed like a permanent one, soon after coming out of the penalty box following the Kraken’s third failed power play. He ripped a slapper through the legs (5-hole) of Grubauer at 8:36.
Boeser would add another goal seven minutes later to put Seattle in a big hole after two periods.
When Jake DeBrusk scored his 16th of the season, his 13th goal in the last 17 games, the game was apparently over at the 3:08 mark of the 3rd period.
Little did we know complete madness loomed in the not-so-distant future.
Earlier Canucks:
