Canes cause Chaos, but Kraken survive it to earn first win of 2023-24 season
By Charles Hamaker
Seattle, WA – Just like the rain-soaked escape scene in Shawshank Redemption, the Kraken and their fans may be rejoicing by looking to the sky after the team's 7–4 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes for the home side's first victory of the year. Coming into this game seeking a complete effort for 60 minutes, the Kraken (largely) got that as they tallied three goals in each of the first and last periods of this game, needing those final three as the Hurricanes made a late push that brought them within one. Thanks to timely saves by goaltender Joey Daccord and a sense of urgency to end this game off right, Seattle takes down a Stanley Cup favorite in Carolina and can use this victory to jettison them into positive form moving ahead.
Pre-game sights and scenes ahead of the Seattle Kraken win over the Carolina Hurricanes at Climate Pledge Arena on October 19th, 2023 (Photos by Liz Wolter)
Kraken’s fast start becomes rooted in substance, not flash
Seattle has had quick, energized starts in nearly every first period that they’ve played so far this year, but the most that it’s amounted to over the course of those for games was one goal, highlighted by Kailer Yamamoto’s scored last game in the home opener against the Colorado Avalanche. Tonight, Seattle took full advantage of their fast-paced push to begin the night and tallied three goals against Carolina’s starting goaltender, Antti Raanta. While the three goals in the first period do see them bring a two-goal lead into the first intermission, it didn’t look that it was going to go that way after Carolina answered Yanni Gourde’s game opening goal with one of their own from Jesper Fast, with just 19 seconds between those scores.
The Seattle Kraken scored three goals in the first period, coming from Yanni Gourde, Jaden Schwartz, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare. (Photos by Liz Wolter)
Gourde scored on a play that he works on constantly in practice, tipping in a puck from Andre Burakovsky at the top of the left faceoff circle, sneaking it by Raanta as the Hurricanes goaltender had traffic in front of him. 19 seconds later and after the Hurricanes had won a faceoff, Jesper Fast was credited with a goal as the puck went off his skate and past Joey Daccord in goal. It felt like this might be a slug fest, but Seattle made it more one-sided after Carolina’s first score. With under eight minutes to play, the Kraken went on their first power play of the night thanks to Hurricanes Stefan Noesen getting booked for holding, and it was easy as Jaden Schwartz was left wide open in front of the net, slotting the puck under the left leg pad of Raanta. Their third and final goal of that period came short-handed, as Seattle’s Adam Larsson was booked for holding. With 45 seconds left, Kraken defenseman Vince Dunn took a missed pass from Carolina down to the other end, and the rebound off his shot fell right in front of Pierre-Edouard Bellemare to pound it home and extend the Seattle lead.
The Carolina Hurricanes were able to display a bit of their offensive ability, racking up four goals in their loss to the Seattle Kraken on October 19th, 2023 at Climate Pledge Arena. (Photos by Liz Wolter)
Canes cause Chaos, but Kraken embrace it to secure victory
After that thrilling end to period one and the ensuing intermission, the second frame saw Seattle tack on a fourth goal (and their second power play score of the night) as Vince Dunn blasted a puck home from the top of the high danger area as he’d been left all alone. That fourth goal signaled the final straw for Raanta in net, as the Hurricanes made the swap to put in young goaltender Pyotr Kochetkov. Behind him, Carolina was able to stop the bleeding at the moment and keep them within a somewhat manageable deficit. Opening the third period, the Kraken got caught lack focus as all five skaters on the ice were puck watching, allowing Hurricanes forward Seth Jarvis to score easily. After the hard start, the puck luck and momentum were heading in favor of Carolina after Jesperi Kotkaniemi used the smallest of openings to sneak a puck through the near side of Daccord up and in tight, bringing this game within one.
Last season, Seattle showed that they could hang around in these battles and once again tonight they displayed their fire power. The Kraken were up to the task, winning a board battle down low before Oliver Bjorkstrand found a cutting Jared McCann wide open to power home the team's fifth goal of the night and give them minor breathing room. Seattle had the juices flowing once again, as Matty Beniers diced through the Hurricanes skaters to find a cutting Tye Kartye on the back door, furthering the teams lead and giving Kartye his first goal in NHL regular season play. While Carolina did bring things within two goals with a power play goal as they had two skaters left unmarked in front of Daccord, the Kraken put the final stamp on this game with an empty netter from Oliver Bjorkstrand.
Despite the Carolina Hurricanes late push, the Seattle Kraken were able to pull away as they secured victory. (Photos by Liz Wolter)
Busting through?
Perhaps we’ve just been optimistic, but the Seattle Kraken have been doing so much positively that it felt like this sort of effort and a satisfying result such as this was coming for the team. Seattle wasn’t getting the puck luck, or much of any at all, and the rest of their overall game was seeing success. Tonight, while obviously not perfect, saw the Kraken deploy their strong penalty kill, goaltending that got stops in the timely moments, conversion on the power play, and that shared scoring approach that got them to the postseason last year. Now, it’s impossible to expect seven goals per game as a regular occurrence, but the way that the puck was shared and the lines from Seattle brought waves of offense showed the style that won the Kraken games last year. If the penalty kill and goaltender tandem of Philipp Grubauer + Joey Daccord can maintain their strong start while the power play and offensive attack use tonight’s win as a big building block moving forward? Seattle is back on track for a season they were looking to build after last year. There’s definite room to improve, and this was all done without forward Brandon Tanev as he’s out for weeks with a lower body injury.
This 7-4 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes was the first win of the season for the Seattle Kraken. (Photos by Liz Wolter)
Quick notes
Tonight marked the first time this season than an NHL game has had seven unique goal scorers in a game.
Tonight is the ninth time in franchise history that the Kraken have scored seven or more goals in a game.
Vince Dunn totaled three points (one goal, two assists) in tonight's game, which is tied for the second-highest single-game total of his career. He now has five points (one goal, four assists) through the first five games of the season.
Tye Kartye's goal was the first regular-season goal of his NHL career after totaling five points (three goals, two assists) in 10 Stanley Cup Playoff games for the Kraken in 2022-23.
Andre Burakovsky earned two assists tonight to bring his career total to 200. He is the 14th skater from the 2013 draft class and the 19th active, Swedish player to total 200 or more career assists.
Burakovsky also recorded his 300th NHL point (a goal) against the Hurricanes on Oct. 17, 2022.
He has five points (one goal, four assists) in his last five games against the Hurricanes.
With three points (one goal, two assists), tonight marked Oliver Bjorkstrand's highest-scoring game as a member of the Kraken. It marks the first time he has had at least three points in a game since April 24, 2022 while playing for the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare's first-period goal was his first of the season and the Kraken's first shorthanded goal of the year.
The goal marked the seventh shorthanded goal of Bellemare's career and first since Jan. 18, 2022.
The Kraken have gone 14-for-15 on the penalty kill the season and have an even goal differential when playing shorthanded.
The Kraken have won the faceoff battle in 3 of 5 games this season.
What’s next?
Following their first win of the 2023-24 season, the Seattle Kraken will wrap up a three-game homestand when they host the New York Rangers on Saturday, October 21st, with a puck drop at 7PM PST with it being broadcasted on Root Sports locally and ESPN+ nationally. This will finalize a homestand that sees them host three team that were in the 2022-23 Stanley Cup Playoffs team, and a Rangers team that sits at an even 2-2-0 record after falling to the Nashville Predators tonight, the last game before they face this Kraken team. New York’s star goaltender Igor Shesterkin struggled against the Predators, eventually getting pulled for Jonathan Quick. It will be interesting to see who takes the net on Saturday, as Shesterkin has only one loss against Seattle in the four games he played them while quick has a 1-1-0 record while also being pulled in a game against the Kraken.
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