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Montour's goal lifts Kraken over Leafs

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  First, the bad news. The Seattle Kraken blew a two-goal lead for the third time in four games last night at Climate Pledge Arena. The good news- they’ve won all three games. In an opening month marked by wins in games that the Kraken might have lost in the first five years of their existence, Seattle’s Brandon Montour slapped home a shot with 33 seconds remaining past his old teammate Sergei Bobrovsky to give the Kraken a 5-4 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Kraken improve to 8-4-1 on the season and have yet to lose a game (6-0) where they’ve had a two-goal lead. The Maple Leafs are 7-6-2. Seattle never trailed in the contest but Toronto’s high-scoring star Auston Matthews tied the game with 1:30 left in regulation (``that’s just a goal scorer doing his thing,” said Kraken coach Lane Lambert.) No doubt the crowd, which included a fair amount of Maple Leaf fans, were gearing up for an overtime period. However, Montour had other ideas. He took a drop pass from Matt...
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Wild outskate Kraken, 5-1

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  Seattle Kraken entered last night’s contest with the Minnesota Wild off to their best start in the franchise’s six-year history with a 7-3-1 record. So, maybe they were due for a `clunker,’ or the Wild are just a very good team. Most likely it was a little bit of both, as the Kraken dropped a 5-1 decision to their visitors last night st Climate Pledge Arena. The loss ends the Kraken’s modest two-game winning streak. Defenseman Vince Dunn succinctly analyzed last night’s contest noting, “I think the first period wasn’t terrible,” said Dunn. “And then the second period, it just kind of collapses.” The Kraken actually had a pretty good first-period outshooting the Wild, 14-7, and taking a 1-1 tie to the intermission. But Minnesota (7-3-2) notched three-second period goals. Minnesota took a 1-0 lead, 16 seconds into the game, when their top player (and last night’s number-one star) Kirill Kaprizov went in on a breakaway, deked Kraken goalkeeper Joey Daccord, and slid the puck...
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McMann, Kraken win shootout

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  To be honest, this was the type of game that the Seattle Kraken would lose in their first five years in the National Hockey League. The Kraken led the Detroit Red Wings, 3-0, last night at Climate Pledge Arena with 15 minutes remaining in the contest. But the visiting Wings rattled off three consecutive goals, including Alex DeBrincat’s marker with only 17 seconds showing on the clock. But after a typical five-minute overtime- both teams circling the offensive zone looking for the one perfect shot--the teams headed to a shootout. The shootout hasn’t been the Kraken’s friend through the years, but Bobby McMann tallied the go-ahead score and Philip Grubauer stopped Dylan Larkin at the other end to give the Kraken a 4-3 decision (Seattle’s Freddy Gaudreau and Detroit’s Victor Arvidsson also scored in the shootout.) ``Overall we played pretty well,’’ said Kraken coach Lane Lambert. ``Our first game back after a long road trip. We were focused.’’ The Kraken, who played seven o...
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Kraken go down swinging vs. Knights

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 Just like Dorothy in `The Wizard Of Oz,’ discovered she wasn’t in Kansas anymore, the Seattle Kraken discovered they weren’t playing the hapless Calgary Flames anymore. After besting the not very hot Flames, 6-1, in two of their first three regular season games, Seattle dropped a 6-2 decision to the Vegas Knights, last night at Climate Pledge Arena. The Kraken drop to 2-2 on the season, while the Knights, who advanced to the Stanley Cup finals last season, improve to 3-1. It may be the nature of hockey that Kraken fans were mostly in good spirits as they left the arena at games end. Many of the fans enjoyed a hectic, fight-filled, penalty-filled third period which was uncharacteristic of Seattle-Vegas games since the Kraken joined the league. Vegas rookie Marc Gatcomb may have set the tone for the game when he received a boarding penalty against Seattle defenseman Ryan Lindgren 15 seconds into the contest. Lindgren tried to play a couple of shifts but was scratched for the r...
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Kraken win season opener

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  The Seattle Kraken home opener may have lacked the pre-game luster of some previous openers, but on the ice, this was surely the most impressive of any Kraken home debut. After splitting two road games, the Kraken defeated the Calgary Flames by a 6-1 margin for the second time this season. After topping the Flames- who appear headed for a run as the worst team in the NHL this season, the Kraken jumped out to a quick lead last night at Climate Pledge Arena. While not a sellout crowd, the fans in attendance were treated to three goals in the first seven minutes. First, Berkly Catton intercepted an errant pass in the Calgary zone and wristed one past Flames’ netminder Dustin Wolf at 2:22; Catton’s first goal of the season. Two minutes later, Mackie Samoskevich notched his first goal as a Kraken. A former University of Michigan teammate of the Kraken’s Matty Beniers, waited for Wolf to commit himself and then slid a backhander into the net. Samoskevich, known for his speed, ble...
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Seattle SPORTs Now 4/23

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  Seattle Kraken general manager Jason Botterill met with the local media Wednesday at the Kraken Practice Facility at Northgate and said he plans to be `very aggressive’ during the off-season. The Kraken looked headed towards a playoff berth until they weren’t. The team boasted a 10-5-2 record in the month of January where at one point they were only three points behind the top spot in the Pacific Division. On the year, Seattle was in a playoff spot for 117 days. But when the team returned from the Olympic break in February it appeared to be lacking a spark and fell all the way down to 13 th place in the16-team Western Conference. Ironically, the Pacific Division was relatively weak this season and a top three finish would have placed the Kraken in the playoffs regardless of point totals. ``Our power play dropped off in March and April,’’ said Botterill, as the team went through a 5-14 streak after the Olympics. ``I feel our future is bright, but we’re not where we want to ...
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Seattle SPORTs Now

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                                Ron Francis (above) with Jordan Eberle and his family After five years with the Seattle Kraken- four as general manager and one as president of hockey operations- Ron Francis and the Kraken have decided to part ways. In some ways, this has been the most disappointing season in the five-year history of the Kraken. At the Winter Olympic break, Seattle was in a playoff position in the Pacific Division. Since the season resumed, Seattle’s NHL entry has only won five of 19 games. -``No one is satisfied,’’ said Kraken CEO Tod Leiweke. ``We have not delivered on the promise of this team. We're going to go back to the model we started with. We're going to have a GM who makes the decisions." Francis has made the decisions since before the Kraken even had a nickname. He took over in July 2019 and selected the players in the 2021 NHL expansion draft. While the Kraken didn’t achieve...
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