Kraken allow tying goal late, fall to Golden Knights in OT in crushing blow to playoff hopes

SEATTLE – The Seattle Kraken trailed the Vegas Golden Knights after Tuesday’s second period. That really wouldn’t do against the team holding the second wild-card playoff spot in the West, a position the Kraken want badly but had only have 18 games left to secure.

They got their needed third-period surge and just had to hold on for a badly needed a regulation win. But the Kraken let the Golden Knights erase a 4-2 advantage in the final nine minutes. Vegas pulled goaltender Adin Hill for the extra attacker and teammate Jonathan Marchessault scored his second of the night with seven seconds left to force overtime.

The Golden Knights’ Jack Eichel scored to take the precious extra standings point in his team’s 5-4 victory at Climate Pledge Arena.

Kraken alternate captain Jordan Eberle called it the biggest game of the year, not because it was his 1000th in the NHL but because the Kraken couldn’t afford to lose. They hadn’t done things the easy way all season. Why start now?

They scored three times in the first 11:30 of the third period to take that 4-2 lead. The Kraken’s young roommates kicked things off and connected on the tying goal 1:55 into the third period. Will Borgen took the point shot and Matty Beniers tipped it on net, ending his goal-scoring drought before it hit a month. Beniers netted his last goal Feb. 15 in Boston.

Pierre-Edouard Bellemare then appeared to score on a fluid, creative shift from the fourth line, which looked as though it had been playing together for years instead of weeks. Kailer Yamamoto dished the puck, Brandon Tanev planted himself nearby for a potential tip, Vegas defenseman Nicolas Hague thoughtfully provided a screen and Bellemare was credited with his first goal since Dec. 14. A broken leg sidelined him for two months of that span.

Oliver Bjorkstrand piled on with a breakaway goal. Kraken linemate Eeli Tolvanen found him near center ice and he sent the puck into the top corner, past Vegas goalie Hill’s glove.

William Karlsson, who had his fingerprints all over this game, scored to tighten the score again, and the Kraken nearly made it out unscathed. Philipp Grubauer made 27 regulation saves for Seattle.

In a scoreless first period, the Kraken were almost bitten by an errant Tolvanen power-play rebound. Vegas’ Karlsson took off and looked poised to overtake Justin Schultz, but Schultz swung a desperation poke check toward Karlsson’s skates, to Tolvanen and to safety.

Seattle threw Vegas back on its heels in the first four minutes of the second period. Andre Burakovsky converted a backwards, no-look flick of a pass from Jared McCann for his second goal in three games.

Vegas got it right back. The Kraken were nine seconds away from killing off a holding penalty administered to a visibly incensed Brian Dumoulin. As Grubauer slid over to block the back door, Marchessault tucked a shot into the roof of the net so carefully that the goal light didn’t come on. He was sure, though, and soon everyone else on the ice came around to the idea of a tied game.

The goal light was slow on the Golden Knights’ second goal, also nearly imperceptible. Right off a late second-period faceoff, which Seattle’s McCann was credited with winning, Vegas’ Pavel Dorofeyev picked up a bouncing puck out of teammate Karlsson’s legs and snapped it past Grubauer’s glove, all in the span of one second.

Grubauer flashed his glove at Michael Amadio, lunging forward to snag the Golden Knights winger’s shot, during a delayed penalty in the final 61 seconds The Kraken turned in a solid second period but trailed, 2-1.