Credit the Kraken for never giving up.
After Alex Newhook scored at the 5:55 mark of the 3rd period to give the visiting Montreal Canadiens a 3-0 lead, no Seattle fan would be criticized for considering the game a write-off at that point.
Cue Kraken defenseman Brandon Montour. He scored on the power play at 8:57 and again with an extra attacker on the ice at 18:17 to tie the game, completing his scoring sandwich around a Shane Wright even strength goal exactly three minutes earlier.
The comeback was complete and Seattle gave themselves a chance to win. Instead, they came away with a point in overtime and remained unbeaten at home in regulation. Cole Caufield, who opened the scoring in the 1st period, tallied the game winner for the Habs just 44-seconds into OT.
“They’re a fast young team, they maintained most of the possession time,” Montour said of Montreal postgame, “but down three-nothing, we get a point, you see the confidence, you see how we were in the last ten (minutes) there, and it’s nice to get a point. But we’d obviously like to create a bit more throughout the game.”
Seattle fired eleven shots on goal in the third period compared to just ten through the first two periods.
“We weren’t very good, certainly in the first period,” Kraken head coach Lane Lambert said. “There’s no excuse for it, we’ll have to be better, but we’ve starting games pretty well, consistently thus far through the season. This wasn’t one of them and you can’t afford to do that.”
In this case his club got away with it. Teams playing flat and then surging with inspiration and desperation over the final ten minutes of regulation is common in the NHL, particularly this season with the compressed schedule to make up for the lengthy Winter Olympic break coming in February. It’s a formula that more often than not doesn’t pay off.
The Kraken are off until Saturday night when they host the New York Rangers, two-nothing winners over the Canucks, who tried that same 3rd period urgency and fell short, on Tuesday night in Vancouver.
Earlier Kraken:
— In Kraken Win Over Oilers, Eberle Scores 2, Dunn Prevents 2
