*Photo from Reuters*
Series tied 2-2
There's usually some history happening with new NHL teams. Daniel Sprong had a goal and an assist, Jordan Eberle won the game, and the Seattle Kraken defeated the Colorado Avalanche 3-2 on Monday in Seattle.
The win goes down as the first playoff win on home ice for the Kraken, who also tied the series 2-2 and forced a game 6 in the process. In their second ever playoff win, the Kraken saw Sprong post two points, while 6 other Kraken skaters registered a point.
Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol said of the historic win that "Everybody contributed. It took a few extra minutes tonight getting into overtime, but through the ebbs and flows of the game, there's always some momentum, there's always some pushes either way. But our group was pretty comfortable in their own skin tonight."
Starting the scoring for the Kraken was Will Borgen. He found the back of the net 3:56 into the game, making it 1-0 Kraken with assists from Adam Larsson and Brandon Tanev. On the power play at the 10:09 mark of the first, Sprong scored to double the Kraken lead to 2-0, assisted by defenseman Justin Schultz.
The Avalanche answered back in the second period with Mikko Rantanen, scoring 14:08 into the period to make it a 2-1 game. Rantanen scored his second goal of the night with 50 seconds to go in the second, tying the game 2-2. That eventually led to overtime, where Eberle scored to seal a historic win for the Kraken.
Eberle said after the game that "Anytime you even a series, it's a big goal. We had a lot of a chances and that's a really good team over there, so we've been kind of the underdog from Day One and we're just trying to fight back in this series and we've still got a lot of work ahead of us."
Getting the start for the Kraken was Philipp Grubauer, who played well in a series tying win. Grubauer stopped 20 of the 22 shots he saw from his old team the Avalanche, giving him a .909 save percentage on the night.
It was Alexandar Georgiev in goal for the Avalanche, who was unable to outduel Grubauer and took the loss. Georgiev was busy, making 40 saves out of the 43 shots the Kraken landed, recording a .930 save percentage in the loss.
Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said that "We didn't get to our game early enough, so that's the big major takeaway for me. We knew it was going to get tougher and tougher as the series goes on. Space is going to be less available to you, so you have to earn every inch of ice, and we didn't do a good enough job early on in the hockey game taking care of our side of that scenario."
Up next, game 5 of the series is back in Colorado on Wednesday night. Both teams will look for the win in a crucial game to take a 3-2 series lead.
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