The penultimate day of the NHL Rookie Faceoff began with the battle of the two most recent expansion teams as the Seattle Kraken took on the Vegas Golden Knights. Both teams made a considerable number of changes heading into the matchup: notably, the eighth-overall selection of the 2024 Draft, Berkly Catton, was in Seattle’s lineup. For Vegas, it was interesting to note they kept their defensemen the same but made some changes up front. Victor Ostman got the start in goal for the Kraken, while Carl Lindbom got the nod for Vegas.
It was an end-to-end game early in the first period as both teams were getting chances but none were the result of sustained pressure. Transitional play was going to be the key to this game, it seemed. Seattle was making some dangerous plays around their own net, turning it over near the crease in the game’s opening minutes and then nearly doing the same thing a couple of more times in the first 10 minutes.
Vegas got a dangerous scoring opportunity about nine minutes into the game when Lukas Dragicevic was attempting to receive a cross-slot pass as Seattle looked to regroup in their own defensive zone. Unfortunately for the Kraken defenseman, his stick broke as a result of the pass, allowing Vegas to earn possession with only two players back, one of whom was without a stick. Ostman was able to make a couple of saves to deny the Golden Knights and Dragicevic did a decent job disrupting the attack without a stick. Vegas got the first man advantage of the game with 9:38 remaining in the first when Tyson Jugnauth was called for interference.
Vegas converted on the power play, as Tuomas Uronen carried the puck into the zone and passed it across the crease to Braeden Bowman who put the puck in the back of the net to give the Golden Knights a 1-0 lead. Moments after the goal, Andrei Loshko got hit awkwardly into the boards. He got some attention from medical staff after skating gingerly back to the bench but appeared to be okay and didn’t miss a shift. While there had been some moments of physicality prior to that hit, it seemed that was the catalyst for the game to get much more physical. David Goyette gave Vegas their second power play of the period when he was called for tripping late in the first. With 50 seconds remaining in the period, Ostman made another great save to deny the Golden Knights on a shot from point-blank range. Goyette’s penalty carried over to the second period, but the Kraken only had seven more seconds to kill off.
The Kraken would kill off that penalty, but less than a minute later Jakub Brabenec extended the Golden Knights’ lead to two. Now the Kraken had a much bigger hole to climb out of. That hole would only continue to get deeper, as just over four minutes into the period the Golden Knights made it it 3-0, this time it came off the stick of Viliam Kmec. Samuel Mayer got called for hooking about 30 seconds later, giving the Kraken their first power play of the night. The Golden Knights killed it off successfully.
With 11:21 left in the second period, Jacob Mathieu got a breakaway while shorthanded due to Ben Hemmerling’s tripping penalty, and Mathieu was able to beat Ostman to make it 4-0. Nathan Villeneuve got the Kraken on the board with a shorthanded goal with 7:56 remaining in the second period. It was set up by Jagger Firkus who was able to create a two-on-one opportunity that left Villeneuve with a wide-open goal. Seattle got a second goal a minute and a half later this time off the stick of Tucker Robertson, but Vegas certainly wasn’t happy that Lindbom was knocked down in the course of the play. An argument could have certainly been made for goaltender interference, but the game went on. That goal was also Firkus’s second assist in less than two minutes. The score remained the same heading into the second intermission.
Villeneuve made a nearly disastrous error in front of his own net early in the third period, turning it over directly to a Golden Knight. He was bailed out by Ostman, who made the save. Ostman nearly made a big mistake of his own later in the period when he missed covering the puck, but recovered quickly. Firkus got a shorthanded breakaway with just over 11 minutes remaining, but his shot went wide of the goal. The Kraken scored a third with 8:08 remaining in regulation, and unsurprisingly it was Firkus who put the puck in the back of the net. Vegas then iced the game with an empty-net goal by Matyas Sapovaliv with 15.9 seconds remaining to make it 5-3.
Less Than Ideal End for Seattle
As the only team with just two games on their schedule at the Rookie Faceoff, it certainly wasn’t ideal for the Kraken to have an abysmal performance in the first half of their final game of the tournament. Vegas seemed to want it more and have more energy right out of the gate, and to be fair, they were off the previous night which likely factored into the outcome. Both in terms of speed and physicality, Vegas dominated the Kraken and the scoreboard certainly reflected that early in the game.
Firkus Becoming Big Moment Player
When his team needed him, Firkus did whatever he could to get them back in the game. His two assists in less than two minutes changed the game from one that seemed out of reach to a two-goal game that could go either way. He remained out on the ice after the second assist as well, basically making himself run out of energy before he even thought about coming off. This point only became clearer when he scored a goal of his own late in the third period, bringing his team within a single tally.
The second the Golden Knights let up, even just for a minute, it changed the entire complexion of the game. In two minutes, it went from a dominating performance to a game either team could win. A four-goal lead usually means a team is going to walk away victorious, but at this level there are never any guarantees. Letting off the gas, even momentarily, can lead to bad results and that’s something the Vegas prospects quickly learned.
Related: Takeaways From Golden Knights’ 2-0 Win Over Kings at Rookie Faceoff
In a game that seemed at one point would be an easy victory for the Golden Knights, the Kraken never stopped fighting and brought themselves within a single goal before an empty-netter put the game away. Despite the score not ending up in their favor, the Kraken showed a lot of heart to even come close.
