DENVER — Blowing kisses to the crowd after they’d just sucked the air out of the building epitomized the Thursday-night fright thrown the Seattle Kraken put into the defending Stanley Cup champions and their stunned fans.
But the Avalanche falling behind by two early Brandon Tanev and Eeli Tolvanen goals, coupled with the prospect of dropping both home games to start this opening-round series, were clearly jolted into desperation mode by the second period. They scored twice just 48 seconds apart to tie the game, then went on to a 3-2 victory in Game 2 when Devon Toews capped a third period flurry with a rebound goal to give the Avalanche their first lead of the night and series.
The Avalanche had won a key faceoff in the Kraken’s end — something they did most of the night — and after an initial Philipp Grubauer save on an Arturri Lehkonen shot, Toews gathered in the rebound and fired a 27-foot wrist shot past Grubauer with 7:01 to go in regulation time.
The Kraken pulled Grubauer for an extra attacker in the closing minutes, but couldn’t find an equalizer. Colorado’s win evened the best-of-seven series 1-1 with Game 3 scheduled for Saturday night at Climate Pledge Arena.
The Kraken had already shown signs of cracking under Colorado’s relentless pressure moments before the Avalanche won a clean faceoff and saw Lehkonen tip a Cale Makar slap shot from the point behind Grubauer just under seven minutes into the frame. Then, less than a minute later, Valeri Nichushkin was sent in alone and deked Grubauer to tie the game and ignite the previously silenced Ball Arena crowd into a frenzy.
From there, it was a matter of the Kraken holding on until intermission to regroup, which they did after some key stops by Grubauer on another night in which the netminder was again at the top of his game. In the late stages of the frame, the Kraken had a couple of stellar chances at very end of a power play and then on a final-minute 3-on-1 break led by Matty Beniers.
After Beniers dropped the puck to a trailing Jamie Oleksiak, the hulking defenseman slid a pass across to Jordan Eberle, whose close-in wrist shot was stopped by Georgiev to preserve the tie.
After the Kraken’s dominant Game 1 victory in their historic first playoff contest, most observers fully expected the Avalanche to start their push in Game 2 about a period earlier than they actually did. Instead, it was the Kraken — led by a supercharged Yanni Gourde — that again blitzed the Avalanche from every direction, hitting them relentlessly as the defending champs scrambled around in their own end.
Just as they had in Game 1, Gourde’s line again opened the scoring fewer than three minutes in as Eeli Tolvanen fed Justin Schultz with a perfect pass that the defenseman tucked past Georgiev. The crowd was soon reeling in disbelief as the Kraken continued pouring on the pressure, even after a somewhat suspect interference penalty called on Oleksiak.
While killing the penalty, Gourde fought off two opponents deep in Colorado’s end and fed a cross-ice pass to Tanev — who buried a wrist shot high behind Georgiev for a 2-0 lead.
With the arena silenced, aside from some Kraken supporters screaming with delight, a celebrating Tanev circled toward the side glass, stopped and blew a kiss to some fans in the front rows. A Seattle Times photographer stationed nearby said the kiss appeared aimed in the direction of some women who had been visibly taunting Kraken players moments earlier.
Regardless of who the kiss was for, the hometown fans were not in a reciprocal mood when it came to their team. After Gourde was sent in alone by Oliver Bjorkstrand in the period’s closing seconds — only to be turned away by Georgiev on what would prove to be a huge stop that kept his team in it — the fans serenaded the Avs’ players off the ice with a chorus of boos at period’s end.
Whether or not that embarrassing salute helped wake the Avalanche up, it was clearly a different team the Kraken were facing from that point onward.
