The Seattle Kraken pulled off a huge 2-1 win against the Calgary Flames, a proper way to cap off an intense night of hockey! While our boys on the ice showed us how it’s done, over on the east coast, the Islanders were busy reminding everyone how painful this game can be, stumbling against the defending Cup champion Hurricanes for a 5-3 loss that felt way worse than the score suggests.
The Islanders’ Rollercoaster: From Horrific Start to Heartbreak
The Islanders hadn’t hit the ice in five days and it showed, with the Hurricanes pouncing to a 2-0 lead within the first three minutes and twenty seconds. It was a brutal start, no doubt. But give them credit, they steadily found their rhythm. Despite still trailing by two at the first intermission, they fired back with two quick goals in the first six minutes of the second period, making it a real game again. After trading goals once more, Brayden Schenn even netted a nice wraparound, and Victor Eklund tied things up at 3-3, pushing it to where it looked destined for overtime. Then came the gut punch: William Carrier outmuscled J-G Pageau for a rebound, scoring the winner with just 5:08 left on the clock. Goalie Semyon Varlamov did his part, facing Carolina’s trademark shot barrage and stopping 34 shots, but it wasn’t enough.
Costly Errors and Questionable Whistles Derail the Isles
This loss stings for the Islanders because they truly hung with the champs, erasing that horrendous start. But ultimately, the mistakes piled up, making a regulation loss the deserved, albeit painful, result. On Carrier’s decisive goal, Varlamov gloved the initial point shot through traffic, but Pageau was slow to react in the stick battle against Carrier, who then beat both Pageau and Varlamov for his first goal of the season. The frustration didn’t stop there. With Varlamov pulled for a sixth attacker, the Islanders had a decent setup chance, but the refs errantly whistled play down, thinking there were too many men. Even though they mitigated the error by not calling a penalty, that whistle absolutely killed any momentum the Isles had built. Another golden 6-on-5 opportunity slipped away when Jordan Martinook lost his stick, then Brayden Schenn got checked out of the play by the stickless Martinook, allowing Jalen Chatfield to chop the puck the length of the rink into the empty net. Their power play was its “usual mess,” missing all four opportunities, but their penalty kill held up its end, especially killing Adam Pelech’s penalty right after Eklund tied the game at 3-3, until Carrier’s goal made it all moot.
After that bizarre November layoff, the Islanders are set to host the streaking Devils on Saturday before they hit the road for the California triangle. The Islanders had announced Ben Hutton’s signing before the game, though he did not play. The word is, they didn’t even need all ten days of his PTO to figure he’d be part of their blueline depth. But forget their road trip for a minute! Our Kraken are flying high after that 2-1 victory, and that’s the kind of energy we need around here. Let’s keep riding that Kraken high!
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Lighthouse Hockey.
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