Golden Knights Rout Kraken 6-2 to Complete Pacific Northwest Sweep

SEATTLE — For the first 15 minutes Tuesday night, the Seattle Kraken looked like they could hang with the defending Western Conference champions. Seattle outshot Vegas 8-3 early, threw five shots at Carter Hart in a 30-second span midway through the first period, and had Shane Wright in alone twice in tight. Then the Golden Knights did what championship teams do: they converted their first real chance, survived a goaltender-interference challenge, and buried the Kraken on special teams in a 6-2 rout at Climate Pledge Arena that completed a sweep of a two-game Pacific Northwest road trip.

The stars carried it. Tomas Hertl scored twice and added two assists, Jack Eichel had a goal and three assists, and captain Mark Stone scored shorthanded and added an assist. Victor Olofsson scored twice — his team-leading fourth goal of the season — but the night’s one shadow fell in the third period, when Olofsson was driven hard into the boards by Kraken center Ben Meyers and had to be helped off the ice. Meyers received a five-minute major for boarding and a game misconduct. Olofsson departed with an apparent left leg injury, and his status is now the one thing hanging over a perfect road trip.

Seattle coach Lane Lambert didn’t dress it up afterward. “I didn’t think we were very sharp,” Lambert said. “We didn’t make very many good decisions that way (with the puck).” But he gave Vegas its due, too: “You got to give them credit. They’re a good hockey team. They came within two wins of the Stanley Cup last year.”

The unraveling started at 13:02 of the first. Rasmus Andersson’s blast from the right point deflected in off Olofsson’s left skate for a 1-0 Vegas lead. Seattle challenged for goaltender interference, arguing Olofsson had made contact with Joey Daccord in front of the net. The call on the ice stood — and because the challenge failed, the Kraken had to kill a penalty immediately after falling behind.

Seattle killed that one. It didn’t kill the next. On an interference call against Brandon Montour, Hertl parked himself at the front of the net and slammed home a pass from beneath the goal line from Stone for a 2-0 lead late in the period.

Then, 17 seconds into the second period — Seattle on the power play — Montour’s stick snapped on a shot attempt, springing a 2-on-1 break the other way. Eichel slid the puck to Stone, whose snap shot from the left circle made it 3-0. The goal was Stone’s 400th point in 404 games as a Golden Knight, leaving the captain 17 shy of Jonathan Marchessault’s franchise record of 417.

Olofsson’s second made it 4-0 midway through the period, a snap shot from the bottom of the right circle that beat Daccord in off the far left post. Eichel made it 5-0 with 31 seconds left in the second, stealing the puck from Bobby McMann along the boards and going in alone to snap one past Daccord’s glove side. Daccord — who came in having stopped 56 of 58 shots in two wins — was pulled after two periods: five goals on 21 shots. Philipp Grubauer finished with six saves.

Seattle finally broke through at 4:52 of the third, when Wright fired a wrist shot from the high slot past Hart’s glove side for his second goal of the season, with Kaapo Kakko picking up one of his two assists on the night. Hart, who had weathered the early storm, finished with 25 saves.

The game turned ugly with 12 minutes left. Meyers cross-checked Olofsson in the back and drove him into the wall — a boarding major and game misconduct for Meyers, and Olofsson very slow to his feet, needing assistance to the bench before heading down the tunnel. On the ensuing five-minute major, Hertl scored his second of the night to make it 6-1. About a minute later, Montour and Stone dropped the gloves off a faceoff, Montour drawing a game misconduct of his own in what looked like a direct response to the hit on Olofsson.

Montour didn’t hide from any of it. “A couple silly mistakes,” he said. “I mean, they’re Stanley Cup finalists for a reason.” On the fight: “Just over the years battling, and maybe trying to annoy him and get under his skin as much as I can.”

Jared McCann finished the scoring with five minutes to go, roofing a power-play wrist shot from the left circle past Hart’s blocker side for a 6-2 final. There was more scrapping after that — Vegas took exception to a Ryan Winterton hit on Trevor Connelly, and Seattle finished the night on a 5-on-3 — but the outcome had been settled an hour earlier.

The Vegas angle is the statement. Three special-teams goals — two on the power play, one shorthanded — against a Seattle team that had just hung a pair of 6-1 wins on Calgary. A road sweep that started with Sunday’s 3-2 win in Vancouver. A captain climbing the franchise scoring list one milestone at a time. The defending Western Conference champions looked every bit of it in Seattle.

Now the wait. Olofsson’s four goals lead the team in the early season, and losing him for any stretch would sting a lineup that is rolling. There was no update on his status after the game. The Knights head home to T-Mobile Arena with two more wins banked — and one very big question about the winger who can’t stop scoring.