Kraken avoid elimination
The Seattle Kraken kept their season alive with a shootout winner that prevented elimination against Vegas, a late‑game moment that suddenly made their playoff picture more complicated for opponents. (ESPN’s playoff watch noted Berkly Catton’s contribution and the result’s impact on the wild‑card race.) (espn.com)
Seattle looked finished on April 9, then erased a 3-1 third-period hole and beat Vegas 4-3 in a shootout at Climate Pledge Arena. Berkly Catton scored in the third period, then scored the only goal of the shootout after Matty Beniers also converted and Joey Daccord stopped all three Vegas attempts. (apnews.com) The timing was brutal for Vegas because the Golden Knights had led by two goals in the third period and had won four straight games under new coach John Tortorella before this collapse. Tortorella had replaced Bruce Cassidy on March 29, so this was the first real stumble of Vegas’ late push. (nhl.com) For Seattle, the win did two jobs at once. It snapped a six-game losing streak and moved the Kraken to 33 wins, 34 losses, and 11 overtime losses, which kept them from being eliminated with four games left on their schedule. (espn.com) The reason one April game can scramble the whole picture is the National Hockey League point system. A regulation or overtime win is worth two points, an overtime or shootout loss is worth one point, and teams on the playoff bubble spend the last week doing math every night. (nhl.com) Seattle is not chasing the top of the Pacific Division anymore. The Kraken entered Saturday in 13th place in the Western Conference at 77 points, while Vegas sat much higher in the Pacific race at 89 points, so the upset mattered less for Seattle’s own odds than for the teams trying to pass or hold off Vegas. (usatoday.com) (espn.com) That is why ESPN’s playoff watch treated Catton’s night as more than a nice rookie moment. Every point Vegas drops this late can change who gets home ice, who lands in a wild-card spot, and who has to open the playoffs against a division winner instead of a weaker seed. (espn.com) Catton is the name to remember from this one because he changed the game twice. He tied it in the third period, then ended it in the skills contest, which is the hockey version of a penalty shootout after overtime fails to break the tie. (apnews.com) Seattle’s margin was tiny even after the comeback. The Kraken were back home on Saturday, April 11, against Calgary with a 33-34-11 record, so one loss would put them right back on the edge while one more win would keep forcing everyone above them to keep checking the standings. (usatoday.com) So the story was not that Seattle suddenly became a favorite. The story was that one team everyone thought was done dragged a contender into a 65-minute mess, stole two points, and made the Western Conference do another round of last-week arithmetic. (espn.com) (nhl.com)
