It’s likely to be all downhill from here for the Seattle Kraken and Philadelphia Flyers the rest of the 2024-25 season. Both teams were sellers at yesterday’s trade deadline, with Seattle recouping a king’s ransom from the Tampa Bay Lightning (two first round picks and a second) for Oliver Bjorkstrand and Yanni Gourde, while the Flyers parted ways with three veterans, most notably Scott Laughton, who the Maple Leafs paid a first and prospect Nikita Grebenkin to acquire.
Yet both found themselves pitted against each other in front of a national audience on ABC, hoping to showcase reasons to believe they’ll be in a different position a year from now. The Flyers came out fairly strong, but Seattle turned the game around after the end of the first period and emerged with a convincing 4-1 victory.
Game Recap
The first period was largely one of near misses. Both teams hit the iron twice in the first 10 minutes, and the Flyers had three power-plays in the frame, although they only significantly tested Philipp Grubauer on the first one. But that changed in the frame’s final minutes when Owen Tippett tried to drive the net, only for the puck to carom off Seattle’s Ryker Evans and somehow make its way behind Grubauer with just 31.7 seconds left in the period to give the Flyers the lead.
Though the Kraken failed to capitalize on a power play at the start of the second period, they dictated play throughout the middle frame. Their efforts were rewarded just past the halfway mark when Tye Kartye flipped a wheel-around wrister past Samuel Ersson from the top of the right circle to bring Seattle back to level. That didn’t stop Seattle’s domination, as they collected over 60% of the shot attempts and expected goals at 5-on-5.
It was with four players on the ice where they broke through, though, as Matty Beniers drove the goal and chipped a puck under Ersson’s arm to give Seattle the lead late in the second. A penalty on Brandon Montour seconds later seemed to level the playing field, but an egregious turnover by Rasmus Ristolainen allowed Seattle to extend its lead on a short-handed breakaway goal by Chandler Stephenson.
Any lingering disappointment for Montour on that penalty probably went away once the Kraken killed it, but just in case, he put all of that into a blast from the right point right off a face-off win early in the third. Montour’s 13th goal of the season, fifth most among defensemen, basically put the game out of reach. Seattle outshot the Flyers 25-13 over the final 40 minutes, preventing Philadelphia from sustaining pressure to erase any hopes of a comeback.
Adding to Philadelphia’s frustration was that this loss came against Grubauer, not only arguably the league’s worst goaltender but who came into Saturday on the opposite of a heater. Grubauer had a .711 save percentage across his last three games and was pulled in two of them, including one after less than seven minutes. Yet he looked more like the Vezina Trophy finalist he was back in Colorado in 2020-21, stopping 23 of 24. His .958 save percentage was his second best mark in any game this season. He even offered a legitimate save of the year candidate, taking one away from Matvei Michkov late in the second.
Seattle will have a tall task to stay in the win column, with a 24-hour turnaround between puck drops as they finish a three-game road trip tomorrow against the Washington Capitals. The Flyers, now 0-3-0 on their season-long homestand, also have a tough back-to-back as they play host to the New Jersey Devils at 1 p.m. on Sunday.
