Las vigas. The Seattle Kraken saga has come to an end.
They lost Tonight’s Hot 7 against the Dallas Stars 2-1 and were thus eliminated from their first ever Stanley Cup playoffs.
“It’s hard to swallow, but I’m proud of our team,” says star goalkeeper Philipp Grubauer.
It felt like a fairy tale, the Seattle Kraken’s recent expansion journey through the first playoffs – which began by taking them out on defending champion Colorado and in the second round taking heavyweight Dallas all the way to Game 7.
But when everything was pushed to the limits at the American Airlines Center last night, the Texas Stars were very heavy, very strong, and very good.
The rivals’ hope, as it became apparent early on, was that fine goalkeeper Philipp Grubauer would be able to steal the game, and he stayed virtually close for nearly two periods.
But with four minutes left in the first half, Finland’s All-Stars top scorer Rob Hintze capitalized on a mistake on the blue line, broke free and set up the ninth goal of the qualifiers this year. Then great rookie Wyatt Johnston increased the lead to 2-0 after a similar error midway through the third period, and although Dane Oliver Björkstrand eventually fought back a step up, he only had 17 seconds left and that was too little.
Thus ends the Seattle saga – and the Dallas Stars advance to the Conference Finals.
– We didn’t come out well in the sixth game, but we really fought, says Grobauer afterwards.
– I’m proud of what we’ve achieved. Although a loss like this is hard to swallow.
The Stars now face a battle with the Vegas Golden Knights for a ticket to the Stanley Cup Finals.
– Well, there are only four teams left. You might as well try to win, says Coach Pete DeBoer with a grin, who has now coached in 7 games in his career and won them all.
The first conference final will be played between Carolina and Florida on Friday night and the first between Vegas and Dallas the following night.
With the loss of the Kraken team, Alex Wennberg and Adam Larsson, who were excellent through the playoffs, are now theoretically available for the Tre Kronor WC team.
