A sigh of relief went across Vancouver on Thursday night as the Canucks defeated the Kraken in Seattle, in a 5-4 decision.
It was the Canucks’ first win of the season.
It was Vancouver coach Bruce Boudreau;s 600th career NHL win.
“I haven’t been thinking about that since about the third game,” Boudreau said. “I just wanted to get the win for the guys and let them feel better. And hopefully, this sort of little streak doesn’t happen again on the negative side.”
Ilya Mikheyev hit for a double in the win.
“I mean, there’s one guy that deserves it,” Vancouver captain Bo Horvat said. “[Boudreau] has had a heck of a coaching career, and we made it hard on him here at the beginning of the season. To get that one for him, it was still a nail-biter to the end for him. I’m sure he was sweating behind the bench there, and it really feels good to get him that one.”
Thatcher Demko made 32 saves in the Vancouver victory.
After the Canucks took a 1-0 lad on Mikheyev’s first goal, Jamie Oleksiak and Jared McCann replied to give the Kraken a 2-1 lead before the end of the first.
“We had our chances,” Seattle’s Jordan Eberle said. “We obviously didn’t capitalize on the power play when we needed to.”
Mikheyev picked up his second for a 2-2 tie in the second period.
Andrei Kuzmenko scored for a 3-2 lead to Vancouver..
Elias Pettersson scored in the third period to snapa 3-3 tie and give the Canucks the lead, 4-3.
“I mean, it’s nice to get it out of the way,” Pettersson said. “I mean obviously, it took way longer than we hoped for, but it is what it is. We’re happy about today, and we just got to reset for tomorrow.”
Connor Garland hit for an empty-net goal with under two minutes left in the game for a 5-3 lad to the Canucks.
“Just to hear that music in the room and know how hard they’ve practiced,” Boudreau said. “They’ve never given up hope. I know it’s only one game, but I mean, the spirit has never been down where we’ve gone into a game and go, ‘Oh, woe is me.’ So, I think it was a great reward for them.”
Jaden Schwartz scored for the Kraken to make the final score, 5-4.
“We were the better team for most of the night, but they beat us on specialty teams by one,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “That was ultimately the difference in the hockey game. Five-on-5, you’re not going to be able to carry momentum all night, but we carried momentum for a lot of the night.”
Martin Jones made 14 saves in the loss.
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