Arena Lighting & Offense Both Weak As Seattle Drops to 1-4-1

Turns out Thursday's Seattle Kraken flood of seven goals against the Hurricanes may have been a one-game oasis.

The scoring drought returned Saturday at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle's 4-1 loss to the New York Rangers.

1st Period

The Kraken were hoping to play lights-out against the Rangers - but not literally. Sixty-nine seconds into the game, some of the arena lights above Rangers goalie Jonathan Quick stopped working.

Following a lengthy delay, the problem isn't fixed, so the decision is made to resume play anyway.

The Kraken defense gets offensive at 8:41 for a 1-0 lead. Brian Dumoulin sends a pass to his d-partner Justin Schultz, who blasts a shot past Quick. As they say, you can't stop what you can't see - not that the goalie was screened, but it's kinda dim outside the NY crease.

Dark enough, in fact, that the teams switch ends with 9:50 remaining in the period. Now it's Kraken goalie Philipp Grubauer's turn to deal with twilight conditions.

Grubauer makes a fine snare of Barclay Goodrow's shot, but can't stop Artemi Panerin from tying the game 1-1 at 12:15. Are Grubauer and Quick at the first intermission going to file a grievance with the goaltenders' union about the playing conditions?

Rather than curse the darkness, Grubauer makes a terrific snag of an Adam Fox shot labeled for the far post. At the opposite end and now able to see, Quick stops testing shots by the Kraken in the final 10 seconds. Shots for the period end 9-8 New York.

2nd Period

From Kraken PR: "An electrical issue with the arena lighting grid is being evaluated. Goaltenders will switch nets after the 10-minute mark in each period to accommodate."

"It felt weird to us, too," Justin Schultz said in a ROOT Sports interview. "Not just the lighting. It's kind of slow, sloppy both ways."

Unconfirmed (or maybe just made up by me):

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At 5:53, Jacob Trouba boards Andre Burakovsky, who falls awkwardly into the boards. While Burakovsky heads to the dressing room (he would not return), the Kraken head to the game's first power play. 

When Ryan Lindgren goes off for hooking, Seattle has 18 seconds of 5-on-3. Jared McCann gets the only shot attempt up two men, but it goes wide. 

Just after the second penalty ends, it's Seattle's turn to go shorthanded - Yanni Gourde for hooking at 9:55. Nothing dim about Grubauer's marvelous shorthanded save on Filip Chytil's wide open drive from the right circle - nothing dim except the lighting. 

The Kraken complete the kill, but since there were no whistles, the teams don't switch ends until a Seattle icing with 7:04 left in the period. Oddly, the teams stay at the end where the icing occurred.

It's my hope that someday Kraken goalie prospect Niklas Kokko gets to face Rangers winger Kaapo Kakko. In the present - 13:02 to be exact - Kakko gives New York its first lead, 2-1. Grubauer hoped he'd squeezed Jacob Trouba's one-timer, but knew he hadn't.

With two minutes left in the 2nd, Chytil threads a sweet backhand pass to Alexis Lafrenière, who in one motion redirects the puck to double he Rangers lead to 3-1.

The Rangers dominated the period, including 9-2 in 2nd period shots.

3rd Period

Panarin added his second goal of the night to make it 4-1 Rangers at 5:30.

Two Rangers stars made stupid and needless plays with nine minutes left, after what appeared to be a clean Yanni Gourde check of Filip Chytil near the benches. 

In retaliation, NY's Adam Fox cross-checked Gourde from behind. While Gourde was still recovering from that, Chris Kreider blatantly cross-checked him to the ice again. Will Cuylle got in a shot from the Rangers bench, too.

The stupid part: when an opponent is listless and laboring, why wake them up?

Par for the evening, officials failed to add illumination. Neither they nor the PA announcer described what penalties had been assessed. Also hard to understand: Seattle didn't end up with even one power play.

Only much later we learned that Gourde and Kreider had both received double-minor roughing penalties, with Gourde adding a 10-minute misconduct.

Postgame

Late fisticuffs notwithstanding, the Kraken offense was as low-wattage as the Climate Pledge Arena lighting.

The Rangers outshot the Kraken for the game, 27-19, and won 58% of faceoffs. The Kraken now hit the road for four games, starting Tuesday in Detroit.