from Larry Stone of the Seattle Times,

Home openers come with their own baked-in drama, just by virtue of being the long-awaited great unveiling. For a team with lofty expectations, as the Seattle Kraken have this year, bump it up a few notches.

But what took place Tuesday at Climate Pledge Arena might have been a cut above, by virtue of the multiple layers of grudges, bad blood and scores to settle. It didn’t take long to see that this game between the Kraken and Colorado Avalanche — Stanley Cup playoffs adversaries just six months ago — had something akin to playoff intensity at times. At least early, before this night unraveled for the home team.

How long? The game was a mere 80 seconds old when Colorado’s Logan O’Connor went after Jordan Eberle, presumably the first installment of payoff for Eberle’s hit on Andrew Cogliano in Game 6 of their series that fractured Cogliano’s spine. And everyone wondered if and when the Kraken would retaliate for the hit by Cale Makar in the playoffs that resulted in a concussion for Jared McCann (they never did, though McCann appeared to try to engage with Makar at various times, especially early. The only apparent repercussion for Makar was loud booing every time he touched the puck).

But despite all that angst bubbling under and over the surface, the prime talking point for the Kraken was that they really, really needed a win to turn around a lackluster start. And to get that, they really, really needed some goals after accumulating just two total in their first three games, all losses.

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