Kraken soak in 1st home playoff game despite loss

SEATTLE --When the final horn blew Saturday, some of the sellout crowd of 17,151 stood at Climate Pledge Arena. The Seattle Kraken lost 6-4 in Game 3 of the Western Conference First Round, falling behind the Colorado Avalanche 2-1 in the best-of-7 series, yet fans cheered and waved ice blue rally towels anyway.

There was a bigger picture here. This was the first time the Kraken had hosted a game in the Stanley Cup Playoffs after joining the NHL as an expansion team last season, the first time Seattle had hosted a playoff game involving the NHL in 104 years. Despite the loss, it was everything it was, well, cracked up to be.
"It was pretty special," Kraken forward Jaden Schwartz said. "We were all looking forward to tonight, just like the whole city was. It was just exciting, one of those moments that you don't try to block out] too much. You just try to enjoy it and stay present. It was obviously a pretty cool one, seeing the fans."
It was a uniquely Seattle scene, tying the past to the present, foreshadowing a bright future.
Seattle became the first city in the United States to win the Stanley Cup when the Seattle Metropolitans of the Pacific Coast Hockey Association defeated the Montreal Canadiens of the National Hockey Association in Seattle in 1917, months before the NHL was founded.
The Metropolitans played the Canadiens for the Cup in Seattle again in 1919, after the Canadiens had joined the NHL. The series ended in a 2-2-1 tie due to the Spanish flu. That was the last time an NHL team played in the playoffs in Seattle until this.
Seattle has had several professional and junior teams over the years. It finally landed an NHL team after a season-ticket drive drew 32,000 depositors online March 1, 2018, and the League awarded it an expansion team Dec. 4, 2018.
The former KeyArena was demolished, and Climate Pledge Arena was built in its place under the same historic roof.
***[RELATED: [Complete Avalanche vs. Kraken series coverage]*
Mark Sterbiak was season-ticket depositor No. 100, thanks to three open browsers, a high-speed connection and a quick finger. He wore an old-school wool Metropolitans sweater Saturday, while his wife, Heather, wore a Kraken jersey. She brought ear plugs just in case.
"This is something special, getting a team back given the history in this town and just to be in the middle of it," Heather said. "We come to as many games as we can."
From their seats against the glass behind one of the nets, they watched the Kraken go from 30th in the NHL in their inaugural season to the playoffs this season, and they watched Seattle blossom as a hockey town, too.
"It's been kind of like this underground hockey community for years," Mark said, "and now the NHL comes, and it's like 17,000 people know hockey in the same building."

The Sterbiaks were among hundreds of fans who rode the monorail from the heart of downtown to the foot of the Space Needle near Climate Pledge Arena. Fans grabbed a bite at the food court in the Seattle Center Armory, including Dan Good, a season-ticket holder who has never missed a Kraken home game.
"Man, I've played hockey half my life, and I love it," Good said, with a rubber Kraken mask propped up on his head and a Kraken flag tied around his neck like a cape. "And the fact we have hockey now, it's incredible. The fact that we're going to the playoffs in our second year, it's amazing."
On the plaza outside the arena before the game, fans listened to DJ WIN WIN spin tunes, watched other NHL games on big screens and took pictures with huge letters spelling "GO KRAKEN!"
Kraken president and CEO Tod Leiweke addressed the fans before the game, telling them, "Tonight we're going to blow the roof off this joint!" The pregame show featured a montage of Seattle sports moments, from the Metropolitans to the Mariners to the Sonics to the Seahawks to the Sounders to the Storm. The Kraken were next in the lineage.
"Tonight," a deep voice boomed, narrating the Kraken playoff theme, "the legend awakens."
Then they released the Kraken, and the arena rocked. Right after puck drop, the fans chanted, "LET'S GO, KRAKEN!" They chanted it again after Schwartz gave Seattle a 1-0 lead at 6:08 of the first period, along with the voice of the late Kurt Cobain crooning the Nirvana classic "Lithium," the goal song.
"I like it …"
"LET'S GO, KRAK-EN!"
Later in the first period, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll appeared in a Kraken jersey, telling the fans, "This is history in the making! We're living history tonight!"
History is not a fairy tale. The record will show that the Kraken succumbed to the defending Stanley Cup champions in the end. But who will forget those 19 seconds in the second period, when defenseman Jamie Oleksiak and forward Matty Beniers scored, when the Kraken came back from a 3-1 deficit to tie it 3-3? Who will forget the fans' roar?
"It was fantastic," Beniers said. "They were awesome all night. It was pretty insane how loud it was after those two goals."
Beniers is a rookie, 20 years old. This was just the beginning.