The first game of the preseason shouldn’t mean much.
Rosters are usually composed of a few veterans and a bunch of prospects and hopefuls.
Everyone is shaking off the rust.
The coaches haven’t even really had the time to implement new systems or strategies.
So, in terms of determining how the rest of the season will go, or in terms of predicting the eventual standings or how two teams might compare to one another in the long run, it’s true that the first game of the preseason doesn’t mean anything.
But that doesn’t render the game itself entirely meaningless.
Sure, scores, points, and other stats don’t transfer over from the preseason to the regular season. But you know what does transfer over? Anger. Vengeance. Bitterness.
Which is why it does actually mean something that the first exhibition meeting between the Vancouver Canucks and the Seattle Kraken turned out to be so testy. And what it means is that the rivalry between the two Pacific Northwest franchises – the rivalry it was hoped would develop naturally when the Kraken moved in three hours down the road – is officially on.
It’s been building up over the first three seasons of the Kraken’s existence. But as of the start of the 2024/25 campaign, it would seem there’s no more buildup required. These two franchises seem to now genuinely dislike one another, and that’s evidenced by how quickly they were at one another’s throats during Tuesday’s matchups.
The end results might not sound that contentious. A 3-1 final score isn’t exactly out of hand, and while 44 combined penalty minutes is high for an NHL game, it’s not exceptionally high. One probably had to watch the game to really see the enmity.
It all started, as it often does, with agitator-extraordinaire Mark Friedman getting in the faces of the Kraken, drawing a spear to the groin and later a crosscheck to the back of the head, neither of which were called.
The temperature continued to rise as hot-shot 19-year-old Vilmer Alriksson absolutely crushed a Kraken into the boards . That led to him being chased down and challenged by John Hayden, a veteran with ten years on Alriksson and names like Foligno and Tkachuk on his dance-card. Alriksson impressed by holding his own, and the rest of the Canucks took his cue on not backing down.
Both teams continued to throw hits at each other with what sure felt like reckless abandon. There’s standard NHL physicality, and then there’s the kind of physicality in which grown men on skates hurl their bodies into one another chaotically. This was definitely the latter. The hits soon ballooned to what ended up being 23-19 in favour of the Canucks, but that felt like a pretty light total for what was actually seen on the ice.
And if you just read the word ‘chaos,’ you know who’s about to enter the picture. By god, that’s Tyler Myers’ music!
It wasn’t until Filip Hronek scored late in the second to put the Canucks up 2-0 that things really kicked off. Will Borgen just couldn’t help but to throw a late shot at Conor Garland after the horn to end the second, and the Canucks were not about to just stand there and take that.
Nils Höglander was the first to come slamming into Borgen. Then, as Borgen escaped the pile, he was absolutely clobbered from behind by Myers coming in “over the top,” as described by John Shorthouse – already in mid-season form!
Borgen, wisely, stayed down.
The game continued in kind, even after the Kraken drew a little nearer with a goal of their own. Myers got into it again partway through the third, mixing it up with Brandon Montour and then Hayden.
Friedman, perhaps looking for a measure of revenge, exchanged checks with Brandon Tanev, and then the two of them dropped the gloves at centre.
While that was going down, Derek Forbort was in the middle of his own scrum, though that didn’t erupt into actual fisticuffs.
And as the two teams skated off, one couldn’t help but feel as though they each probably circled the next matchup on their calendars – which is only days away. The Canucks head to Seattle on Friday for their first away game of the preseason, and it’s probably going to have a similar tone.
As we said at the outset, this is a rivalry that has been brewing for some time.
It all started innocuously enough. Seattle debuted in the 2021/22 season, and that entire campaign featured just one fight between them and the Canucks – and it was current Canuck Carson Soucy in a scrap with Tanner Pearson.
But it didn’t take long for the hate to start to flow in the 2022/23 season. An early season matchup on October 27 saw two fights break out in the first four minutes: Pearson, again, against Adam Larsson, and Soucy, again, against JT Miller.
Later, Kyle Burroughs took on Morgan Geekie.
The rest of that year would see three more fights between the two teams: Burroughs versus Brandon Tanev, Luke Schenn versus Jamie Oleksiak, and Ethan Bear versus Borgen. But what really set things off was incident in January 2023 in which Myers hammered then-rookie Matty Beniers away from the puck, resulting in injury.
This made Myers a Public Enemy Number One in Seattle, a distinction that he hasn’t quite shaken.
The first chance they got, during 2023/24’s preseason schedule, the Kraken went after Myers, with Hayden being the one to officially challenge Myers to a fight. That spilled over into a 2023/24 season that saw a series of bitter meetings between the two teams and some truly bizarre matchups, including a Teddy Blueger versus Yanni Gourde scrap and then a throwdown between Conor Garland and Tanev.
And, yes, for those keeping score at home, that does make Tanev’s fight against Friedman on Tuesday his third fight against his third different Canuck in as many years. Guess he doesn’t have too many fond feelings about his brother’s former team!
All of which brings us neatly to the present day, in which the rivalry has now matured and is ready to be a factor in each and every Vancouver/Seattle matchup from here on out.
Which, in our opinion, is a great thing. The Canucks have always been a bit of a third wheel when it comes to rivalries. There’s lots of mutual dislike between the Canucks and both the Edmonton Oilers and the Calgary Flames, but nothing could ever compare to the genuine hatred of the Battle of Alberta.
Other Canucks rivalries have always come situationally, like the one borne from playoff matchups against the Chicago Blackhawks or Boston Bruins.
But not this one. This one is geographical. This is a rivalry the Canucks can truly call all their own.
The Kraken aren’t a particularly good team. They’ve only made the playoffs once in their three years of existence, and didn’t come all that close last year. The Canucks, meanwhile, are a team on the rise that many believe have opened up a genuine window of contention.
None of which really matters here, because it’s become very obvious that the Canucks and Kraken don’t need to be competitive in the standings to be contentious on the ice.
Instead, this rivalry has been built from the ground up through proximity, frequent meetings, and the contributions of key antagonists on either side of the ice.
It’s a rivalry built to last, in other words, and it’s been a long time coming for the Canucks.
