2022 First-Round Exit vs Golden Knights

Lore & Background

The 2021–22 season was, by design, a proving ground. Seattle had entered the NHL as the 32nd franchise, a city finally granted a major-league hockey team after years of near-misses and rivalries with Vancouver. The regular season was a collective learning curve: a young core around Matty Beniers, a goaltending rotation that cycled through several hands, and a defensive structure still finding its geometry. Yet the Kraken clawed into the playoffs, and the first-round matchup with Vegas—then the reigning Stanley Cup champions—felt almost mythic in its mismatch. The Golden Knights were a machine; the Kraken were a question mark with a lot of speed and a lot of heart.

What made the series resonate beyond the scoreboard was the identity it forged. The Kraken played with an urgency and physicality that belied their inexperience. Fans in Seattle, many of whom had never seen a live NHL playoff game, packed the arena for every home date, creating a cauldron of noise that made the young players visibly electric. The rivalry with Vegas, born out of geographic proximity and the Golden Knights' dominance, was seeded in those first playoff games and has only deepened since.

In the end, Vegas' depth and experience told. But the Kraken left the ice knowing they belonged. That first-round exit was not a failure; it was the franchise's origin story in the postseason, the moment the Kraken stopped being a novelty and started being a team.

In Their Own Story

The arena hummed before the puck dropped. Not the polite murmur of a regular Tuesday, but a low, tectonic growl that started in the lower bowl and rolled up through the rafters. A kid in a Kraken jersey—too big for his shoulders, the logo stretched across a chest that was mostly ribs—pressed his forehead against the glass and whispered, 'Come on. Come on.'

On the ice, the young forward from the Kraken's top line skated through warmups, sticks dragging, skates carving white arcs in the fresh ice. He could feel the vibration in his boots. Across the neutral-zone line, the Golden Knights' captain was already running his hands over his mask, that calm, surgical focus that had carried them to a Cup. The contrast was the whole story in one image: the predator and the newborn, separated by a painted line.

The horn blew. The puck hit the ice. And for seven games, a city of four million learned what it felt like to hold its breath in unison, to lose, to lose again, and to still stand up for the next one.

Reader's Guide

2018 – The NHL grants Seattle an expansion franchise, ending decades of the city being shut out of major-league hockey. The Kraken name is chosen, evoking the deep-water creature of Pacific folklore.

2020–21 – Construction and early organizational work proceed. Matt Lashoff is named general manager; Dave Carleton is hired as head coach. The first draft picks and early free-agent signings begin to sketch a young, speed-oriented identity.

2021–22 (regular season) – The Kraken's first season. A roster built around youth—Matty Beniers, Matty Beniers' line, a rotating goaltending corps—survives the adjustment period. The team finishes on the playoff line as an eighth seed in the West, a result that would have been unthinkable eighteen months earlier.

April 2022 – The first-round matchup is set: Kraken vs. Golden Knights. Seattle's first-ever playoff series. The city erupts. Home games sell out; the arena becomes a pressure cooker of expectation and nerves.

The series – Seven games of high-tempo, physical hockey. The Kraken compete with a ferocity that surprises even their own bench. Vegas' depth and playoff pedigree ultimately prevail, and the Kraken are eliminated.

Aftermath – The franchise enters its second season with a clear identity: fast, physical, young, and unafraid. The rivalry with Vegas is born. The Kraken are no longer a question mark; they are a team with a history, however short.

Did You Know?

• The 2021–22 season was the Seattle Kraken's very first in NHL history; the team had never played a regular-season game before this playoff series began.
• The Golden Knights entered the series as the top seed in the Western Conference and the defending Stanley Cup champions, making the matchup the steepest possible first-round climb for a new franchise.
• Matty Beniers, a teenager at the time, became one of the most talked-about young players in the league during this debut season, drawing national attention to the Kraken brand.
• The rivalry between Seattle and Vegas, rooted in geographic proximity and competitive intensity, was effectively born in this first-round series and has remained a marquee Western Conference matchup ever since.