Ville Ottavainen and the Seattle Kraken turned Thursday night's preseason date with the Flames into a full-ice scrum nobody in the building will forget soon.
The clock read 12:38 of the second period. Calgary led 3-1. Then every skater on the ice grabbed a partner.
One official is buried in a pile along the boards. Another wades in on the far side while a Flames forward wearing No. 93 stands alone near a stray helmet.
When the dust settled, Ottavainen owned 17 penalty minutes. The Seattle defenseman logged only 10:52 of ice time, so the box saw nearly as much of him as the bench did.
He had company. Curtis Douglas finished with 12 PIM in 5:21, the lightest workload of any Kraken skater on the night.
Calgary's loudest body was Brennan Othmann, who drew a dozen minutes of his own.
Here's the absurd part. Othmann also set up two goals, one of them on the power play, while playing just 8:38.
Opening night rematch in Calgary just got a lot hotter
Circle October 1. The Kraken open the regular season in Calgary, and the Flames return the visit to Seattle three days later.
That second meeting lands on the back end of a back-to-back for Calgary, after a Saturday stop in Vancouver. Tired legs and long memories rarely mix well.
These teams already met once this month. Seattle went into Calgary on September 20 and skated off with a 4-2 win.
Thursday's two-goal Flames cushion didn't survive either. Devin Cooley was beaten three times on 20 shots.
Bobby McMann was right in the thick of Seattle's pushback, scoring once and serving a five-minute major.
Rory Kerins did the Calgary version of that, lighting the lamp and sitting for four minutes. Andreas Englund added a major of his own from the Flames' blue line.
Matthew Beniers took the quieter route. The Kraken forward stayed out of the box entirely and picked up two assists.
Here's my problem with all of it. Preseason is a dress rehearsal, and this one ended like a wedding rehearsal where the groomsmen wind up rolling around under the head table.
Neither Lane Lambert nor Ryan Huska needed a pile of penalty minutes a week before the games start counting. Somebody on each bench let this get away.
So who blinks first when the points are real?
Seattle visits Vancouver on Saturday while Calgary heads to Edmonton the same night. That's one more tune-up before this grudge goes live.
And Calgary will scan Seattle's opening-night lineup for one name in particular. Whether the Kraken defenseman dresses is Lambert's call.
Should Lane Lambert dress Ville Ottavainen for the October 1 opener in Calgary?
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