Shane Wright scored his first NHL goal against the Montreal Canadians Tuesday in the Kraken’s loss. Wright started his NHL rookie year off slow only having one assist in his first seven NHL games. He became a healthy scratch to Seattle. Then, he was sent down to the Kraken’s minor AHL team the Firebirds for a two-week stint to develop. In those two weeks Wright played in five games and scored four goals for the Firebirds. After those two weeks he was evaluated back into the Kraken lineup. And his first game back was against the Montreal Canadians.

Coming into the 2022 NHL draft, Wright was the clear first pick overall favorite. The Canadians had the first overall pick and passed on Wright shocking everyone and picked Slovakia’s Juraj Slavkovský first overall. Seattle was fourth overall and Wright kept dropping until the Kraken selected him fourth overall. When Wright walked on the draft stage, NHL fans said Wright stared down the Canadians table. But Wright denied that he did. This made NHL fans excited for when the Kraken took on the Canadians.

The first meeting between the two was on Tuesday, Dec. 6 in Seattle and that morning Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said that the young 18-year-old would play. Wright was on the third line playing alongside Yanni Gourde and Oliver Bjorkstrand. The game started off slow in the first. Then the Canadians got on the board first with Johnathan Kovacevic scoring 12:56 into the first period.

With 4:45 left in the first period. Defenseman Vince Dunn started the play off. The Kraken passed it around until behind the Canadians net Yanni Gourde passed to Oliver Bjorkstrand. This is when Bjorkstrand passed to Wright and quickly shot, and he just got passed Canadian’s goalie Jake Allen’s left arm. The whole arena jumped up and went crazy. It was the loudest the arena got that night.

After celebrating with his teammates, Shane skated over to the bench to get ready for his next shift. Across the area, the anouncer loudly congratulated  Wright on his first ever NHL goal. The whole arena gave Shane another standing ovation and cheer. Shortly after, the first period was over tied at one.

When the second period started, the Kraken defense started falling apart with Cole Caufield scoring for Montreal. Seven seconds later Josh Anderson scored and brought the score to 3-1 Montreal. Later in the period Rem Pitlick made the Canadians lead bigger. With 0.1 seconds left,  Jared McCann scored for Seattle ending the second period 4-2.

The third period was slow. No goals were scored by either team. When the time ran out the final score was MTL-4 SEA-2.

After the game, Wright was surrounded by reporters. He was asked how it felt to get his first goal. He said it was a special moment and one he will remember for the rest of his life. Another thing a reporter asked Wright was about scoring against Montreal. Wright said there was no extra importance but then added “maybe a little bit.”

With this win Montreal now goes to 13-11-2 and the Kraken go to 15-7-3.