Kraken defeated Montreal 5-1, winning for the first time in Seattle. (1:49)

The NHL's newest team is transforming Seattle into one of the oldest traditions in the league.

On Tuesday night, the Seattle Sea Monsters won at home for the first time, thanks in part to goalkeeper Philip Grubauer's 23 saves. He was named one of the "three stars of the game", which is an honor awarded to any team player after the game to set an example.

Normally, home team players will slide out to wave to grateful fans; in some cases, they will throw a souvenir hockey puck or stick it in the row closest to the ice.

But in Seattle, the stars threw a stuffed fish at the fans.

@SeattleKraken Salmon tossing after the game is absolutely amazing. 🙌 pic.twitter.com/B2ll97RGcn

"I thought,'Who figured it out?'" Grubauer said with a smile after the game.

When it was his turn to greet the crowd, Grubauer slipped out with a stuffed sockeye salmon that he had autographed before. Accompanying him are Kraken’s Game Night crew, wearing rubber aprons usually worn in fish markets.

One of them gave Grubbauer the opportunity to use a slingshot to let the salmon sail, but Grubbauer threw the toy fish at the crowd, only to remove it from the glass.

Teammate Brandon Tanev was the first star of the game. He picked up his salmon, waved it on his head like a rally towel, and threw it to the fans.

Therefore, a tradition was born in Seattle.

"It's very interesting. I have never seen it before. Obviously, at the [Pike Place Market] market, you threw the fish, which makes sense," Grubbauer said of the city’s top tourist destinations Said one of them. "This is the first time I haven't thrown a hockey puck or stick in the stands."

The idea of ​​throwing fish came from Kraken’s Game Night Experience team, which included Jonny Greco and Ayron Sequeira, who helped create an expanded version of Vegas Golden Knights’ unforgettable arena patterns before going to Seattle for release.

"We have a great team here, and we have different ideas," Sequeira, the team's senior director of entertainment experience, told ESPN this week. "You don't want to be different to be different. You want to be different for a reason."

The team began to consider how to rethink the three stars of the game after the Kraken home game.

"It's always so similar, it feels like the same fans always walk out of the arena with a player's stick," she said. "If you sit in the lower bowl, you can reach the cup. There is not much equality there."

The Kraken game operation team wanted to know if they could create a gimmick for the three stars that could spread wealth. One idea is the T-shirt, which has proven to be a reliable projectile in the arena, especially when it comes to slingshots or cannons.

"Okay, but T-shirts are basic," Sequeira said. "What else can we do?"

One of the mantras of the creative team is to consider the city's own traditions when creating the game night display elements. So the team thought of Seattle, and people's ideas brought them to one of the most iconic places in the city.

"There is no more attractive tourist moment than the fish at Pike Market," Sequera said. "So we thought,'What if we can throw a fish?'"

It will never become a real fish. There are octopuses in Detroit and catfish in Nashville, but using actual animals like this "will never be part of our spirit," Sequeira said.

"There is no life but a real fish is not an option," she said. "But even if we use plush, we want to make sure it won't be offensive."

Kraken hired an indigenous people consultant to act as a filter for some of their ideas. The team wants to ensure that throwing salmon-even fake salmon-will not be seen as an insult to indigenous people.

"We were told that fish, especially salmon, are very important to people in this area. They should be respected," Sequera said. "They didn't tell us'no', but they emphasized their importance to the region."

Later, the team found a company in Canada to produce stuffed salmon. Since Kraken wanted to make sure they were as close to reality as possible, they used Alaska's Bristol Bay Native Corp. to review the prototypes. Their fish experts say that for healthy adult fish, the color is a bit off and the head position is incorrect. So it went back to the drawing board until Kraken received a fish that passed the smell test.

Each stuffed salmon weighs just over half a pound. Their length is also exactly 22 inches, because this is the legal capture length in Washington State.

"We tend to overthink things," Sequeira said.

The Bristol Bay Indigenous Company asked Kraken if it included a fact sheet on the sustainable fishing of salmon and toy fish. The team agreed that every fish that flew into the stands would have a label with five facts about sustainability. The message was as follows: "All Pacific salmon species on the west coast of the United States have experienced declines."

During the three-star celebration, the players did not know the new fish-throwing tradition until they acquired a fish-throwing tradition.

"I think it's a stuffed fish or something," Tanev said. "You just go out with a smile on your face and give it to one of the fans there."

Kraken made sure they had enough fish throughout the regular season.

"You plan to strive for excellence," Sequeira said. "So you plan to get three stars in 41 home games and then add some more."

As for the future of the new tradition, Sequeira said that the plan is to make stuffed versions of different types of salmon for each season in Seattle.

Currently, Sequeira's focus is on spreading salmon beyond the front row of the climate pledge arena. They are not suitable for regular T-shirt cannons, so she hopes that one of the players will use a slingshot.

"We want it to fly. We want it to go further than the previous rows," she said. "This is my goal."