The Seattle Kraken went back to basics and it paid off.
The Kraken, who had scored just three times in their 0-3-1 start, defeated the visiting Carolina Hurricanes 7-4 Thursday, getting goals from seven different players. They’ll look to continue the hot scoring streak when they host the New York Rangers on Saturday night.
“You look at the way we scored goals (Thursday). We used the bottom of the zone offensively. We got inside and net front. Not a lot fancy there,” said Kraken coach Dave Hakstol, whose team will play host to the New York Rangers on Saturday night.
Defenseman Vince Dunn and forward Oliver Bjorkstrand each had a goal and two assists against Carolina.
“That’s a big one for us,” Dunn said. “We need to keep this energy moving forward.”
Seattle took a 4-1 lead into the third period. Though the Hurricanes scored twice to pull within a goal, Jared McCann and Tye Kartye tallied 21 seconds apart midway through the period to restore the Kraken’s three-goal advantage.
It was Kartye’s first regular-season goal after debuting in last spring’s playoffs. He also got into his first fight, scrapping with Brendan Lemieux after the Hurricanes forward ran into McCann.
“I got beat up pretty good,” Kartye said. “But that’s all right.”
Backup goaltender Joey Daccord made 32 saves and was often spectacular through the first two periods.
“On some of the goals against, he’s going to have some learning points,” Hakstol said. “In terms of how aggressively he’s playing on some of those plays. But here’s the real key — he made good saves at the right times. He shows the confidence to overcome a goal going in the net. He’s on to the next one.”
The Rangers made the cross-country trek after a lethargic 4-1 loss to visiting Nashville Thursday night.
New York’s only goal came from Adam Fox on a 5-on-3 power play. Igor Shesterkin allowed four goals on 18 shots before being pulled for Jonathan Quick with 6:09 left in the second period. Quick, making his Rangers debut, stopped all nine shots he faced.
“All around it wasn’t good enough to win a hockey game,” Rangers captain Jacob Trouba said. “Even if somehow you find a way to win that game, that’s not a game I felt we deserved to win at all. Definitely our worst game of the season so far to this point. So, address it. We don’t want a repeat of this thing. We all saw it, we know what it feels like, address the issue and play better hockey. Learn from the experience.”
Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said he counted eight odd-man rushes and two breakaways by Nashville.
“You’re just not going to find success unless you button that up,” Laviolette said. “That’s something we’ve been talking about, something that needs to be addressed, something that is on topic every day when we go into a game to eliminate the high risk and to eliminate the standing at the offensive blue line. We had the problem against Columbus as well (a 5-3 loss on Saturday). I thought we gave up too much.”
–Field Level Media
