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Kraken feast on lowly Ducks, snap 8-game losing streak

Geoff Baker, The Seattle Times on

Published in Hockey

SEATTLE — Every pressure cooker needs an outlet valve and the Kraken’s wound up scalding their bystander opponents big-time Tuesday night with pent-up steam let loose early and often.

The Anaheim Ducks are nobody’s idea of a juggernaut at the best of times, and this absolutely wasn’t one of those. They stood around as if hoping to snag the next flight out of town while the Kraken padded their stats with a 4-0 win in which they’d scored more goals by the middle period than in their prior three games combined.

They also allowed the fewest shots in franchise history — nearly tripling the Ducks by a 36-13 margin.

That was more than enough to snap an eight-game losing streak as the Climate Pledge Arena crowd saw the home side win for the first time in three weeks. They hadn’t won at home in nearly a month since beating Pittsburgh back on Feb. 29.

That made for a whole lot of pent-up Kraken frustration, especially given how they’d fallen out of playoff contention for good in the midst of their inability to find victories or score goals. They’d managed just 11 goals total in the eight losses and only seven their last six games.

But by the time the second intermission of this one rolled around, Matty Beniers and Eeli Tolvanen each had a goal and two assists, with Jordan Eberle and Oliver Bjorkstrand had the other Kraken markers. Joey Daccord faced only nine shots the first two periods and barely broke a sweat in picking up his third shutout of the season.

Beniers hadn’t enjoyed a night like this since six weeks ago in Boston. It was obvious early on the Kraken were in for an easy time of it when Beniers snagged a puck behind the Anaheim net fewer than eight minutes in and fed a wide open Tolvanen at the net front to open the scoring.

The net front hasn’t been the Kraken’s best friend this season, but it helps when forwards are allowed to roam around freely without care or coverage. They scored another close range goal on the power play before the opening period was done as Eberle shot the puck from a bad angle and it found its way past goalie John Gibson for a 2-0 lead.

 

Eberle could have passed the puck to a wide open Jaden Schwartz standing unmarked off to Gibson’s left, but took the shot anyway and made it count for his 17 th goal of the season.

The third period is where the Kraken really let loose, outshooting the Ducks 14-5 with help from successive power-play chances. Bjorkstrand converted on one of those with Ducks defender Pavel Mintyukov made a lazy kick attempt at a loose puck and wound up directing it straight to the Kraken winger in the high slot. Bjorkstrand rarely misses from that distance and didn’t this time, beating Gibson with a 22-foot snapper.

To top it off, the Ducks then messed up an odd-man rush late in the period, coughed the puck up and watched the Kraken race back 3-on-2 the other way. Tolvanen led the charge and dropped it to a wide open Beniers for a one-timer from 25 feet out and a 4-0 lead.

Daccord had a front-row seat to the action, largely unimpeded by any threats in his own end until the Ducks made him work about seven minutes into the final period. Anaheim had mustered only 10 shots to that point, but nearly put one in on a goalmouth scramble that had Daccord sprawled out on his back and working as hard as he had to before or after that moment.

Anaheim was in a rut almost as bad as the Kraken, having dropped eight of their past nine with the only victory coming against an awful Chicago Blackhawks team. Now, they’ve lost nine of 10 and the good news for the Kraken — who surely can use more — is that they get to do this all over again against the very same opponent on Thursday night.

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©2024 The Seattle Times. Visit seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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