In Seattle, Jordan Eberle scored a natural hat trick for the Kraken on Thursday night to lead them to a 5-2 win over the Buffalo Sabres.
Jordan Eberle had a natural hat trick for the Seattle Kraken
“It’s an honor, it’s really cool,” Eberle said. “I have a couple [of hat tricks] but this one for sure, you get the first in Kraken history, in this arena, it’s pretty special. I’m not going to lie, when it went in, I definitely thought about it. It’s a neat moment, and it’s part of history.”
Philipp Grubauer made 19 saves for Seattle in the win.
Tage Thompson and Kyle Okposo were the Sabres’ strikers.
“Think we were just getting outmuscled on pucks and beat to loose pucks,” Thompson said. “I think we gave up too many opportunities against. I think really just a little too spread out. We weren’t as tight in the D-Zone, not supporting each other enough out there. I think we had flashes of good stuff, but we got to be able to connect it for a full 60.”
The Sabres traded away Jack Eichel to the Vegas Golden Knights earlier in the day.
Morgan Geekie gave the Kraken a 1-0 lead in the first period.
“We haven’t got a lot of bounces, even in the first half of this hockey game,” Seattle head coach Dave Hakstol said. “There were a lot of pucks around that went through the blue paint and out the other side. So, to me, there’s a couple of things. It’s nice to have a little puck luck and we got that on our fourth goal. Just the hunger to get to those areas and really expect to be able to punch those home. That’s still an area that can grow for us and getting a few tonight helps that.”
Jaden Schwartz also scored for Seattle and had three points in the win.
“At the end of the second, we weren’t necessarily playing our best,” Schwartz said. “They had a power-play goal to go up 2-1 so it was good to tie it up. Really, really good shot by [Eberle]. So that tied it up late and gave us some momentum in the locker roo
Dustin Tokarski made 33 saves in the Buffalo loss.
“Obviously we addressed [the trade] in the morning,” Tokarski said. “But you know, it’s business time. Game day and I’m sure guys will think about it and talk about it after now, but we knew we had a job to try and do and that was our focus today.”
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