In Seattle, Jack Eichel hit for a double and the Vegas Golden Knights downed the Kraken, 5-2 on Friday night.
“Every game’s competitive in the league, it doesn’t matter where you’re playing,” Eichel said. “They have a lot of good players over there, so it’s important, you have to take care of business every night. We know the position that we’re in, but we can only control so much and just get two points every night.”
The win pushed the Knights into the second wild card spot in the Western Conference.
“Winning is fun, right?” Vegas coach Peter DeBoer said. “We won three in a row, and [now] four in a row tonight, that leads to that fun environment. And when you’ve lost four or five in a row, it’s tough to recreate that. … We took care of business, and we knew we needed to because of the teams around us. We came in here and did what we need to do and you know, it’s on to the next job.”
Logan Thompson made 26 saves in the Vegas win.
Alex Wennberg and Kole Lind were the Kraken strikers.
“Our guys competed really hard,” Seattle coach Dave Hakstol said. “A very important part of that was how we came out and competed and pushed in the third (period). We had a legitimate push to get ourselves back in that game, and you take out a couple of the mistakes that led to the second and third goals against, we played [a] pretty good hockey game tonight.”
Seattle dropped to 21-41-6.
“We were better, but still some of their opportunities came off our sticks,” Hakstol said. “That’s gonna happen. Mistakes are gonna happen, but our attention to that was much better. Some better possession and opportunities for us with the puck.”
The Golden Knights moved to 38-28-4 with the win and displaced the Dallas Stars from the wild card spot.
Jonathan Marchessault and Shea Theodore also scored for the Golden Knights.
“I think defensively we’ve been better, but think that coincides with the return of our veterans, and all those guys made a huge difference,” DeBoer said. “[Thompson] has played really well, but I think our team is benefited by the return on those guys. That just solidifies things defensively. It also helps us on our breakouts which leads to speed to the neutral zone.”
William Karlsson added an empty net goal for the 5-2 final.
Philipp Grubauer made 21 saves in the Kraken loss.
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