In St Paul, Martin Jones made 22 saves and the Seattle Kraken shutout the Wild, 4-0, on Thursday night.
“I just try to stay in the moment,” Jones said. “It was nice to get that fourth [goal] to add a little cushion there. Just try to stay on the moment and take each play.”
Alex Wennberg hit for a double in the Seattle win.
“It was just straight up 60 minutes of hockey,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “We just wanted to play a real good road game in a tough building. This building can be where momentum can get rolling, so we wanted to make sure we were ready to play a good, smart road game. Make sure we were skating, make sure we were competing in all the little areas of the game, puck battles and everything else.”
The Kraken improved to 6-4-2.
Seattle scored three times in the middle frame to break open a scoreless game after one period.
“They came out hot,” Wild forward Matt Boldy said. “They were all over us. Their D had really good gaps and I don’t think we were doing the right things early; [we were] trying to be a little too cute with it, myself included. We just got away from our game because we were trying to make too many plays.”
Minnesota dropped to 5-5-1.
“I don’t know. I’m not going to try to make excuses,” Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. “We just flat out didn’t have the energy level that we needed to play here tonight.”
Seattle took a 2-0 lead off strikes from Morgan Geekie and Jamie Oleksiak (power play).
“I just try to stick to my game for the most part,” Geekie said. “I’ve got a couple of good linemates helping me out. … I’m just trying to be in the right spot at the right time and create offense.”
Wennberg scored his first of the night in the second period to send the Kraken to the third period with a 3-0 advantage.
“I feel like we’re sticking to the game plan,” Wennberg said. “These are really good teams we’re playing against every night. Everyone’s chipping in, though. There’s no secret to it. I wish we could say that there is, but it’s just a hard-working team. Everyone’s fighting for one another, and that’s just the way we want to play.”
Wennberg picked up his double in the middle of the third period for the 4-0 final.
Marc-Andre Fleury made 19 saves
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