In Buffalo, the Seattle Kraken continued their streak on Tuesday night with a 5-2 win over the Sabres.
The Kraken have now won seven straight.
Joey Daccord made 36 saves in the win, his sixth straight.
The Kraken improved to 17-14-9) and have an active 11-game point streak.,
“It’s been a lot of fun for our group to see how well we’ve been playing,” Daccord said. “I think in the beginning of the year it was tough for us. We were just finding ways to lose games … but now we’ve kind of found our groove, and it’s been a lot of fun to watch.”
The two teams came out heavy with 34 shots in the first period, the Sabres outshot the Kraken, 19-15.
Jeff Skinner scored at 4:57 of the opening stanza to stake the Sabres to a 1-0 lead.
Seattle replied with a pair of goals to take the lead, 2-1, headed to the middle frame.
The Kraken’s Yanni Gourde hit for the tying marker at 13:55 off a rebound.
Vince Dunn hit off the power play at 18:50 n a shot from the low slot.
The Sabres dropped to 17-20-4.
Alex Tuch scored 50 seconds into the middle frame to tie the game, 2-2.
“I thought we had all the faith in the world that we could win this game tonight,” Tuch said. “I thought we had a really good shot in the second and then obviously they were able to capitalize really quickly after us and take the air out of our momentum, I guess you could say.”
Seattle regained the lead when Alex Wennberg replied at 2:08 of the second for a 3-2 advantage to the Kraken.
“When we gave up the third one, that was — we just tied it on a really nice goal to start the second period and then we forget the responsibilities we have without the puck and it ended up in our net,” Sabres coach Don Granato said. “That was disappointing. I think our group was a little deflated, and you can’t be. You’ve got to find a way to stay energized despite [that].”
Jaden Schwartz, icing his first match since late November, scored at 11:34 of the second off a tip in, to make it 4-2.
“It’s nice,” Schwartz said. “You always want to chip in. Obviously winning comes first and I find
when you’re just working and playing for one another, you’re not really thinking about points and stuff, I find [you can] be more successful. Just try to focus on my game and help this team and then as you work, plays open up and it’s always nice to chip in.”
Matty Beniers pushed the lead out to 5-2 at 16:13 from the left side.
“Obviously in that spot you’ve got to really play through the game,” Wennberg said. “It’s a 60-minute game and I feel like we did a solid job. Obviously you’re going to learn and there’s going to be more opportunities like this where you have to close a game, and today we did a really good job.”
Devon Levi made 21 saves in the loss.
“[We] shouldn’t be able to just dominate like that and then one play doesn’t go our way and boo hoo, sit back on our heels and reel it in,” Tuch said. “We’ve got to keep pushing forward, and I thought we did that at times but nowhere near as consistent enough as we should have. I thought we lost our composure a little bit with how we wanted to play the game and how we wanted to play on our terms.”
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