Kraken trip up Sabres, 5-1

In Seattle, the Kraken picked up a solid 5-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday night.

Martin Jones made 15 saves in the Seattle win.

“This team we played against tonight makes it difficult,” Seattle coach Dave Hakstol said. “They get up and down the rink, they push things on the offensive side, so you have to find ways to have layers and defend well and work for your opportunities. For the most part, we were able to do that and that led to a good win for us.”

Jamie Oleksiak and Morgan Geekie gave the Kraken a 2-0 lead in the opening period.

“[Brandon Tanev] yells at me all the time,” Geekie said. “I yelled at him back and he heard me tonight. It’s good, he made a heck of a play over the defenseman, and I just tried to use my speed and my size and gain some ground on it.”

In the second period, Daniel Sprong  extended the Seattle lead to 3-0.

“I just wanted to get a bounce-back game,” Sprong said. “I missed the first two games because of [immigration paperwork], and I just wanted to get my rhythm back from training camp. I had a good week of practice and felt good. I wanted to play well tonight.”

Dylan Cozens cut the Kraken lead to 3-1 in the middle frame.

“We didn’t play very well, I just thought that they had a lot better jump than we did,” Sabres captain Kyle Okposo said. “And we just couldn’t find it. When we did, we made a push and take a penalty in the offensive zone; can’t do that. They score on the power play, kind of killed our momentum, but yeah, we just did not have any jump tonight and a tough one to finish the trip off after three really solid games. But you know we’re going to regroup and take a successful trip home and continue to build.”

Seattle reclaimed the three-goal lead off a strike by Jared McCann in the middle frame.

Matty Beniers  scored in the third period for the 5-1 final.

Eric Comrie made 19 saves in the Sabres loss.

“We couldn’t get in a rhythm tonight,” Buffalo coach Don Granato said. “They had much better energy than us. We chased it. We had a lot of guys that didn’t look like themselves, and it was a tough night as a result that just didn’t get any better. I thought Comrie battled hard. I thought we didn’t support him well enough, and it’s one of those nights.”