In Seattle, the Kraken won their seventh straight game on Thursday night, 3-2, over the Washington Capitals, extra time.
The Capitals held a 2-0 lead in the first period, and lost it.
Philipp Grubauer made 21 saves in the Kraken win.
Seattle improved to 15-5-3.
“That was a hard-fought game, it’s two good teams, right down to the wire,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “We did a lot of little things that guys in this room did during that hockey game in order to stay with it and not just find one point but get the extra point.”
The Kraken won the game with seven seconds gone in the extra session.
Matty Beniers scored off a breakaway on a pass from Andre Burakovsky.
“That’s two guys making a play,” Hakstol said. “That’s having a plan on the face-off again. I don’t care what zone it’s in, what time of the game, obviously, they had something in mind, and they went out and they executed. They went to battle and then finished it off.”
The Capitals took the most tenuous of leads this season off first period goals from Martin Fehervary and Conor Sheary.
“Not enough of the good stuff tonight, not enough of the right things,” Washington coach Peter Laviolette said. “Everywhere, everywhere, the whole night, all three periods. There’s nothing I’m happy about tonight.”
The Caps dropped to 10-11-4.
“We’ve been doing a good job of finding ways to win and staying with it and a lot of momentum swings and games and we’re doing a pretty good job of managing that,” Kraken forward Jaden Schwartz said. “Whether it’s special teams power play getting a big goal, or the penalty kill stepping up and it’s a big save by [Grubauer]. Everyone’s chipping in and playing together and we’re getting results.”
Schwartz cut the Caps lead to 2-1 in the middle frame.
Yanni Gourde tied the game, 2-2, with less than three minutes left on the clock in the third period to force the brief extra session.
“We talked about just getting pucks to net, shooting a little bit more,” Schwartz said. “[Dunn’s] got a good release up top, so he did a good job. There’s a few chances where we missed the net but pucks are bouncing off the boards and just got lucky with that one.”
Darcy Kuemper made 22 saves in the Washington loss.
“Our game has definitely been trending upwards,” Kuemper said. “Tonight we might not have had our best stuff or all our legs. We got off to a lead and unfortunately couldn’t hang on to the two [points]. We got a point and we’ve just got to keep collecting as many as we can.”
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