In Seattle, the Kraken had their losing skid extended to seven games on Saturday night, in a 4-3 loss to the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning, in extra time.
The Lightning trailed 3-2 in the third period and forced the extra session with a goal from Nicholas Paul at 7:09 of the third to tie it, 3-3.
“Second period, we just needed to get back on the forecheck,” Paul said. “We did it in the third. It’s a great play. ‘Kuch’ buys time, passes it to ‘C,’ C makes a great play just in front of the net there. It was good.”
Nikita Kucherov completed the rally when he scored at 3:12 of extra time for the win.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 26 saves in the win.
The Lightning moved to 13-11-5.
Tampa took a 2-0 lead in the first period.
Anthony Cirelli scored midway through the opening stanza for a 1-0 lead to the Lightning.
Kucherov hit for his first of the night with 48 seconds left in the first for a 2-0 advantage.
“Same thing I say pretty much after every game,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said about Kucherov. “Even the year he was the MVP (2018-19), he’s better this year.”
The Kraken dropped to 8-13-7.
“We got ourselves into a 2-0 hole,” Seattle coach Dave Hakstol said. “There’s all kinds of things that are not going our way, but through all of that, there was nothing but push from our guys.”
Seattle rallied in the middle frame to tie the game, 2-2, with a pair of markers of their own.
Oliver Bjorkstrand trimmed the deficit to 2-1 midway through the second period from the right side.
Jamie Oleksiak knotted the game, 2-2, at 12:23 .
“These times are tough,” Eberle Seattle’s Jordan said. “We’ve got to find a way to get out of it and flip the script from a losing streak to a winning streak.”
Seattle took a 3-2 lead in the third period on a power play strike from Jared McCann with 14 seconds of frsh ice used in the third period.
“I don’t feel we should have been in the position we were in to have to come from behind,” Tampa coach Jon Cooper said. “Seattle, they probably weren’t happy with their first. They came out and pushed in the second. We aided them in some of their push, but what’s done is done. We’re down 3-2 in the third, and in the end, we found a way.”
Philipp Grubauer got the start for the Kraken and made 21 saves, yielding two goals, before laving the game with an apparent injury in the second intermission.
“I mean, I hate to see it for [Grubauer] and obviously for our team,” Hakstol said. “He played very well in net tonight. He was outstanding.”
Joey Daccord made five saves in relief.
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