Kraken Win First Half of ‘Doubleheader’

On an afternoon when the outer plazas of Climate Pledge Arena looked like a Seattle sports festival with a plethora of fans wearing Kraken swag heavily speckled with the distinctive greens and blues representing the local juggernaut Seahawks “12s,” the NHLers got Job One done with a 4-2 hard-fought victory over the visiting New Jersey Devils. The Kraken are now 23-19-9 and back on the second Western Conference wild-card line with divisional foes San Jose and Los Angeles. Up next on the homestand is all-time NHL goal-scoring leader Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals.

The first 40 minutes of this pre-Seahawks matinee were tightly contested, with lots of hits and quality scoring chances stifled by both goaltenders, and a goal apiece for the home and visiting squads. It was a huge upgrade for Kraken after the “terrible” first two periods of Friday night’s home loss, per coach Lane Lambert.

The third period here on Sunday? Lots more fun, pizazz, and production from the top two Seattle lines. First-line center Matty Beniers flexed the sort of high-skill offensive moves he has been flashing with regularity in the last six weeks to notch a go-ahead goal and Seattle’s first lead of the game. Linemate and SEA captain Jordan Eberle notched the assist. It is Beniers’ 12^th goal of the season and comes in his 300^th NHL regular-season game. His backhanded shot belongs on this month’s highlight reel for sure.

Just seventeen seconds later, the second line delivered with veterans Chandler Stephenson and Eeli Tolvanen setting up just-turned-20-year-old Berkly Catton for his fifth goal of the year and his budding career. Catton flashed all sorts of slick moves in Friday’s third period, but on this football Sunday, he showed his inner-lineman moves, shoving and shooting his way to the game-winning goal. It’s the sort of goal coaches love and doubly enjoy when a rookie with all of the offensive arsenal possessed by Catton is added to the bag of shots and scores.

“Three hundred for Matty and he scored an all-world goal,” said Kraken head coach Lane Lambert, not one to overdo the superlatives. “He showed the patience and poise to on to the puck and then keep holding it when the goalie went down. Really good job by him.

“And then on the ensuing face off, you saw Catton chase the puck and win a race and give Chandler an opportunity. That resulted in an offensive-zone face-off right away. Then we put a puck to the net. Good things happen when you put pucks to the net.”

For his part, Catton was candid when his goal was described as likely hitting the outside of the net, then bouncing off Catton as the 2024 first-rounder didn’t give up on getting the puck in the net for what became his second game-winning goal as an NHLer.

“I have no clue how it went in,” said Catton, prompting plenty of smiles and laughter. “I had it, and I shot on [puck’s] end. It hit the side of the net. Then I don't know what happened after that. Lucky bounce? Just feels good it went in.”

The two goals cranked the buzzing crowd to high decibels (good prelude to Lumen Field later) and took a celebratory note. Things quieted a bit when New Jersey came back with a response goal (just 52 seconds after Catton’s score) in the form of its second power play tally of the afternoon. This time, superstar Jack Hughes (a Team USA player to root for at the upcoming Winter Olympics in February, but not Sunday) scored the goal after setting up the man-advantage goal for the visitors.

From there, it was breathe-in, breathe-out on repeat for the home crowd, ready to get this finished in regulation. That would deliver two important standings points and, yes, 45 minutes for those in attendance to find a TV screen (or a train ride south to watch in person?) for the pending kickoff.

The measured breathing and nail-biting subsided when the Devils couldn’t keep the puck in the offensive zone, affording Jordan Eberle to win the puck and score an empty-net goal to seal the game. Just some 15 minutes after the game ended, the Kraken captain was wearing a Seahawks jersey with his hockey number 10, clearly headed to SoDo and exiting the home locker room in record time.

Tying the Game by Nuisance at Net Front

The fourth line did again when Seattle needed it most. This time, not just energy and physicality but also offensive juice when rookies Jacob Melanson and Ryan Winterton wreaked havoc with Devils goalie Markstrom’s sightlines. The annoyance allowed D-man Ryker Evans to thread a hard shot from the point that Markstrom could not completely control, as the puck submerged under the goalie’s leg and slid through to cross the goal line.

Evans’ fourth goal of the season was officially scored as unassisted, but the Kraken don’t even the score with Winteron and Melanson’s gritty work outside the goal crease.

Evans, Melanson and Winterton have all experienced success at the developmental American Hockey League level with affiliate, Coachella Valley. The opening goal was a prime example of how the work by the Kraken development staff and the Firebirds coaching staff has prepared the goal-scoring trio for Sunday.

“They’ve been great for us all year, getting in there and obviously forechecking hard,” said Evans about Winterton and Melanson. “They were causing chaos [net front} and I just kind of threw in there.”

To his credit, Evans’ four goals this season have followed the put-on-net exhortation from the coaching staff. He is sure-handed and knows when to send a puck to the goal crease.

Daccord Shines in Second Half of Game

When the aforementioned Melanson was sent to the penalty box for holding for 11 and a half minutes into the middle period, Kraken goaltender Joey Daccord took center stage. During the penalty kill, he made two leg-pad successive saves literally at the goal line. The Kraken Hockey Network overhead camera (thanks, KHN crew!) showed the final save with the puck barely nicking the goal line. The puck must be all the way over the goal line to be counted as a score. If the sequence doesn’t make end-of-season highlight reels, it’s a miss.

A few shifts later, Daccord made a couple more Grade-A saves to keep this game heading into the final 20 minutes. Daccord, looking for his first win since early January, robbed NJD forwards Dawson Mercer and Jasper Bratt on the goal line stand (fitting for an NFL title game Sunday), plus a later period attempt by veteran scorer Timo Meier. Just 90-some seconds into the final period, Daccord robbed Meier a second time point-blank.

Incredibly, five-plus minutes in the third period, there was yet another net front scrum with the puck loose and threatening to give New Jersey a go-ahead goal. This one skittered pretty much everywhere in the vicinity of Daccord’s crease amid more than a half-dozen. Daccord, whew, finally froze the puck with a flat-on-his-back snow angel stop.

Lambert dished out praise to Daccord’s game performance as well as premier shot blockers Jaden Schwartz and Eeli Tolvanen at key times during the Devils barrage. Daccord said he was glad there was no extended review of the first melee at his goal mouth; the NHL Situation Room in Toronto validates every good goal before allowing the local referees to drop the puck to resume play.

Daccord thanked “KHN for having my back” and then explained his strategy on the third-period crease-front snow-angel scramble: “Those are tough plays right when they're kind of bang, bang, in front of the net. A lot of times, the guys don't have time to get the puck elevated. I just try to take the ice away. I was able to take away the ice there, and had some great help behind me from the guys.”

Tale of Two Times Two Power Plays in First Period

The good news from the first period: For just the second time in 10 games, the Kraken did not allow one or two goals within the first five minutes of Sunday’s matchup. The game plan is to get the puck into the offensive zone early, then forecheck if the foe gains control and win the puck back for offensive chances. Young center Shane Wright did just that on his first two shifts, and, overall, the Kraken skaters were following the blueprint to prevent those

But the not-so-good news is that the Devils scored the opening goal in the ninth minute of the game on a power-play goal by New Jersey defenseman Dougie Hamilton, assisted by superstar forward Jack Hughes.

Opponents have tallied the first goal against Seattle in the last 12 games. The score power play was prompted by Wright's high-sticking of NJD forward Cody Glass at the net front in the offensive zone for six-plus minutes in this matinee contest.

The Kraken earned a power play mid-period when, after a big hit on Devils forward Ondrej Palat, Kraken D-man Lindgren was jumped by young Jersey forward Dawson Mercer. The veteran Lindgren threw the most effect punches and pinned Mercer to the boards. Lindgren picked up five minutes for fighting, while Mercer’s rap sheet included a two-minute minor for instigating, a five-minute major for fighting and a 10-minute misconduct.

But the Kraken came up empty on the mid-period play. During a later first period Devils power play (Jamie Oleksiak, high sticking in the defensive zone), SEA starting goalie Joey Daccord stopped another quality chance from the previous goal scorer, Hamilton. The save kept it a 1-0 game at first intermission.

Rookie Jacob Melanson, called up Thursday and setting a team record with 10 hits in Friday’s divisional loss to Anaheim, had arguably the best Kraken scoring chance of the period. Goalie Jacob Markstrom, hot lately, kept the scoring sheet clean. He stopped seven shots overall while Daccord made eight saves.

Lambert on Beniers’ 300, Offensive Upside

When the puck dropped here at high noon Sunday, it marked Beniers’ 300^th NHL regular-season appearance at age 23. By all accounts, teammates, coaches and this reporter, Beniers is playing some of the best hockey of his career over the stretch of games since mid-December. The five weeks of play coincide with the Kraken jumping back in postseason contention and the young center working extra time on ice with assistant coach Chris Taylor and director of player strategy Justin Rai.

“I’m very impressed with his 200-foot game and his work ethic and his compete level,” said head coach Lane Lambert about the team’s youngest alternate captain.

“There are a lot of different things that you guys don't know about that have been worked on with him, from Chris Taylor and Justin Rai over the course of the first 50 games this season, on the offensive side. It's pretty, it's intriguing stuff, stuff that I actually sit there and say, ‘OK, I'm not an offensive specialist. That's not my forte. I see him implementing those things into the game, and it's kind of cool to see for sure.”