Kraken End Winning Trip In Third Place In Pacific

LOS ANGELES – This was the ending Shane Wright and company hoped for ahead of a three-week break to gear up for a playoff sprint to the finish.

They’d entered this final trip ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games Milano Cortina hoping for a winning record against three Pacific Division opponents all fighting for postseason spots. And though it wasn’t easy, a 4-2 win Wednesday night over the Los Angeles Kings helped by two Wright goals and a gutsy third period at crypto.com Arena accomplished that victorious trip and has the Kraken playoff positioned deeper than at any point in nearly three years with 26 games to go.

“Yeah, I mean it was just, ‘Get the job done,’ and that was it,” Wright said after the weary Kraken, having played the previous night, held a one-goal lead and expanded it on his power play marker six minutes in. “Obviously, there was nothing to save before the break here. So, we really wanted to grind and finish off really big.”

Wright had opened the scoring to launch a flurry of three first period strikes by him, Adam Larsson and Vince Dunn that erased a one-goal deficit and put the Kraken ahead to stay.

Kraken goalie Joey Daccord stopped 25 of 27 pucks fired his way, several during a tense second period in which the Kings held an 11-4 shots edge and saw Andrei Kuzmenko score his second power play goal of the night to draw the home side within one.

The Kraken resume play Feb. 25 assured of being deadlocked in third place within the Pacific and technically holding the tiebreaker with the Anaheim Ducks based on regulation and overtime wins. Anaheim holds the final Western Conference wild-card spot, while both are just a point behind second place Edmonton while holding two games in-hand.

The top three teams in each division gain automatic playoff entry regardless of conference standing. After that, the best two remaining conference teams get wild cards.

After pulling off a huge win at Vegas to begin the trip, the Kraken split with the two Southern California teams and enter the break having won five of six and six of eight.

Considering they played the night before in a loss to Anaheim while the Kings had two days of rest between contests, the first period outburst by the visitors was somewhat surprising. They were the ones jumping on loose pucks and winning battles.

“We were grinding for sure, but the schedule’s the schedule,” Wright said. “We still had a job to do and so, credit to everybody. It took everybody tonight to get the win and yeah, it’s really a big one.”

The Kings had entered on an emotional high, having traded earlier in the day for New York Rangers top-scoring threat Artemi Panarin as a reinforcement for their own playoff push. As it now stands, the Kraken are three points ahead of the Kings while having played one additional game.

The Kraken, meanwhile, came in with Jaden Schwartz sidelined by a lower body injury from the prior night and with Oscar Fisker Molgaard recalled from Coachella Valley and inserted on to the fourth line. Molgaard’s next game will be for Team Denmark at the Winter Olympics.

Dunn’s goal gave the Kraken some needed breathing room the rest of the way, a power play marker off a neutral zone turnover caused by Chandler Stephenson. Jared McCann fed Dunn in full stride ahead of the defender beating two opponents and putting a backhand shot behind goalie Darcy Kuemper.

“It’s just instinctive,” Dunn said. “There were a lot of plays tonight that we didn’t really talk about going into the game. Not a lot of set plays. Just more reading each other and trusting each other to make the plays that we see. And I think we created some pretty good chances.”

Dunn has created plenty of offensive plays with his two-way talents, but not many quite like that one. He tried to sprint forward and gain a jump on opposing defenders to “catch them in between” as they tried to both close their gaps and adjust to the newly incoming pressure.

He found “a free lane” and burst on through.

“It’s not really a creative move,” Dunn said. “It’s just taking what’s given.”

And he took it, giving the Kraken a multi-goal lead their opponents dread. The Kraken are 21-0-0 this season when leading by more than a goal at any point.

“I think overall when we’re playing well we’re just foot on the gas and not reckless offensively but just high pressure,” Dunn said. “I think that’s where we create turnovers and create offense for ourselves.”

Wright’s first goal was an important tying marker after a behind-the-net feed from Ryan Winterton, taking the pass and deftly shifting from forehand to backhand to beat Kuemper. That made it 1-1 just 1:34 after the Kings had opened the scoring on the first of two power play goals by Kuzmenko.

Larsson’s goal would come just 58 seconds after Wright’s off a Stephenson pass from behind the net and shifted the game’s momentum the remainder of the period.

“The standings are close right now and we had a pretty tough January,” Dunn said of playing an NHL record 17 contests that month and going an impressive 10-5-2. “So, I’m pretty proud to say we gave it our all and we did a pretty good job of fighting to be where we are in the standings. It’s definitely been a roller coaster season, but I think hopefully right now we can go to the break feeling pretty good about ourselves and come out the way we came out in January after this little break and time off.”

Kraken head coach Lane Lambert said he’d rather his players not even think about hockey ahead of resuming practice on Feb. 17.

Lambert was proud of how his team, looking somewhat weary in a four-shot second period in which Kuzmenko got the Kings back within a goal, rallied the final frame to cap a successful road trip.

“You could go all the way back to (playing) San Jose before Christmas and our record’s been outstanding,” Lambert said of the team’s 15-6-3 mark that stretch. “They played for each other. They cheered each other on. You could see it on the bench. There are times when guys are blocking shots and the whole bench is up pounding their sticks.

“They’re a group that cares about each other right now and they’re having success. And I’m extremely proud of them, especially with the schedule that we’ve had.”

The schedule doesn’t get much easier during a 15-game month of March and then one final week in April. But to hear Wright tell it, the games become a little more palatable as the team senses an attainable playoff prize at the end.

“For sure,” Wright said. “I think we’ve got something special brewing here. We’ve strung a bunch of really good games together. Really big wins against divisional opponents, too. And yeah, we’re just going to keep building, keep pushing ourselves.”