Kraken Score Early And Often To Ring In New Year

Matty Beniers and company weren’t exactly popping leftover champagne bottles despite ringing in the New Year with an unlikely triad of Kraken goals before Thursday night’s game was even 11 minutes old.

The Kraken are often hard-pressed to score three goals in an entire game, which is why their early lead in this eventual 4-1 win over the Nashville Predators was indeed cause for celebration of sorts to ring in 2026. But it also gave the Kraken some quickfire lessons in something they simply aren’t used to: Protecting a multiple goal lead with plenty of hockey game still to play.

“We haven’t been in that situation too much,” Beniers said after scoring twice that period wrapped around another goal from Jamie Oleksiak. “So, we’ll hopefully get a little more used to playing with that lead and try to keep pushing. But we got it done and closed it out. It was a good win.”

They did indeed close it out with a late empty net goal by Jared McCann that made all the nerve-wracking stops by Philipp Grubauer seem a distant memory. That said, Grubauer’s play had a lot to do with the Kraken maintaining their advantage after Roman Josi finally got his team on the board with a power play goal on a wrister from the high slot late in the second period to launch an extended Nashville barrage from there.

But the Kraken, as mentioned, got it done in the opener of what will be an NHL record-tying spate of 17 games played in a single month. They begin that stretch at 17-14-7 and in a playoff position, their fifth win in six tries moving them into a tie with Los Angeles and Utah for the eighth Western Conference spot but owning the edge on both with a game in-hand on the Kings and two on the Mammoth.

They’ll make one of those games in-hand up Friday night in Vancouver against a Canucks team that beat them in overtime on Monday for the only Kraken blemish of a 5-0-1 stretch in this season high points streak.

It had been a few weeks shy of two years since the Kraken held a 3-0 lead in the first period. They’d only twice scored as many as two goals in an opening frame this season and this time rode a timely early penalty kill to some added momentum as Beniers redirected a Ryker Evans point blast behind Nashville goalie Juuse Saros just under four minutes in.

Oleksiak then doubled the lead by taking a Ryan Winterton pass in the high slot, hesitating just a moment and then beating Saros with a strong wrist shot through some traffic. The goal resulted from some excellent forechecking by the team’s fourth line, initiated behind the net by Jacob Melanson – who also drew an assist on the play for his second NHL point in as many games.

Just 10 seconds later, off the ensuing faceoff, Kaapo Kakko put a shot in on Saros that was stopped. Jordan Eberle chipped at the rebound, which bounced int the crease area where an onrushing Beniers swatted it home for his second goal of the game.

“The first one just kind of hit my stick and I tipped it in front,” said Beniers, who had a chance for the franchise’s fifth-ever hat-trick late but missed with a long attempt at an empty net with Saros pulled. “The second one, Kap made a great play across to Ebs and I went to the net and it (the puck) was just sitting there. So, I poked it in.”

The Kraken had numerous chances to extend that lead, including a tremendous chance for Berkly Catton to score his first NHL goal when he got a puck out front with Saros out of position only to have the goalie jump back in to make the stop as the Kraken forward backhanded the puck out of midair towards the net.

By the final period, with the Kraken still holding a two-goal lead, Eberle carried the puck in 2-on-1 and slid it across to Kakko with Saros down and out. But the Kakko chip towards the open net slid across the crease and hit the far post before bouncing out of harm’s way.

Things had already grown challenging for the Kraken by that point. Grubauer was forced into a huge stop on Michael Bunting on an odd-man rush wrister from 21-feet out right after the Preds had cut the lead to 3-1.

“I think that was really, like, one of the only great chances that they had,” Grubauer said after stopping 24 of 25 shots. “It’s not like they had that much. I think we controlled them very well. But yeah, for sure, if that one goes in, it’s 3-2 and it’s a completely different game.”

While that was one of the few uncontested shot the Preds got on Grubauer in close, they lived up to their big-boy reputation at the net front and made life difficult all game long for the netminder and his defenders. Oleksiak and Ryan Lindgren were both left hobbling by shot blocks of attempts in-close, while Steven Stamkos had Grubauer beaten on a second period deflection that rang off the post.

“I feel like they were always in my eyes with two guys, especially at the end when they pulled the goalie,” Grubauer said. “They’re a really big team up front and they’re carrying some pretty long sticks too. So, they definitely don’t make it easy, but we did a great job of boxing out and blocking shots at the right moment.”

Kraken head coach Lane Lambert agreed the shot blocking and Grubauer saves were critical for a team still learning how the luxury of a multi-goal lead can feel.

“We’re usually in the tight, one-goal kind of games and to build a bit of a lead was fine,” Lambert said. “What I felt like is – and you see it throughout the league – is when teams get two-and-three-goal leads the other teams come and there isn’t anything to lose at that point for them. And so, these two-and-three-goal leads are disappearing.”

But Lambert quickly added what impressed him most was the Kraken seemed well-aware of how precarious such leads can be. And even if the execution was far from flawless, the awareness helped.

“I thought our commitment was high and we did a lot of things we needed to do,” he said. “There were probably a couple of moments in that game that are really good teaching moments for us when we do get in the lead. You can’t change the way you play just because you’re in the lead.”

The night’s scoring star, Beniers, felt the team did change some of its play and it nearly cost them. But that’s when Grubauer stepped in and afforded a margin for error, coming up big in the final minutes before the Kraken put it away.

“I think it happened like two or three times that stretch,” Beniers said of Nashville’s third period net front scrums and puck jamming on Grubauer. “When we were maybe cheating a little bit too much for offense than we needed to. And he comes up huge on one whack, two whacks, three whacks. A big pile at the net. He was awesome.”