Kraken Grab Rare Multi-Goal Lead, Hang On For Win

Kraken captain Jordan Eberle chuckled postgame when asked whether pure instinct had led to him almost blindly backhanding a pass to the slot for Matty Beniers to score a goal that decisively changed Monday night’s contest.

Beniers had instantly snapped Eberle’s feed past Chicago Blackhawks netminder Arvid Soderblom to give the Kraken a multi-goal lead not even midway through regulation, the rarest of indulgences for a team conditioned to safeguarding the slimmest margins or ties through the dying minutes of regulation. But this 3-1 victory saw the Kraken and goalie Joey Daccord afforded plenty of needed cushion off the strength of Eberle’s backhand assist and a clinching goal he’d score in the final minutes leading an odd-man rush.

“You just kind of see him out of the corner of your eye,” Eberle said of his side-of-the-net pass to Beniers at the bottom of the right faceoff circle for his power play goal. “For sure, though, I’ve played with him enough and I’ve worked with him on the power play enough to know where guys are going to be in certain situations.

“That was a big goal for us.”

Indeed, especially given how the Kraken confidently rode the two-goal cushion more than seven minutes into the final period, not allowing a Chicago shot that frame until Andre Burakovsky scored against his former club to cut the lead in half. But Eberle’s goal with four minutes to play, assisted by Beniers, would seal the victory that keeps the Kraken unbeaten in regulation at Climate Pledge Arena and moves them to 6-2-4 on the season.

Jamie Oleksiak also scored on a snapper from the right point to help the Kraken extend their home record to 4-0-2.

Multi-goal leads had been rare indeed for the Kraken ahead of the Beniers strike. Out of just under 688 minutes of regulation play this season to that point, the Kraken had only spent roughly 46 minutes leading by more than a goal.

That helps explain why the Kraken entered play Monday on pace to play 44 overtime games – which would shatter the league record of 30 set by the 2004 Boston Bruins. Not that it’s a bad thing to have picked up eight extra points already this season by extending games beyond 60 minutes. The issue becomes the difficulty in constantly playing in one-goal or tied games in every third period night after night with little margin for error.

“The last couple of games we haven’t created as much as we’ve wanted to,” Eberle said of his team’s shot production, held to a franchise record low 13 in Saturday night’s overtime loss to the New York Rangers. “We’re obviously trying to find ways to defend, but you have to create (offense) off of that.”

Eberle’s third goal was an example of that, with Beniers defending through the neutral zone and causing a turnover that Eberle took the other way on in a 2-on-1 break with Eeli Tolvanen before firing the puck home. Tolvanen had been moved up on a line with Eberle and Beniers and the three seemed in sync all night, the earlier pivotal Beniers goal on the power play set up when Tolvanen hit Eberle near the net with a perfect pass from the right point.

Kraken coach Lane Lambert had done some pregame line shuffling in a bid to generate more shots and more “greasy” goals near the net front. Lambert had urged his team to stop waiting for the perfect play and simply to get more pucks to the net.

His team seemed to take him literally early on, their six shots the opening four-plus minutes exactly half the total they’d managed all night in regulation against the Rangers. It took a while for any goals, but Oleksiak’s a few minutes into the middle period was a perfect example of getting a puck to the net as he merely chipped it in that direction from the right point and saw it weave through a maze of bodies screening the goalie.

“Well, that’s what we talked about,” Lambert said afterward. “We’ve been talking about that and we’ll continue to talk about that. When you put a puck to the net, it always has an opportunity to go in.”

And when at least two more pucks go in than the opposition manages, it can change the way a team plays. The Kraken looked especially confident starting the third period with a two-goal lead, playing aggressively and keeping pucks away from Daccord.

Lambert said the team’s franchise record strong start with 16 points in 12 games is a byproduct of players getting more comfortable with his defensive systems even as they seek additional offense.

“Nothing happens if they don’t buy in and they don’t take ownership,” Lambert said. “For me, tonight it was a team victory. We didn’t have any passengers.”

Daccord certainly didn’t want to be a passenger in the game’s closing minutes. With the Chicago goalie pulled for an extra attacker, he gathered a loose puck and attempted to fire it down the ice for a goal – only to see it knocked down by a defender appearing out of the blue.

“I don’t know, shooters shoot,” Daccord said. “So, I shot it. I thought it was in. I said to myself, ‘It’s in’ because when it was in the air it was dead center. But I couldn’t see the further guy behind the middle guy. So, I was like, ‘Oh, I cleared everybody’ and then I saw him stop it and I was so rattled.”

Of course, the Kraken had already seen their multi-goal lead restored by Eberle moments prior. And that could afford Daccord some margin for error in trying to score goals as well as prevent them.

“I think leading is always nice,” he said. “Because then you can kind of dictate your game.”

Which the Kraken did from the moment Eberle backhanded his second period pass to Beniers. Eberle’s night left him with a team-high five goals and tied for the club lead in points with Jaden Schwartz at 10 apiece; feeling back to his former self after a rare pelvic injury and surgery a season ago.

And his team, finally spending ample minutes in a game that wasn’t a one-goal affair or tied, didn’t let up much when afforded that treat.

“You just try and stay on your toes and continue to push,” Eberle said of his team’s subsequent play with the two-goal advantage. “That’s how you win hockey games.”