Gauthier, Mintyukov help Ducks hold off Kraken for 6th straight win

SEATTLE -- Cutter Gauthier and Pavel Mintyukov each had a goal and an assist, and the Anaheim Ducks won their sixth straight game with a 4-2 victory against the Seattle Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena on Friday.

Chris Kreider and Ryan Poehling also scored for the Ducks (27-21-3), who had lost nine straight (0-8-1) before their current winning streak began on Jan. 13. Lukas Dostal made 20 saves.

“It’s been fun this last week, week and a half or so, playing hockey,” Gauthier said. “[Coach Joel Quenneville] set the standard that we want to rely on our defense and play a solid, tight game and tight checking, and I think so far, we’ve done a great job of that.”

Jared McCann and Jaden Schwartz scored for the Kraken (22-19-9), who have lost seven of nine (2-5-2). Philipp Grubauer made 27 saves.

“Terrible, terrible hockey game for our team. Terrible first 40 minutes,” Seattle coach Lane Lambert said. “We had a push at the end. But I don't have a logical explanation for an illogical event. That was the worst 40 minutes we played all year.”

Gauthier gave Anaheim a 1-0 lead at 1:02 of the first period, taking a pass from Jeffrey Viel at the Seattle blue line, speeding around defenseman Vince Dunn and snapping a shot inside the left post from the bottom of the right circle.

“Any time you can catch a guy like that with a lot of speed, it doesn’t matter who it is, it’s always fun,” Gauthier said. “And you know you’re going to get a Grade-A chance after that.”

Poehling extended it to 2-0 with a short-handed goal at 15:24. Ian Moore backhanded a loose puck out of the Anaheim zone, springing Poehling on a breakaway. Poehling then cut from left to right, deked, and chipped it over Grubauer’s right pad.

“We had an excellent first period, and I thought we did the same in the second,” Quenneville said. “We had a lot of the puck, and checking wise, support wise, all over the ice, we had five guys basically in the play, everybody wanted the puck. We scored some timely goals -- the shorty’s always a big one -- and obviously a huge win for us here.”

McCann cut it to 2-1 at 1:55 of the second period, taking Jordan Eberle’s feed off a 3-on-2 rush and firing a wrist shot from the slot over Dostal’s right shoulder.

“We didn’t start in the first two periods,” Eberle said. “In my opinion, we were getting outbattled. We were kind of all over the place early on; our systems were disconnected. In the third, we made a push, but at the end of the day, you’re down two, and it’s a tough way to come back. We can’t keep doing this to ourselves.”

Kreider’s power-play goal 2:05 later made it 3-1 at 4:00 when he slapped Gauthier’s rebound into an open net from the top of the crease.

“I think we talked about this at the beginning of the year -- we want to be the hardest-working team. That’s going to be our identity,” Quenneville said. “We want to have a check-first mentality … I think we had a different look to us at the beginning of the year, where we could score goals, it looked like, at a higher rate than anybody would have thought, including us … I think we got more prepared and play without the puck, and that commitment is noticeable, and the results speak for themselves.”

Grubauer used a poke check to stop Jansen Harkins on a penalty shot at 8:00 after Ryan Lindgren held Harkins on a breakaway.

Schwartz brought Seattle within 3-2 at 1:54 of the third period, lunging at the top of the crease and redirecting Shane Wright’s feed from the top of the slot into an open net.

“It was a great play [by Wright],” Schwartz said. “He sold shot … Kaapo [Kakko] made a great play over to him, and he dragged a few guys over to him and just fed me. Pretty much a wide-open net, so good vision.”

Mintyukov later banked a shot off the side boards from the defensive zone and into an empty net at 18:48 for the 4-2 final.

“We like a saying in our locker room: ‘Bend don’t break,’” Gauthier said. “And I thought that’s what we did in the third, and able to control the storm and get the ‘W.’”

NOTES: Anaheim’s six-game winning streak is its second run of that length this season after winning seven straight from Oct. 28 to Nov. 9. … Kreider scored his 16th goal of the season and tied Anthony Mantha (16 with the Pittsburgh Penguins) for the third most among all players skating on a new team this season. The only others with more are Trevor Zegras (19 with the Philadelphia Flyers) and JJ Peterka (17 with the Utah Mammoth). … Dostal recorded his second winning streak of five or more games this season after doing so from Oct. 28 to Nov. 9 (six games). The only other Ducks goalie with multiple five-game winning streaks in a single campaign over the past 10 years is Frederik Andersen (seven games and five games in 2015-16).