Kraken pad West wild card lead with win against Ducks

Matty Beniers and Jaden Schwartz each had a goal and assist, and the Seattle Kraken extended their lead in the Western Conference wild card race with a 4-1 win against the Anaheim Ducks at Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle on Thursday.

Daniel Sprong and Alex Wennberg scored, and Martin Jones made 18 saves in his first win since Feb. 28 for the Kraken (41-25-8), who had lost six of nine.
Seattle moved five points ahead of the Winnipeg Jets for the first wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the West.
"This group inside of this room has continued to find its way, to push for some things that we've wanted to push for," Seattle coach Dave Hakstol said. "We continue to be in that position, and there's still work to do in order to get to that first goal that we have on the list."
Brock McGinn scored, and Lukas Dostal made 35 saves for the Ducks (23-42-10), who have lost six in a row.
"I've been so proud of this group during an adverse year," Anaheim coach Dallas Eakins said. "We've bent a few times, but never broken. They continue to have great attitudes. We just have some amazing young men here."
Schwartz gave the Kraken a 1-0 lead at 7:56 of the first period, bringing the puck down the left side and scoring on a slap shot from the top of the left face-off circle following Will Borgen's breakout pass.
"[Borgen] read the play nice and passed it through [the defender's] stick, hard pass right on the tape," Schwartz said. "I had a lot of speed, so I was hoping he saw me, and he did a really good job of selling it and finding me."

Beniers made it 2-0 at 10:37 after Jared McCann's backhand centering pass. His first attempt from in close hit the side of the net before collecting the puck and scoring on the rebound.
"I thought we had a really good start and a couple mistakes on the goals against," Eakins said.
Beniers credited the fourth line of Brandon Tanev, Ryan Donato and Sprong with pinning the Ducks in their own zone before he came on the ice and scored.
"That created the whole goal," Beniers said. "It starts there. [The Ducks] are gassed, we get out there and we're able to make a play, so all the credit to those guys."

McGinn cut it to 2-1 at 18:44 of the second period, scoring five-hole from the left circle after one-timing a pass from Derek Grant. It was McGinn's second goal since he was traded to Anaheim on March 3 for defenseman Dmitry Kulikov.
"All of a sudden, it was a 2-1 game," Hakstol said. ""We just had to come in and reset, and settle down and go back, and play a good third period."
Jones made his toughest save at 7:17 of the third period when Frank Vatrano and Ryan Strome had a brief 2-on-0 following a turnover in the Seattle zone, but Jones used his left pad to kick Vatrano's attempt away.
Sprong then extended it to 3-1 at 15:41 on the power play, scoring his 20th goal of the season. Beniers had a secondary assist for his 52nd point, the most amongst NHL rookies.
Wennberg scored into an empty net at 17:45 for the 4-1 final.
"We settled down in the third," Hakstol said. "We needed a couple real good saves from Martin Jones to do that. Penalty kill did their job, power play did its job in extending the lead in the third period, and that's it. It closes out a good two points for us, and that's a real positive night."
NOTES: Beniers has nine points (three goals, six assists) in four career games against the Ducks, with multipoint games in all four. ... Anaheim was without its two leading scorers, forwards Trevor Zegras and Troy Terry. Zegras is day to day after missing the third period of a 5-1 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Monday; Terry did not accompany the team on its three-game trip because his wife is expecting their first child.