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Brayden Schenn notched two assists and the St. Louis Blues put together a wire-to-wire effort to sweep the three-game regular season series from the Seattle Kraken in a 4-1 victory on Wednesday, before 18,096 fans at Enterprise Center.
The Kraken earned their only goal from the night via Jordan Eberle’s second period marker at 9:55 and fell to 3-2 in the last five road games.
St. Louis got a strong 28-save effort out of goaltender Ville Husso, winning their third straight game.
“First period we were pretty lackadaisical,” said forward Jordan Eberle.
The Kraken, falling behind on Robert Thomas’ backdoor, first period power play goal at 8:38, committed six minutes in minor penalties for the first 13 minutes.
“Against teams like that, we had opportunities to score,” said Eberle. “You’ve got to finish those.”
“(Chris Driedger) was there, he played well.”
Driedger, starting for the fourth time over the last five games, took the loss despite making 32 saves.
“I feel like myself in there,” said Driedger. “Tough to lose and not win every game you’re in there. I felt like I was seeing the puck and trying to do my part. Good to have a little more confidence in there, and I’ve felt that in the last few games.”
Justin Faulk finished Schenn’s cross-seam pass at the left circle for a 2-0 cushion with 12:04 left in the second period and Eberle got the Kraken on the board when he buried a rebound at the net, 1:59 later.
The Kraken killed off a late second period cross-checking penalty by Carson Soucy but Jordan Kyrou’s 23rd goal of the year, just 2:34 into the third period restored the Blues two-goal lead, and Ryan O’Reilly put the game away with 1:15 left on an empty netter.
“Tonight is disappointing,” said head coach Dave Hakstol. “I’m not sitting here saying I’m not disappointed, because we didn’t come here to lose, close. Six minor penalties is too much. I would have liked to have another opportunity or two on the power play I felt like we earned with these close calls.”
“That being said, there’s things we can do better.”
The Kraken will finish a brief two-game trip against the Chicago Blackhawks, Thursday at 5:30pm PT (93.3 KJR / Kraken Audio Network).
KRAKEN LINEUP AT ST. LOUIS, APR. 6:
Donato-Wennberg-Eberle
McCann-Sheahan-Kuhlman
Rask-Gourde-Lind
Donskoi-Geekie-Sprong
Dunn-Larsson
Oleksiak-C. Fleury
Soucy-Borgen
Driedger
Grubauer