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Eight different players scored a goal and 13 players hit the scoresheet, led by Jordan Eberle and Andre Burakovskyās three point games, to help the Seattle Kraken win their fourth straight game and steamroll the Ottawa Senators in an 8-4 victory on Saturday night before 19,347 fans at Canadian Tire Centre.Ā
āReality is we were able to build a 3-1 lead and thatās a good start in this building,ā head coach Dave Hakstol said. āItās a hard building to play in.āĀ
COMPLETE RADIO GAME HIGHLIGHTS
Proving again that offense and depth is their growing identity, the Kraken chased starting goaltender Anton Forsberg, coming off a shutout, in just five shots for a 3-1 lead in the first period and pulled away enough to make Tim Stützleās hat trick a mere footnote, improving to 2-0-1 lifetime against the Senators. Even more importantly, theyāve taken a seven-game road trip, full of landmines and season derailing caution, into a springboard by winning the first three games.Ā
āWeāre more of a mature group,ā said Eberle. āAll together, weāre a better hockey team. Weāre obviously a little more comfortable with the system for the guys coming back, and the guys who weāve added have been a big addition to the team.āĀ
With a second period goal to lead all NHL rookies (14), Matty Beniers scored for the third straight game after Daniel Sprong answered a Senators rally with his 12thĀ goal of the season, 22 seconds after Ottawa tied the game in the second period. The Kraken scored four unanswered goals to put the game out of reach.Ā
āThatās the story of our group especially over the last little while,ā said Hakstol.Ā
āThat shows a little bit of poise, lot of belief. A guy goes over the boards and makes a play to put us back in a good spot.āĀ Ā
Provincial native Vince Dunn, playing before a swarm of friends and family in attendance, opened the third period scoring and completed a multi-point game in a final 20-minute span, where the Kraken avoided putting Ottawaās third-ranked power play (who went 1-of-2) to work and stayed out of the penalty box.Ā
Martin Jones made 19 saves while Cam Talbot, taking over for Forsberg, took the loss for a 14-save effort.Ā
The Kraken will visit the Montreal Canadiens on Monday at 4:30pm PT (93.3 KJR / Kraken Audio Network) to close the two-game series.Ā
1.Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā The game is going to a good place offensively.Ā Weāve heard it. How, āwill beats skill.ā How, you have to win in a 3-2 league. How, offense is sexy, but defense wins championships. There is a kernel of truth to all of those philosophies, laid in the gameās foundation for years. But what weāre witnessing is the explosion of offense that hasĀ catapulted the game into levelsĀ unseen since Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux were the headline attractions, and the game underwent a transformationĀ with its popularity and exposure. The gameās going to a good place. We have Jack Hughes, we have Trevor Zegras, we have Auston Matthews embracing personality and supplying offense at will. We have this yearās Seattle Kraken, sending 20-year old Matty Beniers to the All-Star Game, who just scored eight goals again.Ā Ā This is becoming the norm again. Itās fun to watch.Ā
2.Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Oh yeah, the Kraken have scary depth. Through roughly half of a season in the NHL, there is only one team who has scored eight goals in a game, three times. That would be the Kraken, who again reared forward as a 16-headed monster (covering all four lines) who have the ability, especially with the bottom six to ātear you apart,ā as Ottawa head coach D.J. Smith put it Saturday morning. It was warning that the Kraken turned into a promise. Anton Forsberg, fresh off a 22-save shutout, was reduced to a mere mortal and given the hook after three goals on the first five shots. The Kraken didnāt stop there. Eight different players scored a goal, 13 total hit the scoresheet, and all four lines had at least one goal. Want to trade chances with the Seattle Kraken? Good luck.Ā Ā
3.Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Keep believing. The Kraken are becoming more real by the week. So, you wanted to look at the Kraken back in October, see them beat the Kings and Avalanche, and ask for more. Thatās fair. So, you wanted to look at the Kraken back in November, see them go on a 10-1-1 run, grab a āin progressā playoff spot and ask for them to keep it up. Thatās fair. You wanted to look at December where they hit a speedbump at 4-7-1 and challenge the validity of their status. Fair enough. But now, weāre almost halfway through the season ā and the Seattle Kraken havenāt gone away. Matter of fact, theyāre continuing at a pace thatās light years ahead of schedule as a second year team. Five points into a playoff spot, they responded from a bumpy holiday slump with four straight wins, scoring four goals or more. That gauntlet of a seven-game trip is turning into an eye-opening revelation, slaying the first three games against McDavid and the Oilers, Matthews and the Leafs, and a scuffling Ottawa team but dangerous with Brady Tkachuk and Claude Giroux. Theyāre +17 in goal differential, tied for fourth best in the conference. Theyāre hanging around, and theyāre on the cusp of making March and even April hockey very meaningful, and very memorable.Ā
What a way to make a statement, in year two.Ā
KRAKEN LINEUP VS. OTTAWA, JAN. 8:
Burakovsky-Beniers-Eberle
Schwartz-Wennberg-McCannĀ
Tolvanen-Gourde-Bjorkstrand
Tanev-Geekie-Sprong
Dunn-Larsson
Oleksiak-Schultz
Soucy-BorgenĀ
Jones
GrubauerĀ