Matty Beniers tallied twice and goaltender Philipp Grubauer made 24 saves as the Seattle Kraken defeated the visiting Nashville Predators 4-1 Thursday night.
Jamie Oleksiak and Jared McCann also scored for Seattle, which extended its point streak to six games (5-0-1).
Roman Josi got the lone goal for the Predators, who dropped to 3-2-0 on their seven-game trip that concludes with stops Saturday in Calgary and Tuesday in Edmonton. Goalie Juuse Saros stopped 19 of 22 shots.
The Kraken took a 3-0 lead in the opening 11 minutes.
Beniers opened the scoring at 3:48 as he positioned himself in fron of the net and tipped Ryker Evans’ shot from the left point over Saros’ right shoulder.
Oleksiak made it 2-0 at 10:41 after fourth-liners Ryan Winterton and Jacob Melanson won a battle for the puck behind the Nashville net. Winterton sent the puck back to Oleksiak, whose wrist shot from the top of the right faceoff circle whistled into the far upper corner of the net.
Beniers struck again just 10 seconds later after winning the faceoff following Oleksiak’s goal. Kaapo Kakko’s shot from between the top of the faceoff circles was blocked down by Saros. Jordan Eberle reached the rebound on the left wing, but his shot went off a defenseman and trickled toward the net. Beniers reached the puck just before Saros could smother it with his catching glove and poked a backhander into the net to make it 3-0.
The Predators got on the scoreboard with a power-play goal at 17:34 of the second. Ryan O’Reilly got the puck down low on the right wing and sent the puck back to Josi for a wrist shot from between the top of the faceoff circles that sailed over Grubauer’s left shoulder.
McCann clinched the victory with an empty-net goal at 17:47 of the third.
Nashville’s Steven Stamkos, who scored his 600th career NHL goal in a 4-2 victory Wednesday at Vegas, was held off the scoresheet. Stamkos had six goals over the previous six games.
–Field Level Media
