It seems the Seattle Kraken made the right choice when they named Jordan Eberle the second captain in franchise history.
Eberle scored twice in regulation and the winner in the shootout as the Kraken recorded a 5-4 win over the Minnesota Wild on Saturday night in St. Paul, Minn.
The Kraken will continue their three-game road trip with a stop in Dallas on Sunday to face the Stars.
Seattle, which evened its record after losing its opener 3-2 Tuesday against the St. Louis Blues, rallied from 2-0, 3-2 and 4-3 deficits versus the Wild.
“They got the lead three times — we came back all three times,” said Eberle, who was awarded the “C” before the season opener after the team had gone without a captain since Mark Giordano was traded midway through their expansion season. “That’s a character win. Those are the kinds of wins that build and propel seasons.
“I know it’s the first one, but that’s a big one.”
Tye Kartye and Jordan McCann also scored for the Kraken. McCann’s goal at 16:34 of the third period tied the score at 4-4.
“I don’t think you want to get in the habit of having to do that (staging three comebacks to win a game in a shootout),” Kraken coach Dan Bylsma said. “But it was good for our team to respond. … We got a huge power-play goal to get us back (down) to one. It was the story of the game. We got to 2-2, they get another one. We got it back with a great goal by the Karts line. Then they scored again, and we had to come up with one late to claw … it’s just Jared McCann, a great shot there.”
Bylsma made one tactical change, moving Shane Wright up to center the No. 2 line with McCann and Eberle and dropping Matty Beniers to the third line between Eeli Tolvanen and Oliver Bjorkstrand. Wright had a plus/minus rating of plus-1 in 16:02 of ice time and Beniers played 18:12.
The Stars improved to 2-0-0 with a 3-0 victory Saturday against the visiting New York Islanders. Jake Oettinger made 34 saves for his 11th career shutout.
“It’s something I don’t take for granted at all,” Oettinger said. “You need to get a little lucky and some guys need to help you out. A lot of things need to go right, so I never take them for granted. You just want to get the season going the right way. Good start.”
Tyler Seguin scored twice, including an empty-net goal with just over one minute to play. Captain Jamie Benn also tallied and Mason Marchment picked up two assists for Dallas.
“(Oettinger)’s rock-solid and we have a lot of belief in him,” Benn said. “Every night we feel like when we go on the ice we’re going to win because of him.”
It was the home opener for the Stars.
“The home opener, your natural reaction as a player is to try and put on a show. I thought we did a good job of playing within ourselves tonight. I don’t think we beat ourselves,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “That’s a tough team to play against. They play a really structured game, and I thought we played a smart hockey game. We didn’t turn it into a track meet or run-and-gun where everyone was trying to get points and put on a show. This is what it’s about. It’s about winning games.”
The Stars’ Matt Dumba played just over six minutes Saturday because of a lower-body injury. He is expected to miss the Kraken game as DeBoer said the defenseman would be re-evaluated Monday.
–Field Level Media
