The Seattle Kraken are over halfway through a five-game Eastern Conference road trip with a perfect record intact.
Off to a fine start with 10 points in seven games and sitting in third place in the Pacific Division, the Kraken play at the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday night in the fourth game of their road trip.
Coach Lane Lambert’s bunch knocked off the Detroit Red Wings and Washington Capitals before Matty Beniers and Bobby McMann’s shootout tallies helped them beat the Philadelphia Flyers 3-2 in five rounds during Frozen Frenzy on Tuesday night.
Jared McCann scored the game-winner against the Capitals and said his squad’s success has no secret.
“We’re not doing anything crazy. We’re just winning pucks,” said McCann. “We’re getting pucks at the net and we’re banging them home. You know things are going in for us right now. We’ve just got to keep going. We know what makes us successful.”
Jordan Eberle and Ben Meyers said that speed is the Kraken’s key.
“I think when we get on our toes and play with speed, we’re a good team,” assessed Eberle after the win in DC. “As soon as we sit back, they started to put some pressure on.”
Said Meyers: “If we’re skating on to pucks with speed, that’s how you put pressure on teams. So it’s a focus for sure.”
The Lightning had been playing good hockey, riding a four-game winning streak, but they saw that streak snapped in their second setback this season, once again against the New York Rangers, on Tuesday.
After its 5-3 win over the New York Islanders, Tampa Bay felt confident in the rematch against the Rangers, who lost goaltender Igor Shesterkin for the season when he fell awkwardly in New York’s game against Washington last Friday.
Instead of facing one of the NHL’s superstar netminders in Shesterkin, the Lightning drew Dylan Garand.
In just his seventh NHL game, the 24-year-old Garand was stout, making 25 saves on 26 shots and allowing only Zemgus Girgensons’ first goal of the season.
New York has outscored Tampa Bay 9-2 in the two contests, which remain the Lightning’s only defeats early in the season.
“We got scored on in the second shift in the game, so all of a sudden you’re chasing it,” Cooper said of Alexis Lafreniere’s first of two opening-period goals just 1:02 in. “Our team has played extremely well for the most part since the last time we were here. I don’t know what it is. … It was dreadful tonight. The execution, I couldn’t believe it.
“I can’t be too hard on them because I’ve watched them play really well the last four games.”
Tampa Bay was 0-for-4 on the power play, dropping the team to 2-for-24 (8.3%) and tying them for the NHL’s worst power-play percentage with the Philadelphia Flyers.
Nikita Kucherov and Brandon Hagel share the Lightning lead with eight points apiece, while Hagel leads in goals with four, one more than Jake Guentzel.
Each club won on the road in their two meetings last season.