SEATTLE — Jared McCann and Matty Beniers extended their goal streaks to four and three games, respectively, as the Seattle Kraken tied the game twice but couldn’t recover a third-period goal in time, falling 5-4 Thursday night to previously winless Vancouver.
Relief belonged to the Canucks, who were going for their first victory of the season in their eighth try.
In the first period, the Kraken decisions were too late and the passes too hard. In the second, they weren’t seeing plays all the way through. They pressed hard in the third. Vancouver goaltender Thatcher Demko was wobbling, weaving, diving and getting help from behind from teammate Oliver Ekman-Larsson in the form of a last-ditch save. The puck stayed out.
Andre Burakovsky got the puck into the Vancouver net but his stick was well above the crossbar. Conor Garland added an empty-net goal soon after Kraken netminder Martin Jones was pulled for the extra attacker.
Seattle’s Jaden Schwartz scored with 29.7 seconds left in the third period.
Jones made 14 saves. He waited out Bo Horvat and kept his pads locked together early the second period.
Vancouver’s go-ahead goal 1:16 into the third period resulted from some friendly fire. Carson Soucy knocked the puck into his own goal while trying to break up a play. Elias Pettersson was the last Canuck to touch it and he was credited.
The Canucks enjoyed a 1-0 lead for most of the first period before Jamie Oleksiak’s long one-timer found its way through Demko’s pads. The defenseman has goals in consecutive games.
As the clock wound down on the period, the Canucks lost track of McCann on the right side of the ice. Yanni Gourde turned and landed a smooth deflection right onto McCann’s stick and the Kraken’s hottest goal-scorer raced toward the net. Demko got a piece of the shot but it bounced over his foot.
McCann had time to turn back and watch the puck dribble all the way over the line.
Ilya Mikheyev scored his second of the game for the Canucks to make it 2-2. Andrei Kuzmenko stalled in the crease waiting to redirect a J.T. Miller shot past Jones to give the Canucks the lead back.
On the next shift, Schwartz absorbed contact along the boards in order to complete the chain of passes and punch the puck out to Beniers, who went mano a mano with Demko and scored his fourth of the season. He sent a low, blistering shot in to tie the game at 3.
Schwartz had two prime chances in the first period. He muffed a power-play chance from the slot and sent a tip-in bid from Justin Schultz wide.
