The Kraken came into Monday night’s game off an excellent win at Anaheim. Toronto was coming off two straight road losses.
The stage seemed set for Seattle’s fifth two-game winning streak of the season.
But Toronto flipped the script, taking control with a strong first period and continuing its great success on the power play to propel a 6-2 victory over the Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena,
The Kraken were playing Toronto for the first time, with Monday’s game a makeup for the Dec. 19 scheduled game that was postponed because of a COVID-19 outbreak. Seattle has now faced every NHL team except Ottawa.
The Kraken (16-29-4) have had a hard time stringing together wins in their inaugural season, They are now 4-12 after victories and have yet to have a three-game winning streak.
Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said he does not see a pattern when it comes to losses after a win.
“We’ve played really well in a lot of games back-to-back over the last stretch here,” he said. “But we are not happy with our play tonight. We weren’t sharp and we weren’t strong with the puck, and that’s one area we needed to be much better in tonight.”
The Maple Leafs (31-12-3) came into the game having lost consecutive games — at Calgary and at Vancouver — for the first time in more than two months. They looked motivated from the start to end the losing streak.
There was plenty of scoring in an entertaining first period, but unfortunately for the Kraken, most of the scoring was done by Toronto, which led 3-1 after 20 minutes.
Alexander Kerfoot gave Toronto a 1-0 lead at the 3:56 mark of the first period when he beat Seattle goaltender Philipp Grubauer. With help from assists by Timothy Liljegren and John Tavares, Kerfoot had an open look and scored his seventh goal of the season.
That goal seemed to energize Seattle, which started to relentlessly pressure the Maple Leafs. The Kraken cashed in on that effort after a Toronto turnover in its own zone, Mason Appleton delivered a perfect pass to Calle Jarnkrok, who beat Jack Campbell for his ninth goal of the season at the 9:05 mark.
The deadlock didn’t last long. Michael Bunting beat a pair of Seattle defenders in front of the net and flicked a shot past Grubauer for his 15th goal of the season at 11:06.
“To me, the critical point was the second goal against,” Hakstol said of Bunting’s goal. “We had momentum at that time.”
And then it was gone. Toronto pushed the lead to 3-1 at the 14:03 mark, taking advantage of the first power play of the game.
Ondrej Kase redirected a pass a couple of feet from the net and scored his 10th goal of the season. Grubauer never had a chance. That Toronto would score on the power play was not a surprise as it entered the game with the best power-play scoring percentage in the NHL (30.5).
The Maple Leafs out-shot Seattle 11-6 in the first period, controlling most of the action after the Kraken had tied the score.
Toronto scored another power-play goal in the second period — Mitchell Marner’s 17th goal of the season — at the 9:15 mark. Marner scored off a rebound to beat Chris Driedger, who came in for Grubauer to start the second period.
“Mostly to try to change the momentum,” Hakstol said of making the switch at goaltender.
Marner’s goal came not too long after a Kraken power-play chance didn’t generate a single good scoring chance for Seattle, which entered the game with the fourth-worst power-play scoring percentage (15.4) in the NHL.
That percentage dropped again when Seattle couldn’t convert another power-play chance later in the period.
It got worse on the power play early in the third period for the Kraken when David Kampf scored shorthanded on a two-on-one breakaway at the 3:36 mark of the period to give Toronto a 5-1 lead.
Kampf’s sixth goal of the season, on an assist by Marner, spelled the end of any realistic chance the Kraken had to get back into the game.
Seattle converted on its fourth power-play chance of the game, with Jared McCann scoring his 20th goal of the season after a review at the 6:52 mark, but that was not nearly enough.
“It’s nice that we got one finally in the end,” Hakstol said of the power-play goal. “Hopefully that gives us a little momentum and loosens us up because we looked tight on the power play.”
Toronto added a final goal in the last two minutes, a fitting end to a dismal night for the Kraken.
McCann was asked what went wrong.
“Take your pick,” he said. “The D-zone wasn’t great, obviously, and we let some shots through that shouldn’t have gone in and it’s very frustrating. It’s obviously something we’ve got to work on in practice.”
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