Five-goal period powers Kraken to 2-1 series lead over Stars
SEATTLE – Of all the momentum shifts to go the Kraken’s way these playoffs, the sight of top Dallas Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen crumpling to the ice from a puck in the face Sunday night has to rate as the oddest.
Heiskanen dropped like a stone, leaving Jordan Eberle all alone in front for a beautiful deke goal that unleashed a Game 3 onslaught the Stars never recovered from. The Kraken would go on to score four second-period goals in roughly a six-minute span that frame for an eventual 7-2 rout in front of an electrified Climate Pledge Arena crowd that isn’t used to the home team doing this in their own building.
Alex Wennberg, Carson Soucy, Matty Beniers and Eeli Tolvanen also scored during a playoff-high five-goal outburst in that one period for a Kraken team that now leads this best-of-seven series 2-1 with Game 4 set right back here on Tuesday night.
Mason Marchment and Jani Hakanpaa scored for the Stars, who pulled goalie Jake Oettinger after two periods in which he gave up five goals on 17 shots. Yanni Gourde scoring on new netminder Scott Wedgewood early in the third period off a 2-on-1 break with Brandon Tanev following a penalty kill.
Justin Schultz capped the scoring on a shot through traffic with 2:30 to go, giving the Kraken seven goals from seven different players.
The Kraken had not beaten a playoff team in regulation time at home since defeating the New York Islanders on Jan. 1. Their only two wins since against playoff teams at Climate Pledge both came in overtime against New Jersey in late January and then over Colorado in Game 4 of the opening playoff round.
The Heiskanen injury — he did not return to the game — seemed to rattle the Stars, who looked discombobulated on their blue line the ensuing minutes. They quickly yielded a 2-on-1 rush in which Jaden Schwartz slid the puck to Wennberg for a blistering wrist shot goal that picked the top corner to make it 2-0.
Dallas goaltender Oettinger, who looked rocky in Game 1, was equally shaky in the middle frame of this one. After another defensive breakdown enabled Soucy to waltz deep into the left faceoff circle unchallenged, Oettinger allowed a rather harmless looking shot through his pads for the third Kraken goal in just more than four minutes.
It was the first time this postseason the Kraken have led by three goals at any stage of a game. And they’d get more breathing room fewer than two minutes later when Beniers wristed a puck from 46 feet and picked the short side on Oettinger.
A stunned Dallas side went into desperation mode from there, blitzing the Kraken from all sides. They finally got on the board when Marchment took a pass off an odd-man rush and fired it into an open right side of the net behind a besieged Philipp Grubauer.
But Grubauer would make some of his best saves of the night with the game still 4-1, buying time for his team to add a fifth goal right before intermission. Ryan Donato raced down the right side of the Stars’ zone, driving to the net for a shot on goal.
The rebound popped straight out to Tolvanen, who fired it home with 38.2 seconds remaining in the frame to send his team to intermission leading by four.
The Kraken would add to that lead just 1:49 into the final frame, with Gourde taking a Tanev pass and easily firing the puck into a deserted left side of Oettinger’s net.