Kraken beat Blue Jackets to break club record with ninth straight win

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Kraken forward Jared McCann and company quickly realized Saturday night’s franchise-record-setting ninth straight win was going to prove more soul-testing than others during this remarkable turnaround streak.

They fell behind early and often, twice in the first period and once in the second, then lost forwards Andre Burakovsky and Matty Beniers to injury before the game was barely halfway over. But all three times, they came back to tie it and went ahead in the middle frame of this 7-4 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets when Oliver Bjorkstrand scored on the power play against his former team.

And by the time it was done, team scoring leader McCann had his first two goals in nearly a month and the Kraken had a victory record as well as a franchise best points streak extended to 13 contests.

“We just stuck with it,” McCann said after his first goals following a span of nine scoreless games dating back to Dec. 14. “We knew we were getting our chances. We just had to bury the puck.”

He added: “It wasn’t like us tonight. But when you’re playing against a team that plays a lot of offensive like that, that has a lot of good offensive players … they’re going to get their chances and they make good plays.”

But so did the Kraken, getting not only some big goals by McCann, who, along with Yanni Gourde secured his 300th career point in this one, but also Jordan Eberle scoring his first in more than three weeks since the very first game of the win streak. Defenseman Brian Dumoulin also had his first goal since Nov. 2 on a three-point night, while Tye Kartye notched a tying second-period marker and Eeli Tolvanen closed things out on an empty net.

But nothing about win No. 9 in a row came easy.

The first sign something was off came when Joey Daccord gave up more than two goals for the first time in eight starts dating back to a 4-3 overtime loss in Dallas on Dec. 18. The first two were from long distance by defenseman Ivan Proporov and neither was really Daccord’s fault — the first flying through a screen and the second deflecting in off Dumoulin.

But the Kraken fought back both times, with Eberle carrying a puck in deep down the right side before beating goalie Daniil Tarasov to the far post to tie it 1-1. Then, after the second Proporov goal, it would be Dumoulin getting the puck to Bjorkstrand, who fed McCann for a one-timer from the slot to make it a 2-2 game.

The Kraken ran into penalty trouble in the second period when Columbus got a 5-on-3 advantage and scored 44 seconds into it as Kirill Marchenko one-timed a left circle slapper behind Daccord. But Kartye deflected home a Vince Dunn shot five minutes later to make it 3-3, and the game turned for good moments later when Cole Sillinger sent Beniers flying defensively into the neutral zone boards with a dangerous hit.

Burakovsky had already been lost to a lower body injury midway through the first period and the Kraken were in no mood to see Beniers manhandled as well.

Dunn immediately did his best Mike Tyson impersonation in making a beeline toward Sillinger and absolutely pummeling him with a flurry of punches before taking him down hard to the ice to end a rather lopsided fight. It was while Sillinger was nursing his welts in the penalty box — having been assessed an extra two minutes for the hit on Beniers — that Bjorkstrand’s blistering wrist shot beat Columbus goalie Tarasov high and to the short side from the right faceoff circle.

“It’s good that in games where we’re not playing well we find a way to turn the switch and start playing better hockey,” said Bjorkstrand, who spent years in Columbus before being traded to the Kraken before last season. “So, that’s what happened tonight. We didn’t come out the best way but we found our game a little bit so it was a positive that we found a way to win.”

Kraken coach Dave Hakstol had no immediate word postgame on the statuses of Burakovsky or Beniers — who left the game and did not return — but said his team certainly galvanized around the adversity.

“We weren’t at our best, we weren’t sharp, especially to start the hockey game,” Hakstol said. “But we showed some real good resiliency to dig out of a hole and build a lead. And then, our bench got a little bit short. We simplified our game and we were able to build that lead and then hold it.”

McCann provided the needed insurance six minutes into the final period, darting in deep with the puck and snapping it past Tarasov for his second of the night and 16th goal of the season.

Dumoulin would make it 6-3 with eight minutes to go with a wrister from the left side to join his two earlier assists. Columbus got a fourth goal late by Emil Bemstrom to make the ending a little more tense before Tolvanen’s late empty netter.

It was the fourth straight game of four or more goals by the Kraken, who hadn’t scored more than three in any of their opening five wins of the streak.

“Not everything went the way we wanted it to go tonight,” Hakstol said. “But not for a second was there any type of panic or wasted emotion from the guys on our bench. Guys realized that we weren’t really at our best and just tried to simplify and do some things that would give us a chance to get going and give ourselves success.

“And that means a lot at this time of the year.”