Kings suffer ugly loss to Kraken in Todd McLellan’s 1,000th NHL game coached
Alex Wennberg scored 14 seconds into the game, Jared McCann had his team-leading 24th goal of the season, and the Seattle Kraken dominated on both ends of the ice in a 6-1 victory over the Kings on Monday night at Crypto.com Arena.
Chris Driedger stopped 36 shots for the Kraken (21-39-6), who have four wins in their last six games.
Seattle had 14 of its 18 skaters record a point. Adam Larsson, Victor Rask, Jordan Eberle and Daniel Sprong also scored, and Vince Dunn collected two assists.
Arthur Kaliyev scored and Cal Petersen made 32 saves for the Kings (36-23-9), who had earned points in four of their last five coming into the game. It was the 1,000th NHL regular-season game for coach Todd McLellan, making him the seventh active coach to accomplish the feat.
The Kings are two points ahead of the Edmonton Oilers for second place in the Pacific Division. The teams are scheduled to meet Wednesday night in Edmonton as the Kings begin a three-game trip in Canada.
Wennberg put in a rebound after Petersen made a pad save on a wraparound attempt by Ryan Donato. Wennberg’s eighth goal of the season is the quickest in the expansion Kraken’s short history, eclipsing Alex Eberle’s tally 15 seconds into the Nov. 6 game at Arizona.
Seattle is the only team in the NHL this season to have two goals in the first 15 seconds of games.
McCann’s score on an odd-man rush extended Seattle’s lead to 5-1 and came during a three-goal third period. McCann’s goal came 29 seconds after Eberle beat Petersen on a breakaway.
The youth movement on the Kings is finally maturing and finding ways to win games as the team embraces a playoff mind-set over the final 15 games.
To show how bad of a night it was for the Kings, the Kraken’s final goal was credited to Sprong but came after it hit the face of Kings defenseman Jordan Spence and went into the net at 12:13 in the third period.
Larsson gave the Kraken a 2-1 advantage 8:24 into the first period with a shot through traffic from just above the right faceoff circle. It was the defenseman’s sixth goal this season and second in the last four games.
Rask extended the lead to two goals with a snap shot from the right faceoff circle that went into the far side of the net. It was Rask’s first goal with the Kraken since he was acquired from Minnesota on March 21.
Go beyond the scoreboard
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