Jared McCann and Jordan Eberle had a goal and two assists apiece as the Seattle Kraken clinched a berth in the NHL playoffs with a 4-2 victory against the visiting Arizona Coyotes on Thursday night.
Matty Beniers added a goal and an assist and Vince Dunn also tallied for the Kraken (44-26-8, 96 points), who won their third consecutive game. Philipp Grubauer made 27 saves for the victory.
Seattle leads the Western Conference’s wild-card race by seven points over Winnipeg and Calgary, with the Flames having only three regular-season games remaining. The Kraken are in their second year as an NHL franchise.
Barrett Hayton and Laurent Dauphin tallied for the Coyotes (27-39-13, 67 points), who lost their ninth game in a row (0-7-2). Karel Vejmelka stopped 29 of 33 shots.
McCann opened the scoring at 19:36 of the first period. He skated the puck over the blue line and dumped it behind the net. Beniers won a battle for the puck and passed to Eberle at the top of the crease. Eberle eschewed a shot and made a short pass to McCann near the left post, and he tucked the puck into the open side of the net.
It was McCann’s team-leading 38th goal of the season.
Seattle extended its lead just 28 seconds into the second. Dunn’s shot from the high slot snuck through Vejmelka’s pads, with the puck trickling toward the goal line. Coyotes defenseman Patrik Nemeth tried to reach over his goalie and knock the puck off the line, but his backhander hit the left post and went in.
The Kraken made it 3-0 at 5:52 of the middle period after dumping the puck into the left corner. Three Arizona defensemen followed Beniers into the corner and the puck squirted free to McCann, who fired a pass to Eberle in front of the net. Eberle waited for Vejmelka to go down before lifting a shot over the goalie.
The Coyotes got on the board at 12:00 of the second. Hayton took a cross-ice, backhanded pass from Matias Maccelli and put a one-timer from just outside the right faceoff dot past a screened Grubauer and into the far upper corner of the net.
Beniers converted a breakaway off a pass from Eberle at 3:37 of the third.
Dauphin capped the scoring at 19:21.
–Field Level Media
