Kraken blow out Coyotes 8-1 as fists fly at Climate Pledge Arena

The Kraken dropped eight goals on the Arizona Coyotes, who didn’t take kindly to it Monday night at Climate Pledge Arena.

Seattle took out the basement-dwelling Coyotes 8-1. The fists flew in the final minutes as the Kraken didn’t let off the gas. It was the first meeting of the season between the teams, who will face off two more times in the next week.

In his 500th NHL game, Jared McCann made it 37 goals on the year. The first came while the Kraken were killing off a penalty to Yanni Gourde. Matty Beniers relieved Arizona’s Travis Boyd of the puck as soon as he carried it across the Kraken blue line, then dropped it off behind his back for McCann. McCann sent it whizzing past Arizona goaltender Ivan Prosvetov’s glove.

McCann has scored the Kraken’s last three short-handed goals. The entire team has five this season.

McCann’s second of the night was even strength and unassisted, with about five minutes left in the second period. The puck popped off a body in the Kraken end and McCann charged up the boards with it. He struck iron — left post, cross bar, then in off the right post.

Before that, Jordan Eberle gave the Kraken power-play goals in three straight games. He planted himself in the slot and redirected a Daniel Sprong (two assists) feed past Prosvetov to make it 1-0. It was his 100th point since joining the Kraken, and the only player to reach that mark before him — McCann — scored next.

Carson Soucy (one goal, one assist) made it 3-1 and fellow defenseman Will Borgen scored Seattle’s fifth goal just over a minute into the third period. Oliver Bjorkstrand threw another on the pile with nine minutes left.

Shortly after that, Jamie “Big Rig” Oleksiak and Liam “Big Tuna” O’Brien dropped the gloves. Listed at 6-foot-7 and 6-foot-1, respectively, they locked together right in front of Kraken goaltender Philipp Grubauer until O’Brien hit the ice to end the fight.

The game slid the rest of the way off the rails. Josh Brown went at Gourde and earned himself a double minor for roughing, plus a 10-minute misconduct.

Morgan Geekie scored the Kraken’s seventh goal, his first since Feb. 28. Ryan Donato added one more, then made his grand exit. Arizona’s Connor Mackey shoved Sprong down as the crowd roared. Donato went around the net and engaged Mackey instead of celebrating his goal, then headed down the tunnel 26.7 seconds early.

Grubauer made the most of his consequential saves in the first 10 minutes and totaled 20.

Vince Dunn’s two assists held off McCann in the team scoring race and gave him 200 NHL points.

All three of Monday night’s games featured Western Conference playoff hopefuls, and two of them clinched playoff spots. The Vegas Golden Knights took the Minnesota Wild to overtime and beat them there, but the Wild only needed a point and a loss by the Nashville Predators to secure a postseason berth. The Dallas Stars had their backs, blowing out the Predators 5-1.

The Stars also clinched a playoff spot. The Los Angeles Kings put an ‘x’ next to themselves in the standings Sunday in Vancouver, the night after beating the Kraken 3-1. There are three available spots in the West — the Colorado Avalanche, third in the Central Division, have yet to clinch, plus the two wild-card spots.