Kraken turn back Blackhawks to snap four-game losing streak

SEATTLE – One of those trap kind of games began sneaking up on the Kraken midway through Wednesday night’s first period of what initially looked like a victory that would be far easier to attain than it actually was.

The Chicago Blackhawks were already terrible before being gripped by injury and winter illness, yet their depleted lineup somehow flung 15 shots the Kraken’s way that opening frame after yielding two early goals. The Kraken survived once again thanks to the goaltending of Joey Daccord and popped in a bunch during the game’s latter half for a 6-2 win that won’t go in any record books but was still badly needed.

“That game was huge for us — we’d lost four in a row,” said Jordan Eberle, who logged a pair of assists in this one, including on a game-swinging Tomas Tatar breakaway goal early in the final period. “You see the standings. We need to start climbing and that’s a massive game for us.”

A game that might have gotten away from Eberle’s team if not for a 34-save performance by Daccord, far and away the game’s star as he has been through much of this Kraken renaissance the past month.

Chicago scoring on its own net just 15 seconds into the middle period — a goal credited to Alex Wennberg — gave the Kraken some breathing room after a sloppy finish to the first period saw them barely escape with a 2-1 lead. Brandon Tanev would score near the second period’s end on a pass to the slot by Brian Dumoulin to give the Kraken a three-goal edge that the undermanned Blackhawks lacked the firepower to overcome.

Still, the visitors made it interesting with a Nick Foligno tap-in goal on the power play just 39 seconds into the final frame to cut the Kraken’s lead to 4-2.

Chicago nearly narrowed the gap to one goal a few minutes later, but Daccord stymied former Kraken forward Ryan Donato on a breakaway. Tatar then immediately got sprung on a breakaway by Eberle in the opposite direction and scored his first of two goals that frame to close things out.

“We got ahead there and then we stopped playing for 10 minutes in the first [period] and they came back,” Eberle said. “So, we responded and we found a way to get ahead. But we still have little details that we need to fix, and Joey [Daccord] was there to make some huge saves tonight. [The Blackhawks] had more than enough to keep pace, and we gave them quite a bit. So, we’ve got to correct that if we want to keep winning.”

After the Kraken completed a recent six-city road trip punctuated by a late string of losses against likely playoff-bound teams, the Blackhawks represented the first of four contests that sees them facing clubs barely at .500 or far worse.

With the All-Star break coming after that, followed by an East Coast road trip against mostly playoff contenders, the Kraken need to make the most of this homestand to stay in the hunt. Things started off almost too easy for them, with Jared McCann snapping home an Eberle pass fewer than four minutes in and then Jaden Schwartz redirecting a puck from Andre Burakovsky into the net with his leg just three minutes later.

The Kraken then seemed to stop skating midway through the first period and nearly paid dearly. Daccord was soon under heavy fire, especially during a Chicago power play that saw him rob Jason Dickinson with a glove stop on a goal mouth scramble as the Blackhawks’ forward prepared to put the puck into an open left side.

That save proved huge because the Blackhawks would indeed score before the period ended, with Joey Anderson redirecting a Seth Jones point blast to cut the lead to 2-1 at intermission.

“He made some crucial saves,” said Tatar, whose third-period goals to finish things off made the final score more flattering than the Kraken deserved. “The one [off Dickinson] on the penalty kill was a great glove save. And on the breakaway, he was just very steady for us, which is awesome. He’s giving us a lot of confidence.”

The breakaway stop on Donato allowed Eberle to spring Tatar free for his own one-on-one goal. Instead of being up by just one, the swing play left the Kraken ahead by three.

“I honestly just tried to put my head up and make a read as fast as I can,” Tatar said of his breakaway goal. “I saw a little opening on the low blocker and I tried to shoot it — to have a quick release — and I was fortunate to just put it in.”

The Kraken overall had scored only five times combined in their four straight losses, while tallying no more than two in any contest.

But the Blackhawks, in a neck-and-neck battle with the San Jose Sharks for the NHL’s worst record — and having lost rookie sensation Connor Bedard for 6-8 weeks with a broken jaw — were the kind of team the Kraken could finally get away with some mistakes against.

“There were some hiccups for sure,” said Tatar, who now has five goals since joining the Kraken in mid-December. “But I feel like every time we had to turn it on we did.”