SAN JOSE, Calif. — Kraken coach Dave Hakstol has been around this league long enough to know when it’s getting late early.
And there’s no getting around this two-game road trip — starting with Tuesday night’s 3-1 win over the San Jose Sharks — carrying more weight than prior matchups this season. The Kraken entered the night firmly ensconced in last place in the Pacific Division and down 11 points in the Western Conference wild-card hunt.
So, this opportunity to gain ground on division opponents here and in Anaheim on Wednesday is one Hakstol wanted his team seizing.
“The bottom line is, we’ve got to be better in these divisional games if we want to have an opportunity to climb back into things,” Hakstol said. “These are very, very important games. Guys know that. And at the end of the day, we can talk all we want. But we have to go out and we have to do well in these games. And we have to earn points in these games.”
And that they did, with Ryan Donato finally snapping a scoreless draw at 6:23 of the final period. Donato, standing in front of the Sharks net, redirected a Joonas Donskoi shot and then drove in hard for the rebound after goaltender James Reimer made the initial stop. He whacked away at the loose puck and appeared to bank it in off San Jose defender Radim Simek.
Brandon Tanev then gave the Kraken a two-goal cushion by converting a sharp pass by Morgan Geekie directly in front of the net at 14:19 of the frame.
Kraken goalie Chris Driedger, seeing his first action since re-aggravating a prior knee injury 15 days ago, stopped 33 of 34 shots and came just 2:07 away from his fifth career shutout before Logan Couture got the home team on the board.
But Calle Jarnkrok added an empty-net goal with 5.8 seconds remaining after the Sharks had lifted Reimer for an extra attacker and poured the shots on Driedger.
Donato’s sixth goal with the Kraken equaled his output over 50 games with the Sharks last season. Before the game, he discussed his reversal of fortunes and said he really hasn’t adapted his approach since leaving San Jose.
“I just want to bring my same game,” he said. “I want to win my battles and help the team win any way I can. I’m the kind of guy that likes to create offense. And for me, wherever in the lineup I am I’m hoping I can do that.”
Having won just one of their past five games, the Kraken quickly fell from a six-point wild-card deficit to double digits.
The Kraken tightened up significantly in front of a smallish-but-vocal crowd of 12,403 at SAP Center. Compared to their recent home losses, they virtually eliminated odd-man rushes against and were well positioned to gather in the dangerous-looking rebounds that had previously cost them defeats.
And Driedger got some timely second-period help from defensemen Jamie Oleksiak and Adam Larsson just minutes apart to stop a pair of would-be goals.
Larsson pulled off the equivalent of highway robbery when he stood in the crease after a Driedger kick save and used his stick to stop a rebound shot headed into a vacated net.
Later in the period, the Kraken took the game’s first penalty when Vince Dunn was sent off for holding. But Driedger turned away a pair of San Jose shots and then Alex Wennberg killed off the final half minute of the penalty with a heads-up play that began with him seizing a loose puck in his own end.
Wennberg lugged the puck all the way through the neutral zone, but then — rather than dumping it in — turned and sent it back to his defense to run out the remaining penalty time.
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