MONTREAL – One major spot for Kraken improvement during what’s now becoming a season-defining win streak had been their inability to start games effectively.
The Kraken, for lack of a better description, had effectively been holding on for dear life in the opening minutes of their most recent contests against Toronto and Ottawa. That wasn’t the case in Monday night’s 4-0 victory over the Canadiens, when the Kraken played just about their finest period of the season at both ends to start things off and nearly ran the home team out of the rink.
By the time the horn sounded for intermission, the Canadiens resembled a boxer saved by the bell and were fortunate to escape the drubbing with only a three-goal deficit after a 19-6 shots advantage for the Kraken. Goals by Eeli Tolvanen, Daniel Sprong and Vince Dunn gave the Kraken all the offense they’d need, while some strong goaltending by Martin Jones — who stopped all 21 shots he faced for his second shutout and 19th win this season — helped maintain the lead when Montreal launched a middle-period pushback.
Matty Beniers added an empty-net goal with 1:03 to go as the Kraken improved to 23-12-4 and moved within two points of the second-place Kings in the Pacific Division with four games in hand. They also boosted their road record to a stellar 13-4-2 after capturing their fourth in a row to start this seven-city trip – having entering as the NHL’s best-scoring road team.
That goal scoring has been largely inflated by this trip, with the Kraken having notched 18 of them in the first three games. It looked like they’d inflate it some more by the time the first period ended with boos flying from the Bell Centre faithful, but Montreal settled down at intermission and made a game of it the rest of the way.
Things got chippy in the latter part of the game as Joel Armia took a run from behind at Dunn and sent him flying face first into the boards. Yanni Gourde was the first one over in Armia’s face and then, after an ensuing scrum, Ryan Donato and Jake Evans squared off, with the Kraken forward prevailing in the brief skirmish.
The Kraken took a too-many-men penalty with about seven minutes to go, but the Montreal power play went nowhere and that was effectively the game.
The Kraken had given away some road games after building similar multi-goal leads in Anaheim, Chicago and Vancouver and things could have gone much differently in this one had Jones not been on his game.
In fact, the Canadiens’ pushback might have started the final seconds of the opening period when last summer’s No. 1 overall draft pick Juraj Slafkovsky – famously taken by Montreal ahead of Shane Wright, causing him to drop to the Kraken at No. 4 — was sent in alone but stoned by Jones.
That save looked even bigger as the second period began and the Canadiens started beating the Kraken to loose pucks early. An attempted redirect nearly went in the Kraken’s net early on and then Jones came up with a huge kick save on an ensuing 3-on-1 rush to keep the shutout alive.
Sprong later took a roughing penalty deep in Montreal’s end, but the Kraken killed off the ensuing power play in what ultimately turned momentum back their way. The Kraken began pushing the offense more the latter half of the period and had racked up 34 shots by the time it was done.
And they didn’t relent in the third, keeping the pressure on with help from an extended power play that left the Canadiens unable to build much early momentum.