From the opening puck drop on a new year, the Kraken served notice Sunday that they planned to leave the final few weeks of 2022 behind.
Checks were being thrown, skates dug in hard and the shots — oh, the shots — were raining down on the visiting New York Islanders from all directions. The Kraken put enough of them behind stellar Islanders goaltender Ilya Sorokin to secure a 4-1 victory and snap a three-game skid that had relegated them to fourth place in the Pacific Division.
The Kraken outshot the Islanders 35-19 overall, much to the delight of the announced 17,151 in attendance at Climate Pledge Arena as the Kraken won for the first time in 12 days — ending their longest winless stretch of the season thus far. In fact, there were so many Kraken shots, the arena goal horn operator got confused and mistakenly sounded a celebratory blast after Sorokin had redirected a close-in chance into the corner.
It wasn’t the only comical moment courtesy of the arena crew as, with more than five minutes remaining in the game, the scoreboard clocks jumped ahead to show fewer than 30 seconds were left with play still ongoing. The part-laughing, part confused fans began counting down the final 10 seconds with applause and the game-over horn sounded before an announcement was made that the contest was not, in fact, over.
Nevertheless, the Kraken preserved their lead the final minutes, with Brandon Tanev adding an empty-net tally and goaltender Martin Jones picking up the victory.
Kraken newcomer Eeli Tolvanen put the home side ahead for good just under four minutes into the second period with a one-timed slap shot off a power play feed from defenseman Vince Dunn. The Kraken had scored just two power-play goals the entire month of December, so the shakeup on that unit paid immediate dividends in helping the team improve to 19-12-4 with just their fourth victory in the last dozen games.
Adam Larsson and Oliver Bjorkstrand also scored for a Kraken side that vastly outplayed the Islanders for much of the contest after embarrassing themselves with a lack of defensive cohesion in a Friday night loss to Edmonton. This time around, the Islanders didn’t even manage a shot on goal for the game’s first 9½ minutes and then fell behind seconds later when strong work behind the net by Daniel Sprong and Ryan Donato led to Larsson being set up in the slot for a snapshot goal.
Kraken coach Dave Hakstol had lamented following Saturday’s practice that his team had gotten too offensive minded in trying to outscore opponents rather than sticking with the solid two-way defensive play that had gotten their season off to such a strong start. It was evident early in this one that the message had been delivered and received.
Still, despite outshooting the Islanders 13-6 in the opening frame, the period ended tied when onetime Seattle Thunderbirds junior star Mat Barzal sped past the defense, took a Casey Cizikas pass and put the puck behind Kraken goalie Jones.
But despite the setback, the Kraken kept on coming at the visitors. Donato was all over the ice in this one and nearly scored on a great breakaway deke in the opening minute of the middle frame while short-handed only to be foiled by Sorokin.
But there was only so much the Isles’ netminder could do as the shots kept pouring in on him. After Tolvanen put the Kraken in front, the Kraken got some needed insurance when Bjorkstrand — who’d scored just once in his last 12 games — pounced on a long rebound off a Jamie Oleksiak shot and fired it into the net for a 3-1 lead with just under seven minutes remaining in the frame.