Stars 3, Kraken 1
It didn’t take long to stimulate the crowd at Climate Pledge Arena in more ways than one.
Kaapo Kakko scored just 62-seconds into the game on a delightful feed from along the goal line by Jaden Schwartz to give Seattle a 1-0 lead. Stars goalie Casey DeSmith had no chance, he was playing Schwartz’s potential wraparound.
Not long after the Seattle faithful retook their seats, veteran center Matt Duchene answered for Dallas at the 2:34 mark with his 29th goal of the season. Forty-five seconds later Wyatt Johnston put the Stars on top for good with his 30th.
The score didn’t change for the next 55 minutes. Mikael Granlund added an empty netter with just more than a minute remaining in the 3rd period for the final margin.
While there were a few odd man rushes here and there, and a high shot count both ways, the intensity of the saves took awhile to increase. Neither DeSmith or Philipp Grubauer at the other end were required to make any awe-inspiring saves through the first 30 minutes. They seemed to cradle most everything that came their way.
Both got busy in the third period, especially DeSmith, who turned aside 36 of 37 shots.
The Kraken power play went 0-for-3, the Stars 0-for-3.
Seattle fell to seven games below .500 for the season and lost to Dallas for the 6th consecutive match-up. It was also the Stars’ 6th consecutive win overall.
The Stars are trying to catch the Winnipeg Jets for the top seed in the Western Conference. The win moved them four points back with the same number of games played (74 of 82).
Elsewhere, the Minnesota Wild picked up a point in a shoot-out loss to the New Jersey Devils and the Calgary Flames came back to beat the Colorado Avalanche in a shoot-out on Monday night. In the battle for the two wild card spots, the Wild have 88 points (in), the St. Louis Blues 87 (in), the Flames 82 (out) and the Vancouver Canucks 81 (out).
Earlier Kraken:
— He Scores! Kraken Rookie Jani Nyman Shift Diary
— Our chat with the Dallas Stars GM Jim Nill on Monday morning …
