SEATTLE (AP) — Jared McCann scored two targets in his five hundredth NHL sport, serving to the high-powered Seattle Kraken rout the Arizona Coyotes 8-1 on Monday night time.

Jordan Eberle, Carson Soucy, Will Borgen, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Morgan Geekie and Ryan Donato additionally scored for Seattle, which is three factors up on Winnipeg and 5 on Calgary for the highest wild-card playoff spot within the Western Convention. Philipp Grubauer made 21 saves.

Lawson Crouse scored for the Coyotes, who’re winless of their final eight (0-6-2). Ivan Prosvetov, enjoying simply his fifth sport of the season for Arizona, had 24 saves.

It was the Kraken’s fourth sport this season with eight targets, plus one sport throughout which they scored 9.

Eberle gave Seattle a 1-0 lead 4:54 into the sport on a power-play purpose. The Coyotes had the person benefit later within the interval when Kraken star rookie Matty Beniers gained management of the puck behind his personal blue line, took it throughout middle and handed it to McCann within the excessive slot. McCann despatched a wrister into the online at 15:07 for a short-handed purpose.

“Matty made an amazing play on the wall to create a turnover,” McCann mentioned. “He made the cross and I attempted to get to it as fast as I might.”

Whereas scoring in his five hundredth sport was particular, McCann mentioned he by no means actually considered enjoying that many after being drafted twenty fourth total by Vancouver in 2014. He’s the tenth participant from that draft class to achieve the milestone. McCann performed with the Canucks, Pittsburgh and Florida earlier than coming to the Kraken within the 2021 enlargement draft.

“It has been a journey for me — positively not your Cinderella profession,” he mentioned. “I’ve needed to grind my means at some factors, however I feel I’m a greater individual for it.”

Kraken coach Dave Hakstol made McCann a much bigger a part of the group’s penalty kill after the Christmas break, and he has been happy with the outcomes.

“We modified the construction of our kills a little bit bit, and he suits that construction very properly,” Hakstol mentioned. “He has meshed very properly with (Yanni Gourde), and that chemistry has been good.”

Crouse put Arizona on the scoreboard at 4:44 of the second together with his twenty third purpose.

Soucy restored Seattle’s two-goal lead on the 11:58 mark. Simply three minutes later, McCann picked up the puck behind his blue line, took all of it the way in which to the highest of Prosvetov’s purpose crease and drilled hit previous him for his team-leading thirty seventh purpose and a 4-1 lead.

Borgen, Bjorkstrand, Geekie and Donato added third-period targets to finish the rout.

“You don’t look too far again and also you don’t look too far forward,” Hakstol mentioned. “You simply fear about working and doing what it’s a must to (so as) to go get two factors — the rating doesn’t matter. “

Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny noticed some positives throughout the first two durations, however not within the third.

“We had good tempo, good strain, did quite a lot of good issues to generate good scoring possibilities,” he mentioned. “We had been in it. I used to be pleased with the play for a lot of the sport. Like I mentioned, we had been doing quite a lot of good issues, then we began to pressure the play a little bit bit.

“We simply need to study to stay a little bit bit affected person.”

LOOSE PUCKS

It was the primary assembly this season between the Kraken and Coyotes — the 76th sport for Seattle and 78th for Arizona. They’ll play twice extra within the subsequent seven days: Thursday in Seattle and subsequent Monday in Tempe.

UP NEXT

The Coyotes go to the Kraken once more on Thursday night time at 7:30 p.m. on KTAR Information 92.3 FM.

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