Jared McCann celebrated his 500th NHL game in style, scoring two goals to help the Seattle Kraken overwhelm the Arizona Coyotes 8-1 on Monday night.
Jordan Eberle, Carson Soucy, Will Borgen, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Morgan Geekie, and Ryan Donato also found the net for Seattle. The Kraken are now three points ahead of Winnipeg and five ahead of Calgary for the top wild-card playoff spot in the Western Conference. Philipp Grubauer contributed with 21 saves.
Lawson Crouse scored the lone goal for the Coyotes, who extended their winless streak to eight games (0-6-2). Ivan Prosvetov, making his fifth appearance of the season for Arizona, made 24 saves.
This was the Kraken’s fourth game this season, scoring eight goals and netting nine in another game.
Eberle started the scoring with a power-play goal at 4:54 of the first period. Later, Kraken rookie Matty Beniers set up McCann for a short-handed goal at 15:07, giving Seattle a 2-0 lead.
“Matty made a great play on the wall to create a turnover,” McCann said. “He made the pass, and I tried to get to it as quickly as possible.”
Reflecting on his milestone game, McCann noted the journey it’s been since being drafted 24th overall by Vancouver in 2014. He is the 10th player from that draft class to reach 500 games. McCann played for the Canucks, Pittsburgh, and Florida before joining the Kraken in the 2021 expansion draft.
“It has been a journey for me — definitely not your Cinderella career,” he said. “I’ve had to grind my way at some points, but I think I’m a better person for it.”
Since the Christmas break, Kraken coach Dave Hakstol praised McCann’s role in the team’s penalty kill.
“We changed the structure of our kills a little bit, and he fits that structure very well,” Hakstol said. “He has meshed very well with (Yanni Gourde), and that chemistry has been good.”
Crouse scored for Arizona at 4:44 of the second period, but Soucy quickly restored Seattle’s two-goal lead at 11:58. McCann then extended the lead to 4-1 with his team-leading 37th goal. Borgen, Bjorkstrand, Geekie, and Donato added goals in the third period to seal the victory.
“You don’t look too far back, and you don’t look too far ahead,” Hakstol said. “You just worry about working and doing what you have to (in order) to go get two points — the score doesn’t matter.”
Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny saw some positives in the first two periods but acknowledged the third was a struggle.
“We had good pace, good pressure, did a lot of good things to generate good scoring chances,” he said. “We were in it. I was happy with the play for most of the game. As I said, we were doing many good things; then, we started to force the play slightly. We have to learn to remain a little bit patient.”
Game Notes
- McCann has three of Seattle’s five short-handed goals this season.
- Daniel Sprong, Vince Dunn, and Adam Larsson each had two assists. Dunn’s assists gave him 200 career points.
- This was the Kraken’s first meeting this season with the Coyotes. They’ll play twice more in the next seven days: Thursday in Seattle and next Monday in Tempe.
Up Next
- Coyotes: Visit Kraken on Thursday night.
- Kraken: Visit Canucks on Tuesday night.
