Josh Norris celebrated his 100th career game by scoring twice, including a power-play goal 2:34 into overtime, to lift the Ottawa Senators to a 4-3 victory over the Seattle Kraken on Thursday night.
This was the first meeting between the Senators and the expansion Kraken, with Ottawa scheduled to visit Seattle on April 18.
Norris, who now has 39 career goals, tied Alexei Yashin for the most goals by an Ottawa player in their first 100 games.
“That’s a cool stat,” Norris said. “They’ve put me in great spots since the first day I got here, even when I got called up for those three games my first-year pro. I’ve had a lot of help along the way, and it’s a cool milestone. I just want to keep going.”
Brady Tkachuk and Parker Kelly also scored for the Senators in the opener of a five-game homestand. Anton Forsberg made 30 saves. Ottawa was coming off a tough 1-4-0 trip.
“Obviously, that can’t happen,” Tkachuk said. “We dug in and found a way to win. Josh said that after the game, all that matters is winning, right? It wasn’t pretty, but we’ll learn from those little things that we strayed away from. We’ll learn and get better because of it.”
Jared McCann, Ryan Donato, and Mason Appleton scored for the Kraken. Chris Driedger, originally drafted by Ottawa, stopped 23 shots.
“The first two periods are inexcusable,” Donato said. “I think we knew that. The momentum was dead. We needed something. Jared (McCann) had a big goal, and once we had that feeling of, ‘We’re back in this,’ I think a lot of guys felt a lot better about the situation.”
The Kraken have lost the first four games of a five-game trip. They play Saturday night in Montreal.
Trailing 3-0 at the start of the third, the Kraken roared back to tie the game. Seattle scored twice in a span of 36 seconds and completed the comeback at the 13-minute mark.
McCann beat Forsberg from a sharp angle at 9:14, and Donato tipped in Jamie Oleksiak’s point shot with 10:10 remaining in regulation.
Appleton tied the game at 13:01 on a wrist shot that slipped past Forsberg.
Norris got his 21st goal 8:32 into the first, and the Senators added two more in the second.
Tkachuk made it 2-0 when he knocked a puck down in the slot and scored off his backhand. It was his 20th goal of the season.
Kelly made it 3-0 at 7:40. He took advantage of a Kraken giveaway and broke in alone to beat Driedger with a wrist shot.
UP NEXT
- Kraken: At Montreal on Saturday night.
- Senators: Host Chicago on Saturday night.
