SEATTLE — The Kings were on the cusp of a road win, but they couldn’t finish off a Seattle Kraken squad that was desperate for a victory.
Matty Beniers tied the score on a power-play goal with 24.8 seconds left in regulation, then Vince Dunn scored on a man advantage 1:21 into overtime as the Seattle Kraken rallied to beat the Kings, 3-2, on Wednesday night at Climate Pledge Arena.
Jared McCann also scored for Seattle (12-10-6), which had been winless in its previous six outings (0-5-1) since Nov. 23. Eeli Tolvanan assisted on the tying and winning goals. Dunn added two assists.
Joey Daccord made 24 saves.
Alex Laferriere had a short-handed goal and Kevin Fiala scored on the power play for the Kings (14-8-8), who had won their previous two. Anton Forsberg made 30 saves.
Seattle went 3 for 7 on the power play, while the Kings went 1 for 5.
“No goals scored at 5-on-5, so I thought both teams checked, and neither of them are the most offensive teams, so that was on par with what we expected,” Kings coach Jim Hiller told NHL.com. “Lots of penalties on both sides tonight, and too many for us. That probably is the difference in the game.”
The Kraken got the power-play opportunity with 3:55 left in overtime when Adrian Kempe was called for tripping. Tolvanen, playing near the left circle, sent a pass across to Dunn just above the right circle, and his slap shot zipped past Forsberg 16 seconds into the man advantage.
It was a tripping penalty against Forsberg that gave the Kraken a power play with 38.8 seconds left in regulation. With Daccord already having been pulled for the extra attacker, Seattle took advantage of a Kings giveaway in their own end. Tolvanen gained control on the right side and sent it toward the net, where Beniers redirected it into the low slot over Forsberg’s right shoulder.
“Matty’s goal, there, there’s not much to it,” Dunn told NHL.com. “It’s throwing the puck where guys are going to the net, and eventually it’s going to go in for us.”
The Kraken opened the scoring with the man advantage at 3:21 of the second period. The Kings’ Quinton Byfield broke his stick while killing the penalty and headed to the bench for a change, in effect giving Seattle a two-man edge. Dunn fed McCann for a blistering one-timer from the high slot that beat Forsberg high to the blocker side for his fifth goal of the season.
The Kraken have power-play goals in three of the past four games after going 0 for 14 in the four games prior to that.
Seattle had hopes of extending its lead when the Kings’ Warren Foegele was called for tripping a little more than three minutes later, but the Kraken turned over the puck just inside the offensive blue line. The Kings’ Joel Armia chipped it ahead to spring Laferriere on a short-handed breakaway from center ice. Laferriere raced in, deked to his backhand and lifted the puck over Daccord’s blocker and into the upper left corner of the net at 8:16 to even the score at 1-1, his league-leading sixth short-handed goal of the season.
“They don’t really give too much off the rush,” Kings defenseman Joel Edmundson told NHL.com. “They kind of back out [of the offensive zone], similar to us, so we knew it was going to be a game where the team that uses the offensive zone as much as they can, work the puck low, is going to come out on top. They played us well, and it was a tough game.”
Fiala gave the Kings a 2-1 lead on a power-play goal with 5:20 left in regulation. Kempe sent a stretch pass to Anze Kopitar at the offensive blue line, who sent a touch pass to Fiala in stride at the top of the slot to create a partial breakaway. Fiala deked to his right and lifting the puck under the crossbar for his team-leading 11th goal of the season.
“The guys executed really well on the entry [into the zone],” Hiller told NHL.com. “So we’ll take one [power-play goal], but we had the chance for more.”
UP NEXT
The Kings host Calgary on Saturday at 7 p.m.