No Kidding Around on Kids Night

On a night when nothing less than two standings points was acceptable, the Kraken jumped out to an authoritative 3-0 lead, then held the visitors at arm's length for a workmanlike victory to stay close to the second wild-card playoffs spot in the Western Conference. Jordan Eberle scored two power-play goals and Joey Daccord made 30 saves in a win that got a little close for comfort with a pair of goals by Russsia-born Columbus rookie forward Yegor Chinakhov, who now has 14 on the year.

The Blue Jackets pushed hard the last four minutes after Chinakhov’s second goal, pressuring consistently with an extra attacker. Yanni Gourde blocked a shot to stymie one of the Blue Jacket’s better chances, Daccord stood his crease and Brandon Tanev finally sealed with a late empty-net goal.

The Kraken coaching staff was clearly aware of lessons to be learned from Columbus’ current road trip, which started with a 4-1 Tuesday loss in Edmonton (join the club as the Oilers have compiled a 16-game win streak), then a 5-2 Blue Jackets decisive win over playoff contender Calgary Thursday (thanks, for that). Saturday night, after a scoreless first period, CBJ took a commanding 4-1 second-period lead over first-place Vancouver until it melted in the third period and overtime for a 5-4 loss. In all, Columbus and its young-side roster were trending up, not a squad to be taken lightly.

So Seattle went heavyweight on the CBJ squad with the fifth-worst record in the NHL with first-period contributions from Jordan Eberle, Jared McCann, and Oliver Bjorkstrand. Eberle’s two goals in the first period made it nine on the season and fifth in the last eight games (alternate captain heater, anyone?). Eberle evidently enjoys seeing Columbus on the ice. With the two goals and a primary assist on Jared McCann’s goal, he now has recorded four goals and five assists in his last seven games versus the Blue Jackets with a five-game point streak.

“We were disappointed to lose the point the other night [overtime loss to playoff contender St. Louis],” said Dave Hakstol post-game. “But we came back and got the two points tonight. Those were critical. Anything less, we'd be walking out of this building tonight not feeling very good about ourselves.

Instead, Seattle stays in the middle of the scrum for wild-card spots with one road game in San Jose to finish off January and no play again until Feb. 10 in Philadelphia. Los Angeles and St. Louis are above the cut line with 54 standings points while Nashville has 53 points to Seattle’s 52.

“The reality is we have we have one game left before a long break [All-Star Game and bye week]. “We have to get our heads completely focused on that job [earning two points in northern California], make sure we're ready to go for a real competitive 60 minutes. You have to real quickly turn the page. That’s five points out of six [in the last three games of the homestand]. That's pretty good, as long as we get the next two.”

Eberle was willing to talk about his recent hot hand in the media scrum, but more focused on the bit of a letdown in periods two and three: “We know everyone looks at the [Columbus] record, but they've got some healthy guys [back from] injury problems all year and they're rolling. We gave them opportunity to get back in this game and it's frustrating. It's a huge two points ... But the fashion that we did it, I would have liked to see us finish it off. I thought we just took our foot off the gas pedal there over the last 40 minutes.”

McCann Notches No. 20

Speaking of McCann, he scored his 20^th goal of the season on another elite-level shot to beat Columbus goalie Danil Tarasov. McCann’s career-high in goals was 14 (twice for Pittsburgh) when he was selected from the Toronto Maple Leafs (never played for them) in the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft. He scored 27 goals in the inaugural season, during which he was the first SEA player to re-sign with the franchise. McCann made GM Ron Francis and the front office look smart when he scored 40 goals last season.

McCann has a way to go if he is going to top 40 goals this year, but, hey, he now has six goals in the last eight games. He also upped his point streak to six games, a first in his 554 regular season games across nine NHL seasons.

Bjorkstrand, All-Star Showing

As for Bjorkstrand, he continues to haunt his former teammates, notching two first-period assists to make seven points (a goal and six assists) in four games. Bjorkstrand now has 40 points (13 goals, 27 assists) and 11 points in his last 10 games (two goals and a whopping nine assists). A strong two-way player, The Kraken’s 2024 all-star representative is living up to Ron Francis’ advance billing of his 2022 trade acquisition to be a major scorer for Seattle this season. Bjorkstrand is happily in the leading scorer race with defenseman Vince Dunn (whom Dave Hakstol has said also deserves an all-star nod). Dunn now has 37 points (eight goals, team-leading 29 assists) after getting the secondary helper on Eberle’s opening goal.

Tanev the Entertainer

Brandon Tanev, currently playing on a so-called fourth line with Matty Beniers and stalwart rookie Tye Kartye, started this homestand with seven minutes of penalty time last Sunday against Toronto, fighting and/or scrapping with three different Maple Leafs in the first 20 minutes. Tuesday, Tanev scored his fourth goal of the season in the win over Chicago.

Sunday night, Tanev the showman was on display on Kids Night, much to the delight of youngsters and adults alike who claim the tenacious skater as their favorite player (a certain daughter might have said as much to Tanev at a recent Kraken gala, punctuating the declaration saying how much she liked Tanev’s style of skating, which of course is can’t-miss when he’s on the ice). When whistled off for a stick penalty early second period, Tanev openly protested and arm-waved as he trudged to the box. Shortly after, on-ice officials conferred and granted Tanev’s wave-off wish, declaring the stick “penalty” was actually perpetrated by another Columbus player.

Near the end of the second period, Tanev was zooming in on the Blue Jackets goal when CBJ defenseman Zach Werenski was called for slashing. Tanev emphatically held up his arms to show he no longer had a stick in hand since Werenski’s slash smashed Tanev's stick shift in two. The referees again concurred with the Kraken fan fave and Werenski skated off for two minutes.

Then, just when kids and Kraken coaches alike might be a bit nervous about Columbus tying the game in the final minute, Tanev drew one more round of raves by scoring an empty-net goal to clinch matters with, of course, 13 seconds left on the game clock.