McCann, Kraken ease past Ducks for 5th straight win

SEATTLE -- Jared McCann had a goal and an assist for the Seattle Kraken in their fifth straight win, 5-2 against the Anaheim Ducks at Climate Pledge Arena on Tuesday.

Matty Beniers had two assists, and Philipp Grubauer made 20 saves for Kraken (37-21-6), who opened a four-game homestand after winning four straight on the road.
Seattle moved two points ahead of the Edmonton Oilers for third place in the Pacific Division. It trails the Vegas Golden Knights and Los Angeles Kings by two points for first after Vegas lost 2-1 at the Florida Panthers on Tuesday.
"We're in a race of our own right now," McCann said. "We're trying to stay ahead of [Edmonton], we're trying to get in a better position for playoffs. We need to be focused every single night. We're going to have to play well every single night."

Trevor Zegras and Max Comtois scored for the Ducks (21-35-8), who went 0-for-3 on the power play and had their season-high five-game point streak end (4-0-1). John Gibson made 26 saves.
"The game comes down to what we call 'A' chances," Anaheim coach Dallas Eakins said. "II thought we had more A chances than them, we just didn't bury them. Their goaltender played very, very well. I think the thing that really hurt us tonight was our power play. We didn't get many good looks there, especially when we really needed it."
Jamie Oleksiak gave Seattle a 1-0 lead at 3:41 of the first period off a feed from behind the net by Jordan Eberle.
McCann made it 2-0 at 10:58 with a wrist shot from the left face-off circle to complete an odd-man rush. He leads the Kraken with 31 goals this season, including five in the past five games.
"Just trying to get the puck off as quickly as I could," McCann said. "[Adam Larsson] made a great play in the middle, so did Matty. Just wanted to get the puck off as quickly as possible."
Zegras cut it to 2-1 just 35 seconds into the second period. With Seattle caught on a line change, Zegras received a saucer pass from Ryan Strome, put the puck between his skates and roofed a wrist shot over Grubauer.

Daniel Sprong gave the Kraken a 3-1 lead at 17:16 with a wrist shot from the left circle that went off Gibson's glove. It was Sprong's first goal since Jan. 17 (13 games).
Eeli Tolvanen scored a power-play goal at 8:29 of the third period, a one-timer from the right circle, to make it 4-1.
"I liked the intelligence of our team," Seattle coach Dave Hakstol said. "We had some recognition that we weren't maybe going to be at our best in terms of energy. As we got through to the second half of the game, we managed it pretty well."

Comtois cut it to 4-2 with 1:27 remaining, but Jaden Schwartz scored an empty-net goal with 18 seconds left for the 5-2 final.
"It was honestly, just one of those games," Anaheim defenseman Cam Fowler said. "I think they were opportunistic with the chances that they had. Looking back on it. I don't think it was a bad effort by our group. I thought we were right in it; just those lapses that we did have, it seemed like it was in the back of the net. And we didn't do a good enough job on our power play, and that's kind of why you end up with a result like that."
NOTES: It's the fourth time this season the Kraken have won at least five in a row; their longest winning streak is eight (Jan. 1-14). … Seattle defenseman Vince Dunn had an assist to extend his point streak to seven (nine points; two goals, seven assists). … Forward Brock McGinn had one shot on goal in 13:45 of ice in his Ducks debut after being acquired in the trade that sent defenseman Dmitry Kulikov to the Pittsburgh Penguins last Friday.