Mrazek, Blackhawks hang on to edge Kraken

CHICAGO – Petr Mrazek made 33 saves for the Chicago Blackhawks in a 4-3 victory against the Seattle Kraken at United Center on Tuesday.

Joey Anderson had two assists for the Blackhawks (7-13-0), who were short-handed two men for 1:03 late in the third period.

“I was really proud of the guys,” Blackhawks forward Nick Foligno said. “It's nice to see when you have a commitment and a focus of what you're trying to be. And even when we wavered, even when we had a dip and [it] looks like we're kind of giving them some goals, we just find our way back again.

“And that's what mindset means, right? That's what a winning mindset means. Like, ‘All right, we [messed] up here, but we're not going to let it affect us, we're not going to keep going down that road, we're going to right ourselves and get back to winning habits.' And you saw that tonight; some big goals at big times, some big blocks, some big saves. That's winning hockey. And it makes it fun. And then the energy just stays up on the bench because of it.”

Matty Beniers had a goal and an assist for the Kraken (8-10-5). Philipp Grubauer, who had not played since leaving the game against the Calgary Flames on Nov. 20 with an undisclosed injury, made 19 saves.

“We made good push at the end there,” Beniers said. “I didn’t think we had our best today, but we battled hard and just didn’t get what we wanted. We were being a little careless with the puck, a little bit slow.”

Tye Kartye scored at 6:51 of the third period to bring the Kraken to within 4-3. Kartye took a pass across the ice from Beniers on the rush and scored from the left side.

Boris Katchouk’s second goal in two games gave the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead at 8:54 of the first period, putting in the rebound of a shot from Seth Jones at the left point. The assist was the 300th for Jones in the NHL.

Jason Dickinson made it 2-0 just 1:29 later at 10:23, scoring on a one-timer off a pass from Isaak Phillps.

Beniers brought the Kraken to within 2-1 at 14:43. Jared McCann carried the puck into the Chicago zone and dropped it back to Beniers. His first shot was blocked, but he followed it and scored.

The Kraken got a short-handed goal from Alex Wennberg at 19:23 to tie the game at 2-2. He picked up the puck in the neutral zone, skated wide to the left side of the net and scored from a deep angle. Grubauer had the secondary assist.

Tyler Johnson put Chicago back in front 3-2 at 4:22 of the second period. He took a cross-ice pass from Taylor Raddysh and scored on wrist shot from the right face-off dot.

The Blackhawks’ lead grew to 4-2 at 10:43 on a goal by MacKenzie Entwistle. Anderson skated behind the net and made a backhand pass through the crease.

“Joey Anderson has been excellent for us since he's been back here, much similar to how he did last year for us -- we were very happy with him then too,” Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said, referring to Anderson’s recall from Rockford of the American Hockey League on Saturday. “He's coming in at the top of his game. He was leading Rockford in scoring, and he's just a hockey player. He works hard, he's got good intelligence out there and he's determined.”

The Kraken went 0-for-5 on the power play.

“At the end of the day as a power-play unit, what you want to be able to do is capitalize at key times of the hockey game,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “You’re not always going to be at your best. You have to find a way to capitalize at a key time of the hockey game. We had a couple of those opportunities today. We came up short. We weren’t able to capitalize on it, the 5-on-3 being one, but there’s a couple of other spots that I would pinpoint, as well, as critical opportunities for us.”

NOTES: Chicago rookie Connor Bedard, the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NHL Draft, was held scoreless for the second straight game. He had one shot on goal and was minus-1 in 15:57 of ice time. …Seattle forward Jaden Schwartz left the game with a lower-body injury in the opening minute of the third period. There was no update. ... Adam Larsson’s assist on Wennberg’s goal was his 200th NHL point. … Andrew Poturalski, a forward, played his first NHL game since Dec. 18, 2021, after being recalled from Coachella Valley of the AHL. It was his fifth NHL game, the previous four with the Carolina Hurricanes.