Kraken Snag Point In Ferocious Comeback 

SUNRISE, Fla. – Kraken centerman Matty Beniers took the game on his stick in the final minutes of regulation and helped start a late surge by the team’s three top scorers that snagged a crucial point out of a seeming regulation loss.

Whether this 5-4 shootout defeat suffered Tuesday night against the Florida Panthers ultimately means anything will be determined by where Beniers and his teammates take it from here. They still dropped another point to the Nashville Predators, victorious over San Jose, and trail them by five in the race for the final Western Conference playoff spot but remain on the periphery and better off standings-wise and mentally than they nearly were.

“I hope so, absolutely,” Beniers said of building from here after the Kraken scored three times in the final six minutes to force overtime, then the eventual shootout before a stunned crowd at Amerant Bank Arena. “There was no quit at any point in that game. So, we’ve just got to find a way to put ourselves in better situations going into the third period. We’re chasing a lot of games right now. It’s not a recipe for success. Hopefully, we can build off that and rattle off a few wins here.”

The Kraken trailed 4-1 with 5:43 to play when Beniers scored his 19^th of the season, followed by Jordan Eberle notching his 23^rd on a breakaway and then Bobby McMann doing the same just 14 seconds later for his team-leading 24^th. Beniers and company had their chances in overtime before Vinnie Hinostroza scored for Florida in the shootout while the Kraken were blanked on all three tries, taking the loss when McMann and Eberle couldn’t replicate earlier breakaway goals against Sergei Bobrovsky.

But they at least came away with something on a night defenseman Adam Larsson celebrated his 1,000^thcareer game while Panthers bench boss Paul Maurice was feted for his 2,000^th contest coaching. The Kraken have three games to go on this crucial road trip, in Tampa Bay on Thursday night, Buffalo on Saturday and then in Edmonton next Tuesday after two nights rest back home in Seattle.

The first 54 minutes of this game had been particularly brutal against the injury-decimated Panthers, with the Kraken held to 13 shots the first two periods and giving up an early middle frame breakaway goal to Nolan Foote. They then yielded three more goals in the third on a bank shot off Eetu Luostarinen, a carom by Carter Verheghe off goalie Joey Daccord from behind the net and then an own-goal deflection off Shane Wright’s stick as he tried to intercept a pass.

Sure, Evans had a fluke goal of his own in the midst of that with a carom shot off the end boards that hit Bobrovsky in the skate and deflected on in with Beniers standing right at the crease. But it seemed a case of far too little, too late.

Florida quickly restored the three-goal lead on the Wright deflection into his own net, at which point the young forward looked to the heavens dejectedly as if to signal everything that could go wrong for his team had.

But then Beniers seemed to will his team’s second goal into the net and the Kraken rallied from there.

“I mean, that’s fun hockey to come back like that,” McMann said after his fifth goal since joining the Kraken from Toronto at this month’s trade deadline secured the key point. “I’m proud of this group for that effort. We all kind of contributed as individuals and almost pulled one out in overtime. That’s a tough one there. When you get to a shootout, it’s 50-50 and we were trying to pull it out. But sometimes those can go either way.”

McMann felt it was “huge” to come away with the point nonetheless, so long as the Kraken carry things forward.

“I think we’ve got to play with that urgency,” McMann said. “It’s really coming down to the end of the season here. We’ve got to make sure we’re playing with that urgency all the time. So, it’s really good that we found it. But we’ve got to play with that from the drop of the puck.”

Kraken head coach Lane Lambert had signified the urgency of this game by opting to deploy only 11 forwards and an extra defenseman, making fourth line emergency winger Jani Nyman a healthy scratch rather than continuing to carry his limited minutes in unproductive fashion. 

“We haven’t been scoring that much, so we’ve got to shake things up a little bit,” Lambert said afterwards.

Lambert promoted young Berkly Catton to the top line alongside Beniers and Eberle, hoping since he “makes plays” he could help. Catton drew a secondary assist on the Evans goal that got the Kraken on the board, but it would be playmaking from Beniers that truly got the comeback started.

“I thought he was good – I thought he made plays,” Lambert said of Beniers. “I thought he was really good in overtime…he made some plays. We’re encouraging our players, from that standpoint, to make more plays offensively when we have the puck.”

He also needs his players to cut down on the “catastrophic mistakes” that keep leading to goals against seemingly out of nowhere. If they can do that, he added, this last ditch, point salvaging comeback might lead to something more.

“Yeah, I mean obviously that’s the plan,” Lambert said. “Certainly, down 4-1, it’s looking bleak. I thought our resolve was good. We came back. We couldn’t get the two (points) but you know, we walk out of here at least moving ahead in the standings (points-wise) and now we’ve got to move on to the next game.”

One that Beniers, whose on-ice leadership came through when it mattered late, hopes his team can take a step forward in. 

“It’s obviously really good that we get the point and get back in that game,” Beniers said.

For a while, it didn’t seem possible. Now, with possibly a last-ditch reprieve from the abyss, he feels it’s up to his team to show it can make a stand.