Beniers scores twice, Kraken defeat Predators

SEATTLE -- Matty Beniers scored twice for the Seattle Kraken, who cruised to a 4-1 win against the Nashville Predators at Climate Pledge Arena on Thursday.

Jamie Oleksiak and Jared McCann also scored for the Kraken (17-14-7), who extended their point streak to six games (5-0-1). Philipp Grubauer made 24 saves.

“I thought ‘Grubi’ played well the entire game,” Seattle coach Lane Lambert said. “I thought we started the game well. They had a couple of chances ... and he came up big for us. I thought our penalty kill right off the bat was really good, too, and that was a huge moment for our hockey team from that standpoint.”

Roman Josi scored for the Predators (18-18-4), who had won two straight and five of their previous six. Juuse Saros made 19 saves.

“It’s hard to keep coming back, especially on the road down a couple goals,” Nashville coach Andrew Brunette said. “We had a lot of passengers tonight. The schedule got us a little bit, but for us, they were a little bit more desperate, which is sort of unacceptable this time of year.”

Beniers gave Seattle a 1-0 lead at 3:48 of the first period. He positioned himself near the bottom of the left circle and redirected Ryker Evans’ wrist shot from the point over Saros’ right shoulder.

“The first one just kind of hit my stick,” Beniers said. “[I just] tipped it in front.”

Oleksiak pushed the lead to 2-0 at 10:41, using Ben Meyers as a screen and scoring with a wrist shot into the top left corner.

“I mean, a lot of ups and downs, I guess, right?” said Oleksiak, who briefly left in the third period after blocking a slap shot from Nicolas Hague off the outside of his right knee. “But we got the win, so it’s all that matters."

Beniers scored his second goal of the period 10 seconds later to make it 3-0 at 10:51. Jordan Eberle flubbed an attempt at the rebound of Kaapo Kakko's initial shot, but the puck kicked out to Beniers, who poked it under Saros’ glove from the edge of the crease.

“Kaapo made a great play across to ‘Ebs,’” Beniers said. “I just went to the net and it was just sitting there, so I just poked it in.”

Josi cut the deficit to 3-1 with a power-play goal at 17:34 of the second period. He received a feed from Ryan O'Reilly at the top of the slot and put a shot over Grubauer's glove.

“Not a good start, obviously, going down 3-0 early,” Josi said. “We couldn’t get to our game in the first period. We played better in the second and third, but it’s tough to come back from 3-0.

“We need to figure out our starts, but we’ve seen what we can do and how we can have success. That’s the way we need to play.”

McCann added an empty-net goal at 17:47 of the third period for the 4-1 final.