Daccord makes 28 saves, Kraken cruise past Penguins

SEATTLE -- Joey Daccord made 28 saves for the Seattle Kraken, who cruised past the Pittsburgh Penguins for a 4-1 win at Climate Pledge Arena on Saturday.

The 28-year-old goalie has won five of his past seven starts after losing four straight.

“I try to just be the same every day,” Daccord said of his strong run of form. “I know if I just play like myself and play like I’m able to, then I don’t need to elevate above what I’m capable of at a consistent level. So I just try to bring the same mindset, the same focus, same energy levels every single day.”

Chandler Stephenson and Jared McCann each had two assists for the Kraken (22-25-3), who have won three of their past four.

“We just played with a little bit more confidence [than in a 3-0 loss to the Washington Capitals on Thursday],” McCann said. “We spread them out a lot more and used the width of the rink."

Sidney Crosby scored for the Penguins (20-23-8), who have lost three of their past four. Joel Blomqvist made 21 saves.

“It’s real frustrating because I thought for the majority of the game, we carried the play,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. “But you can’t hand teams easy offense like we did.”

Penguins forward Evgeni Malkin left the game with a lower-body injury sustained at 10:15 of the first period after a collision Stephenson. He played one more shift but did not return for the second period.

Oliver Bjorkstrand gave the Kraken a 1-0 lead at 2:16 of the second period. He broke through on a 3-on-2 rush with and one-timed Andre Burakovsky’s feed over Blomqvist’s right pad from the left circle.

“Truth be told, I was probably [looking for Stephenson] driving and shooting the puck,” Seattle coach Dan Bylsma said. “He made a better play to Andre, and Andre over to ‘Bjorky’ for that goal.”

Crosby tied it 1-1 at 4:34 with a one-timer from the slot after Rickard Rakell found him from below the goal line.

“Everyone’s working hard, everyone in this room wants to win,” Pittsburgh forward Kevin Hayes said. “It’s frustrating, these last couple losses that we’ve had, we’ve felt like we’ve been playing good enough to win, and we haven’t. We’ve got to start winning.”

Vince Dunn made it 2-1 at 17:46 on a 5-on-3 power play, firing a slap shot from the point that deflected off Pittsburgh forward Noel Acciari and into the top right corner.

“I think we were able to generate some good chances [on the 5-on-3],” Dunn said. “I think we took what was given, and [Jaden Schwartz] has been so good out front of the net all year… did his part and made it easy for me.”

Eeli Tolvanen pushed it to 3-1 at 5:06 of the third period after McCann found him with a cross-slot pass from the left corner. Tolvanen one-timed it past Blomqvist’s glove from the right circle.

“[Shane Wright] put the puck to space and let me skate into it,” McCann said. “Obviously, he is a very skilled player who … is going to continue to use his offense to help us."

The Kraken are 12-0-0 when leading after two periods this season.

“That was a huge goal at the start of the third period to get that third one from Tolvy,” Bylsma said.

Matty Beniers scored off a 2-on-1 rush with Kaapo Kakko to make it 4-1 at 13:06 of the third, one-timing Kakko’s feed into an open net behind Blomqvist from the right circle.

“The goals they got, the conversion rates on them would be extremely high,” Sullivan said. “They’re Grade-A opportunities. We can’t give teams Grade-A opportunities like that and think we’re going to win games.”

NOTES: Sullivan did not have an update on Malkin’s status after the game. … Crosby and Kris Letang factored on the same goal for the 307th time. They passed Phil Esposito and Bobby Orr (306 times) for the second-highest total in NHL history by a forward-defenseman combo behind only Wayne Gretzky and Paul Coffey (350).