Red Wings ease past Kraken for 7th straight win

DETROIT -- The Detroit Red Wings scored four goals in a 4:31 span in the first period en route to their seventh straight game, 6-2 against the Seattle Kraken at Little Caesars Arena on Sunday.

Dylan Larkin, Erik Gustafsson, Patrick Kane and Marco Kasper each had a goal and an assist for Detroit (20-18-4), which hadn’t won seven straight games since January 2012. Vladimir Tarasenko, Lucas Raymond and Moritz Seider each had two assists. Cam Talbot made 31 saves.

“You can’t just have Patrick Kane, Dylan Larkin and [Lucas Raymond] scoring,” said Red Wings coach Todd McLellan, who is 7-1-0 since replacing Derek Lalonde as coach on Dec. 26. “It has to be balanced and tonight we wanted to jump on a team that played yesterday”

Matty Beniers and Oliver Bjorkstrand scored for the Kraken (18-23-3), who were coming off a 6-2 win at the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday but have lost five of six (1-4-1).

“This was a back-to-back game, so we knew it was a day when we had to pay close attention to the details and close attention to our habits,” Kraken coach Dan Bylsma said. “That just wasn’t there. We talked about it during the game and between periods and it wasn’t good enough.”

Philipp Grubauer allowed three goals on four shots before being replaced by Joey Daccord, who allowed three goals on 19 shots.

Kasper tipped Larkin’s shot past Grubauer at 3:22 before J.T. Compher scored 11 seconds later to put Detroit ahead 2-0.

Alex DeBrincat made it 3-0 with a power-play goal at 6:16, bringing Daccord in off the bench, but Gustafsson set up Kane for a tap-in to make it 4-0 at 7:53.

Kane extended his point streak to seven games (13 points; five goals, eight assists), as did DeBrincat (11 points; six goals, five assists). Larkin has nine points (six goals, three assists) in his past six games.

“I think we got on the forecheck and started to skate and had a good shot mentality,” Larkin said of the quick start. “After we got one and two, we kept our foot on the gas, and it turned into a great start.”

Gustafsson scored Detroit’s second power-play goal at 4:17 of the second period to give the Red Wings a 5-0 lead.

Larkin got another power-play goal at 15:21 to make it 6-0 before Bjorkstrand made it 6-1 with hiw own power-play goal at 18:00.

“We’re looking for guys who can get us back into a game, and Oliver has been that type of player for us,” Bylsma said. “We all need to join him in that.”

Beniers pulled Seattle to within 6-2 at 6:54 of the third period.

Seattle fell behind 2-0 after the first period on Saturday in Buffalo before rallying to win 6-2.

“We just weren’t ready again,” Kraken forward Jaden Schwartz said. “We have to turn this around quickly, because it is unacceptable and there’s no one to blame but ourselves. It wasn’t like this started last game, we’ve been doing it a lot lately.”

NOTES: Detroit’s last eight-game winning streak spanned January and February 2008. … McLellan is the second Red Wings coach to win seven of his first eight games, joining Mike Babcock, who started 12-1-0 at the beginning of the 2005-06 season.