Kraken score 4 straight goals, rally past Rangers

NEW YORK -- Berkly Catton broke a tie with 7:58 left in regulation, and the Seattle Kraken rallied for a 4-2 win against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Monday.

Catton’s shot was stopped on the goal line by the pad of Rangers goalie Jonathan Quick, but he and teammate Shane Wright each battled for the loose puck, with Catton getting credit for the score that gave the Kraken a 3-2 lead.

It was the fourth goal of the season for the 19-year-old rookie forward, all of which have come in the past four games.

“It was a great play by everyone really on the line,” Catton said, “I was the guy who got to put it home, barely. Just happy to win.”

When asked if he was trying to lift the puck over Quick’s pads, Catton said: “I don’t know what I was trying to do, but it wasn’t pretty. Just thank God it went in, and that got us rolling there.”

Eeli Tolvanen, Jordan Eberle and Jared McCann also scored, and Philipp Grubauer made 20 saves for the Kraken (21-15-8), who are 9-1-2 in their past 12 games.

Former Rangers forward Kaapo Kakko and defenseman Ryan Lindgren each had an assist in his return to Madison Square Garden.

“We’re playing good hockey,” said Eberle, who returned to the lineup after missing two games with an upper-body injury. “Our goaltending has been great, we’ve had contributions from up and down the lineup, and we’re starting to get bodies back.”

Mika Zibanejad and Sam Carrick scored, and Quick made 25 saves for the Rangers (20-21-6), who have lost four straight (0-3-1), including a 10-2 loss at the Boston Bruins on Saturday.

"It's not a time to just hang our heads and feel sorry about ourselves,” New YOrk defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov said. “We just got to keep going. We still have a bunch of games upcoming for us, and we've got to compete every single night. That's only the way to get the wins and points."

The Rangers scored twice in the opening 5:31 of the game, but Seattle didn’t break, getting out of the first period down 2-0.

“We just had a slow start to the game,” Kraken coach Lane Lambert said. “I thought we locked it down a lot better defensively in the last 40 minutes.”

The Kraken began their comeback when Tolvanen scored at 1:00 of the second period to make it a 2-1 game. He took a backhand cross-ice pass from Frederick Gaudreau alone in the slot and beat Quick with a backhand-to-forehand shot.

Eberle tied it 2-2 at 4:27 with a wrist shot from above the circles that beat Quick high to the glove side.

The pass to Eberle came from Kakko, who was behind the net. Selected No. 2 by the Rangers in the 2019 NHL Draft, Kakko played his first 330 NHL games with New York before being traded to Seattle on Dec. 18, 2024.

“He made a good play,” Eberle said. “Matty Beniers found him, went east-west to him, and he did a good job finding me. It’s always nice to see the puck go in the net.”

Lindgren had the secondary assist on Catton’s game-winning goal. He received a pass while cutting to the net and backhanded it to Catton, who redirected it into Quick’s pads.

Lindgren played 387 games for New York before being traded to the Colorado Avalanche on March 1, 2025. He signed with Seattle as a free agent on July 1, 2025.

“I’m really happy for them,” Lambert said. “I thought Kakko played well. He made a lot of strong plays down low, which we talked about this morning. I thought ‘Lindy’ was his usual self, great on the penalty kill and blocking shots and contributing offensively as well.”

McCann capped the scoring with an empty-net goal with 10 seconds left left for the 4-2 final.

Zibanejad gave New York a 1-0 lead at 3:08 of the first period. After his shot went off Grubauer’s glove and landed behind the net, Zibanejad collected the rebound and slid it back toward the net, where it caromed off the back of Grubauer’s pads and in.

Carrick made it 2-0 at 5:31, capitalizing on a Kraken turnover and beating Grubauer with a wrist shot to the blocker side.

But the Rangers would not score again, falling to 5-12-4 at home, the second-fewest home wins in the NHL (the Vancouver Canucks have four).

"We had to expect a pushback from them,” Zibanejad said. “I think honestly it comes down to execution.

"Obviously, whatever you want to say about it, but confidence is maybe not as high, and when things don't go our way, I don't know if we're helping each other out as much as we should. From that, the execution becomes harder because you have to make a harder play and you get stretched out where you can't defend because guys are everywhere.

"I think the intentions of battling and trying to work hard, I don't think that's the problem, but I think just execution. It comes down to that and helping each other out. Especially when things are not going our way, we have to be even closer."

Coach Mike Sullivan said the Rangers need to try to “simplify the game.”

“That’s always part of the solution, not looking for the next play, shooting the puck more, going to the net, trying to create off the shot a little bit more,” Sullivan said. “Defending hard and staying in the moment. We can’t get overwhelmed by the circumstances.”

It was the third multigoal comeback win of the season for the Kraken, with all three coming on the road.

“We’re a gritty team,” Eberle said. “We get good goaltending, we defend well and if we can do that on a nightly basis, we’re going to have a chance to win most nights.”

NOTES: Catton became the second teenager to score a game-winning goal for Seattle, joining Beniers, who did so on Nov. 1, 2022. … Grubauer extended his point streak to six games (5-0-1), his longest run since 2020-21 with the Colorado Avalanche (12-0-1 from March 10 to April 5, 2021). … Artemi Panarin had the primary assist on Zibanejad’s goal. It was his 600th point (202 goals, 398 assists) in 476 games with the Rangers, passing Mark Messier (531 games) for the fewest games needed to reach the milestone with New York.