Jared McCann scored two goals in his 500th NHL game, helping the high-powered Seattle Kraken rout the Arizona Coyotes 8-1 on Monday night.
Jordan Eberle, Carson Soucy, Will Borgen, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Morgan Geekie, and Ryan Donato also scored for Seattle, which is three points up on Winnipeg and five on Calgary for the top wild-card playoff spot in the Western Conference. Philipp Grubauer made 21 saves.It was the Kraken’s fourth game this season with eight goals, plus one game during which they scored nine.
Eberle gave Seattle a 1-0 lead 4:54 into the game on a power-play goal. The Coyotes had the man advantage later in the period when Kraken star rookie Matty Beniers gained control of the puck behind his own blue line, took it across center and passed it to McCann in the high slot. McCann sent a wrister into the net at 15:07 for a short-handed goal.
Crouse put Arizona on the scoreboard at 4:44 of the second with his 23rd goal.
Soucy restored Seattle’s two-goal lead at the 11:58 mark. Just three minutes later, McCann picked up the puck behind his blue line, took it all the way to the top of Prosvetov’s goal crease and drilled hit past him for his team-leading 37th goal and a 4-1 lead.
National Hockey League, Kraken vs Coyotes: NOTES
McCann is the 10th player from the 2014 NHL draft to reach 500 games played. Selected by Vancouver with the 24th overall pick, he played with the Canucks, Pittsburgh and Florida before coming to the Kraken in the 2021 expansion draft. … McCann has three of Seattle’s five short-handed goals this season. … Daniel Sprong, Vince Dunn and Adam Larsson each had two assists. Dunn’s pair gave him 200 career points. … It was the first meeting this season between the Kraken and Coyotes — the 76th game for Seattle and 78th for Arizona. They’ll play twice more in the next seven days: Thursday in Seattle, next Monday in Tempe.
