Goaltenders have ups and downs throughout the season.
Take Seattle’s Joey Daccord, for example.
Daccord got pulled late in the second period of a 5-2 loss Monday at Philadelphia after allowing five goals on 21 shots, then sat and watched from the press box the next night as Matt Murray made his Kraken debut in a 4-1 defeat at Washington.
Daccord bounced back Thursday, making 32 saves as the Kraken blanked host Winnipeg 3-0 in the finale of a six-game trip.
The Kraken return home Saturday to play host to the Edmonton Oilers.
Seattle went 2-2-2 on its trip and has a 2-0-0 record at Climate Pledge Arena.
“Two (standings) points either way, but it’s a big swing,” Daccord said. “I would say more mentally than anything. You look at the road trip, and you say that it’s a success.”
Daccord made 13 saves in the third period as Seattle clung to a 1-0 lead until Jordan Eberle and Jaden Schwartz scored into an empty net in the final 1:40. Schwartz had two goals and an assist.
“I thought our guys did a really good job of responding from the Washington game, where I don’t think any of us were happy. Coaches, players, whatever,” Kraken coach Lane Lambert said.
Mason Marchment returned to the lineup after missing Tuesday’s game with an injury, but the Kraken were still without forwards Jared McCann (lower body), Freddy Gaudreau (upper body) and Kaapo Kakko (broken hand), as well as defensemen Brandon Montour (personal) and Ryker Evans (upper body).
“I think it just gives us a lot of confidence moving forward that if we execute our game plan, we can play with any team in this league,” Daccord said. “You know, we’re probably not a team that’s going to blow anyone’s doors off offensively every single night, but we’re going to be in every game, we’re going to compete, we’re going to be disciplined and stick to our structure and execute our game plan. And when we do that, we give ourselves a chance to win every night.”
The Oilers have won two in a row, a 3-2 overtime victory Tuesday and a 6-5 decision Thursday against visiting Montreal.
Edmonton scored three unanswered goals in the final 8:41 against the Canadiens. Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins registered tallies 58 seconds apart just past the midpoint of the third period with the man advantage — both assisted by Connor McDavid — and Vasily Podkolzin broke the tie with 1:09 remaining.
“Down by two for the Oilers is nothing, I guess,” Podkolzin said. “And the guys have proved it a million times. It wasn’t a great feeling, we didn’t play well defensively and we’ve got to play much better (against) a top team, but finding a way to get two points was good.”
Six different players scored for the Oilers, and McDavid had three assists, giving him 200 multi-assist games in his career. He became the third-fastest player in league history to reach that mark (720 games), trailing only Wayne Gretzky (449) and Mario Lemieux (580).
“We found a way to get the lead in the second, and we just stopped playing for a bit,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “We took advantage of some power plays at the end that we scored on, and then a really big one there by Podz. It was a good battle. I thought we started to push at the end, but I would say for most of the game, it was not our standard.”
