Both the Seattle Kraken and Dallas Stars had to rally for road victories Saturday to avoid two straight regulation defeats.
Which goes to show why the teams, who will meet Sunday in Dallas, are in second place in their respective divisions despite a negative goal differential this season.
The Kraken won 4-3 in St. Louis after Chandler Stephenson scored with 1.9 seconds remaining in regulation to force overtime. Seattle, which is 4-1-2 in its past seven games, won the opening faceoff in the extra session and maintained possession until Shane Wright scored the winner at 1:57.
“I thought we showed a lot of character coming back,” Kraken coach Lane Lambert said, “especially after our last game (a 6-1 loss to the San Jose Sharks on Wednesday) and coming out and going down 2-0. It’s a credit to our guys to fight back.”
Seattle, which had been winless in five games (0-2-3) when allowing the game’s first goal, got contributions from three unlikely sources.
Eeli Tolvanen, who had yet to score a goal this season, tallied his first and added two assists. Defenseman Ryker Evans, making his season debut after recovering from an upper-body injury, had a goal and an assist. And veteran goaltender Philipp Grubauer made 16 saves in just his second start of the season as Joey Daccord skipped the two-game trip to be reevaluated for an upper-body injury.
“It’s been a while,” admitted Tolvanen, who scored a career-high 23 goals last season. “You start thinking about it, but it’s always good to get the first one.”
Added Evans: “It was a long training camp for me, so it was good to get back in regular-season games and to get back with the guys. You just try to make some simple plays, get some touches so you can feel it again.”
The Stars, meanwhile, scored twice in a 47-second span midway through the third period to rally for a 5-4 victory at Nashville.
“I didn’t think there was a dip in our game,” said Dallas coach Glen Gulutzan, whose team bounced back from a 7-5 home loss to Anaheim on Thursday. “The goals went in, but our game didn’t dip. And that was a big moving-forward point from me on this because these games are going to get wild. You’ve got bounces either way. They got a couple of good bounces, but I thought we played a good game.”
The Stars’ Adam Erne tied the score at 9:33 of the third and Sam Steel put them ahead at 10:20.
“I think that’s the type of games that I kind of came here for,” said Erne, who signed as a free agent Oct. 7. “Playoff-like games where it’s tight checking, chances both ways. It got pretty physical there in the third. I thought our group did a good job of responding to the physicality. Big job on the (penalty kill) by those guys, and I think we just stuck with it. That’s kind of been the story of the last couple weeks.”
Mavrik Bourque had a goal and an assist for the Stars and Wyatt Johnston and Miro Heiskanen each added two helpers. Jake Oettinger stopped 17 shots.
“We’re not trying to be down by one or two,” Bourque said. “I think stuff happens in the game. Like tonight, they had two quick bounces and we found ourselves down one, but we always stick to it. So far, we’ve been coming back a lot.”
