<p><p>SEATTLE – Kailer Yamamoto kicked things off with a pair of goals Thursday night and the Kraken clobbered the Chicago Blackhawks, 7-1 at Climate Pledge Arena.</p></p><p><p>Joey Daccord made 21 stops for Seattle. Oliver Bjorkstrand (one goal, two assists) and Will Borgen (two assists) also turned in multipoint nights, as did Ryker Evans (two assists) for the first time at the NHL level.</p></p><p><p>Jared McCann was cross-checked into the face by Chicago’s Connor Murphy and got the best revenge, scoring on the resulting power play to make it 6-1 Kraken.</p></p><p><p>Three minutes into the game, the Blackhawks tried to move the puck out but only pushed it a few feet past their own blue line. Yamamoto turned it around and went in alone, wristing in his fifth goal of the season and second in two games.</p></p><p><p>Yamamoto and Bellemare got a stick on the Kraken’s second goal almost simultaneously. It was initially credited to Bellemare but later reassigned to his linemate. Bellemare officially nabbed goals in back-to-back games for the first time since the tail end of the 2020-21 campaign — it just took a little longer. Twenty-one seconds after McCann’s third-period goal, Bellemare got Seattle to seven.</p></p><p><p>Bellemare’s goal was the fourth line’s third of the night and fifth in two games.</p></p><p><p>Yamamoto was stopped at two goals. In seven NHL seasons, the Spokane native hasn’t yet scored a hat trick.</p></p><p><p>Bjorkstrand, Tye Kartye and Eeli Tolvanen scored to turn it into a 5-1 rout before the second intermission. Matty Beniers nearly made the list. He picked up the puck at the Chicago blue line and went in alone, but his low bid was stopped.</p></p><p><p>The Kraken (10-14-7) have won back-to-back games after an eight-game winless streak. It’s only the third time through 31 games that they’ve managed consecutive victories, and never more than two at a time.</p></p><p><p>Taylor Raddysh scored Chicago’s only goal early in the second period. The Blackhawks didn’t pull goaltender Arvid Soderblom until after the seventh goal against. He made 17 saves behind a porous defense.</p></p><p><p>The Blackhawks (9-19-1) had several chances to get themselves off to a good start. During a brief Chicago 2-on-1, Anthony Beauvillier fired straight into the gut of Daccord. Nick Foligno then shook loose and fully extended his body, falling to the ice as he tucked the puck around Daccord’s outstretched leg and … into the side of the net.</p></p><p><p>Ryan Donato, who played for the Kraken the past two seasons and scored the franchise’s first-ever goal, returned to Seattle for the first time as a visitor. He located a loose puck in his feet and was free to send it into the net late in the first period, but fired it backward instead.</p></p><p><p>In his fifth NHL game, Evans and defensive partner Brian Dumoulin were a team-high plus-3. Evans turned 22 on Wednesday.</p></p>
↧
