<p><p>LOS ANGELES — Of the 21 shots stopped by Kraken netminder Joey Daccord in Wednesday night’s opening period alone, his biggest play on a puck was likely a late poke-check to thwart a Phillip Danault breakaway attempt.</p></p><p><p>The well-timed stick play and then recovery for an ensuing shot stop demonstrated Daccord had indeed shown up with top-level focus for a Kraken team in dire need of every bit of it. By the time this 2-1 masterpiece of a Daccord victory was in the books, he’d set a franchise record with 43 saves and established that he is ready to assume the No. 1 goaltending job for as long as the team will allow it.</p></p><p><p>Much of that will have to do with how long Philipp Grubauer will need to recover from his long-term lower-body injury, but few were thinking about that on this night as the Kraken extended their points streak to five games. More importantly, they took down a significant Pacific Division foe at Crypto.com Arena on a night they were badly short-handed, with a sidelined Jared McCann and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare joining an injury procession of forwards led by Andre Burakovsky and Jaden Schwartz.</p></p><p><p>Brandon Tanev scored the game’s opening goal early in the second period, snapping a personal 10-game drought and celebrating by pretending to throw an invisible monkey off his back. Jordan Eberle then provided some key insurance six minutes into the final frame, taking a nice stretch pass from Matty Beniers, going in alone and beating Kings netminder Cam Talbot upstairs for only his fourth goal this season.</p></p><p><p>Blake Lizotte would finally score a bizarre marker for the Kings eight minutes into the third to make it a 2-1 game on a Kraken power-play miscue. Daccord came way out of his net to play the puck over to Justin Schultz, but it bounced off his stick.</p></p><p><p>Lizotte was right there to put the puck in an open net as Daccord couldn’t get back in time.</p></p><p><p>Daccord had already made 40 saves by that point and, still leading 2-1, would make his 42nd stop while short-handed several minutes later — tying his own franchise mark set earlier this season on the road in a loss to Carolina.</p></p><p><p>The Tanev goal, in particular, seemed to change the game’s direction as the Kraken, despite still allowing an above-average amount of shots, began directing several pucks of their own toward Talbot.</p></p><p><p>By the time the middle frame was done, the Kraken had outshot the Kings 17-6 and nearly extended their lead on a power play right near the tail end. But Talbot kept the puck out, setting up a third period in which it looked as if the losing team would be whichever one’s netminder blinked first.</p></p><p><p>That would be the Kings, as Daccord continued to stand strong, and the Kraken tightened up and limited the shots against him down the stretch.</p></p><p><p>The Kraken had looked very much a weakened team in the opening period as the Kings outshot them 21-7, with only Daccord standing between them and a multi-goal lead. The shot total allowed was two shy of the Kraken franchise record of 23 in a period given up to the Washington Capitals at home more than two years ago.</p></p><p><p>But the Kraken survived until intermission and withstood an early Kings push in the second period before Tanev opened the scoring a bit more than five minutes in. Alex Wennberg appeared to lose a faceoff in the Kings’ end, but Tanev immediately charged forward for the puck before a Los Angeles player could corral it.</p></p><p><p>Tanev managed to get a shot off, then kept charging forward and slammed his own rebound past Talbot to put the Kraken ahead 1-0 despite being outshot 25-12 at the time.</p></p>
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