<p><p>BOSTON — A trip that could come to define their season ended far better for the Kraken than it began.</p></p><p><p>They again upended one of the league’s best teams on their own ice for the second straight year, defeating the Boston Bruins 4-1 at TD Garden on Thursday night to salvage a .500 mark on this concluded four-game trip and perhaps a season that seemed headed south in a hurry.</p></p><p><p>Eeli Tolvanen scored a go-ahead goal late in the second period, following a power play marker by Jordan Eberle midway through the first that erased an initial Boston lead. Those goals stood up behind the next-level goaltending of Joey Daccord, who was electric playing his first-ever NHL game in his hometown.</p></p><p><p>Matty Beniers then scored to put his team ahead by a pair eight minutes into the third period, going upstairs on goalie Jeremy Swayman from close range. It was the third point of the night for Beniers, who had two earlier assists and like Daccord, is also local to this area, having been raised in the nearby town of Hingham.</p></p><p><p>Jared McCann added an empty netter in the closing seconds with Swayman pulled for an extra attacker.</p></p><p><p>Daccord stopped 37 of 38 shots as his team won for the second straight road game thanks to stellar netminding. He made 15 saves in a first period in which the Bruins had three separate 2-on-1 chances in the late going, then another 12 stops in the middle frame and 10 more in the third.</p></p><p><p>But as much as Daccord and Beniers were easily the game’s two biggest stars, this victory was about far more than any individual player as the Kraken fight to keep realistic playoff hopes alive.</p></p><p><p>They’d entered the night four points behind St. Louis in the race for the final Western Conference playoff spot, knowing the Blues faced a tough game against the Edmonton Oilers and could see their lead whittled down.</p></p><p><p>Just a few days ago, the Kraken trailed St. Louis by six points, had teams passing them in the standings left and right, and faced the daunting task of beating both the Bruins and New York Islanders on the road.</p></p><p><p>But that task becomes easier, even with a dearth of goal scoring, when the netminders allow only two combined goals in the two contests as did Daccord and Philipp Grubauer the other night.</p></p><p><p>The Kraken have struggled to score all season long, but lately had not even managed more than two goals in each of their last three contests. They’d scored only five goals their first three games of this trip ahead of falling behind on Thursday when the Bruins were allowed to whack away at pucks in front of goalie Daccord and David Pastrnak finally swatted one home fewer than five minutes in.</p></p><p><p>But then, only four minutes later, Eberle made a nice play getting himself in on Bruins netminder Swayman for a backhand attempt. Sawyman made the initial stop, but then looked the wrong way for the rebound as Eberle calmly gathered the puck and fired it into a deserted right side of the net to tie it 1-1.</p></p><p><p>The Kraken thus end a trip that began with successive losses to Philadelphia and New Jersey and with defenseman Justin Schultz out for personal reasons and Brian Dumoulin then injured against the Devils. But both were in action against the Bruins with rookie Ryker Evans on the bench.</p></p><p><p>And the trip also saw the reunification of Beniers, Eberle and McCann on the same line, a trio that’s worked well in the past and appears to have re-energized both Beniers and Eberle at a critical time.</p></p>
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