SEATTLE — Martin Jones made 18 saves for the Seattle Kraken in a 4-1 win against the New York Islanders at Climate Pledge Arena on Sunday.
Eeli Tolvanen scored in his first game for the Kraken (19-12-4), who had lost three straight (0-2-1) and eight of 11 (3-7-1). Yanni Gourde and Vince Dunn each had two assists.
“We got back to it tonight. Really, that’s the bottom line,” Seattle coach Dave Hakstol said. “From the start, we were ready to check, we played with a lot of purpose. Specialty teams did a good job. Our goaltender made a couple of big saves in the last five minutes when it counted. Those are all the little pieces and you know, everything mixed in between through the 60 minutes was a solid, not spectacular, just a solid 60-minute performance.”
Video: NYI@SEA: Larsson buries a one-timer from hash marks
Mathew Barzal scored for the Islanders (21-15-2), who had their three-game winning streak end. Ilya Sorokin made 31 saves.
“We weren’t clean on our breakout,” New York coach Lane Lambert said. “You can’t play with speed if you can’t execute or exit your zone cleanly, and we didn’t do that. Give them credit, they had good gaps all night and we didn’t execute the way we wanted to, and when we did have the puck in the neutral zone at times, we turned it over instead of getting it deep and establishing our forecheck.”
Adam Larsson gave Seattle a 1-0 lead at 9:53 of the first period when he pinched in and scored with a one-timer off a pass from Ryan Donatowho had curled out from below the goal line.
“They wanted us to compete more,” Kraken forward Oliver Bjorkstrand said. “Have better awareness out there, how we need to reload and come back and find that balance between offense and defense. I thought we executed better.”
Barzal tied it 1-1 at 17:30, sneaking a shot five-hole on Jones in front after receiving a return pass from Casey Cizikas. It was Barzal’s fourth goal in his past three games.
“That wasn’t great, not a lot of possession,” Barzal said. “A lot of errors and some ugly hockey out there. Fast game, played up-tempo. Seemed like they came at us in waves all night.”
Tolvanen, who was claimed off waivers from the Nashville Predators on Dec. 12, put Seattle back in front 2-1 at 3:58 of the second period with a one-timer from the top of the right circle on a power play.
“It felt really good,” Tolvanen said. “It’s been a while since I played my last game (Nov. 19), so it’s nice to get the first goal out of the way in the first game. … It’s just the power play. Before we go we’re talking about just getting pucks on net and shooting it right away when we got it in the zone.”
Video: NYI@SEA: Tolvanen nets 1st goal with Kraken on PP
Bjorkstrand pushed it to 3-1 at 13:04 of the second on a rebound over a sprawling Sorokin, and Brandon Tanev scored an empty-net goal at 19:25 of the third for the 4-1 final.
“We faltered two nights ago (7-2 loss to the Edmonton Oilers),” Hakstol said. “It was an embarrassing night. That’s a hard one to play in this building, yet we’re able to recover from that today and get an important two points.”
NOTES: Larsson extended his point streak to an NHL career-high six games (one goal, five assists). … Barzal scored his 100th goal in his 400th game.
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