Matty Beniers scores twice, but Kraken fall short against league-best Jets

Matty Beniers found his goal-scoring touch in time to salvage a point for the Kraken against the best team in the league.

Beniers scored his first two goals of the season, including one with 3:22 left in the third period, but the Kraken fell 4-3 in overtime to the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday night. Winnipeg remained the only unbeaten team in the league and improved to 7-0 when Nikolaj Ehlers jumped on during a delayed penalty in overtime and slipped one past Joey Daccord.

Despite the OT loss and some mistakes from a few veterans that led to goals for Winnipeg, it was a gutty effort from the Kraken (4-3-1) rallying from a two-goal deficit to force overtime and earn a point by besting one of the top goalies in the league.

“They’re a good team. I thought we played well throughout the night and that was some good character coming back there in the end,” Beniers said. “And tying that up, taking it to overtime, obviously you want a different outcome, but there’s a lot of positives to build off that comeback.”

Jordan Eberle gave the Kraken life slipping a backhanded goal past Connor Hellebuyck with 8:59 left to pull within 3-2. It was Eberle’s sixth goal in eight games, continuing the hottest start to a season in his career.

But this night belonged to the two goals from Beniers. His first goal midway through the first period was a snipe that beat Hellebuyck over his right shoulder into the top corner of the net.

The equalizer was even better. Beniers’ second goal came with 3:22 left and pulled the Kraken even at 3-3 as he redirected Brandon Montour’s shot from the blue line and slipped it past Hellebuyck. It was the second career two-goal game for Beniers, the other coming early in the 2022-23 season in a wild 9-8 overtime win over the Kings.

“I think the defensive side of the game has been there all year for him. I think the chances to score and have also been there for him pretty good amounts in the last three or four games. But I thought he was at another level. It was his best game of the year attacking,” Kraken coach Dan Bylsma said.

The Kraken outplayed the Jets for large chunks of the game and saw Daccord turn in a performance worthy of a win with 32 saves including some great stops on high-danger chances.

But Seattle had a bit of bad luck in the second and a pair of defensive breakdowns that led to Winnipeg goals and led to the need for a comeback.

It was a save from Daccord that led to Winnipeg’s first goal when his blocker stop of a shot from former Kraken forward Mason Appleton deflected off the body of Nino Niederreiter and trickled into the net early in the second period. The Kraken had Oliver Bjorkstrand’s goal off a terrific pass from Adam Larsson waived off when Yanni Gourde was ruled to have interfered with Hellebuyck, and it was Bjorkstrand’s inability to clear the defensive zone that led to the Jets taking a 2-1 lead late in the second period.

Bjorkstrand was turned over by Kyle Connor in Seattle’s defensive zone and Gabriel Vilardi eventually finished the play to give the Jets a 2-1 lead.

“We had four or five plays there in the second period where we turned the puck over coming out of the (defensive) zone at the blue line and just built momentum for them in the game,” Bylsma said. “That’s the ebb and flow of the game. But you can pinpoint four or five plays with the puck that we made that gave them momentum there in the second period.”

The capper came early in the third period when Jamie Oleksiak and Brandon Tanev lost track of Niederreiter, who buried his second after Daccord came out a little too aggressively.

In many ways, the Jets are an aspirational version of what the Kraken would like to be — at least for now. Winnipeg is a perennial playoff team having gone to the playoffs in six of the previous seven seasons. They are built with the depth of four forward lines that can contribute offensively, anchored by Mark Scheifele centering the top line, a talented winger in Connor and an excellent defenseman in Josh Morrissey.

Bylsma even made note of the similarities between the structure of the teams during morning skate on Thursday.

“A well-rounded team throughout their lineup, including their back end. Their success has come through their team playing five-on-five for sure, they have two really good lines for sure, Kyle Connor has gotten five goals, but it’s pretty evenly throughout the rest of the lineup that they have team offense and play a team game,” Bylsma said. “And that’s going to butt heads with exactly how we want to play the team game, four really good lines and rolling them over and seeing if we can’t win the game that way.”

Bylsma seemed to get the performance he was hoping for by shuffling his forward lines and specifically getting Beniers back with some familiar wingers.

Beniers had just one point through the first seven games, which came on an assist in the win over Nashville. Before Thursday’s game, Beniers was part of the shake-up that saw him land back on a line with Jordan Eberle and Jared McCann — a trio that’s played a lot of minutes and scored a fair share of goals over the past two seasons.

“I thought they were the best line for us all night long. They got three goals for us,” Bylsma said.