The Seattle Kraken won at home for the first time this season, defeating the Buffalo Sabres 5-1 at Climate Pledge Arena.
Jamie Oleksiak, Morgan Geekie and Daniel Sprong each had their first goal of the season for Seattle (3-3-1), who had been 0-2-1 at home. Sprong also had two assists and Martin Jones had 15 saves.
"The team we played against tonight makes it difficult", said Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol. "They get up and down the rink, they push things on the offensive side, so you have to find ways to have layers and defend well and work for your opportunities. For the most part, we were able to do that and that led to a good win for us."
Rasums Dahlin was without a goal, stopping his streak of five, an NHL record for defenseman. Dylan Cozens had the lone goal for Buffalo (4-2-0), who saw their three-game winning streak stopped. Eric Comrie made 19 saves.
"We didn't play very well, I just thought that they had a lot better jump than we did", said Sabres captain Kyle Okposo. "And we just couldn't find it. When we did, we made a push and take a penalty in the offensive zone; can't do that. They scored on the power play, kind of killed our momentum, but yeah, we just did not have any jump tonight and a tough one to finish the trip off after three really solid games. But you know we're going to regroup and take a successful trip home and continue to build."
Dahlin goal streak stopped as Kraken roll
Oleksiak gave Seattle a 1-0 lead just 2:20 into the game as Sprong took a shot from the goal line, picked up his own rebound and fed it to Oleksiak, who scored from the high slot.
A little over three minutes later, Brandon Tanev flipped a pass to Geekie that sprung him on goal and he beat Comrie to double the Kraken's advantage.
"[Tanev] yells at me all the time", Geekie said. "I yelled at him back and he heard me tonight. It's good. He made a heck of a play over the defenseman, and I just tried to use my speed and my size and gain some ground on it."
Less than five minutes into the second period, an errant pass that hit Tanev rebounded to Sprong between the circles and he scored to make it 3-0.
"I just wanted to get a bounce-back game", Sprong said. "I missed the first two games because of [immigration paperwork], and I just wanted to get my rhythm back from training camp. I had a good week of practice and felt good. I wanted to play well tonight."
Buffalo made it 3-1 when Vinnie Honostroza's initial shot hit the post and Cozens swept home the rebound.
"We couldn't get in a rhythm tonight", Sabres coach Don Granato said. "They had much better energy than us. We chased it. We had a lot of guys that didn't look like themselves, and it was a tough night as a result that just didn't get any better. I thought Comrie battled hard. I thought we didn't support him well enough, and it's one of those nights."
Jared McCann scored on the power play to make it 4-1 and Matty Beniers rounded things off less than halfway through the third period with a power-play marker of his own.
