At some point, the constant calls from Kraken coach Lane Lambert for his team to shoot the puck more often will start to resonate.
If the goaltending continues to be exceptional, the Kraken won’t need that many shots or that much scoring.
Brandon Montour jumped off the bench and scored with 52 seconds left in overtime as the Kraken rallied for a 3-2 win over Pittsburgh on Saturday night at PPG Paints Arena.
The Kraken entered Saturday 31st in the NHL in shots on goal and managed only 20 shots in regulation and one in overtime. But they somehow made each of them count.
I think we can build on our third period in terms of when we got down, I thought we started to make more plays and create more stuff offensively," Lambert told reporters in Pittsburgh after the win. "I think we have to do that, we have to do that right from the get go. But we defended as hard as we could. I thought our goaltender played a great game."
Matty Beniers pulled Seattle even at 2-2 with less than eight minutes remaining thanks to his third goal of the season and Montour’s fourth of the campaign gave the Kraken (11-5-5) two points in the standings. With 27 points, the Kraken are tied for first place in the Pacific Division.
But those goals only mattered thanks to another terrific performance in net by Philipp Grubauer, who made 31 saves on 33 shots by the Penguins. Grubauer is now 4-0-1 in his five starts this season.
"[Grubauer] was awesome and we need him to be," said Mason Marchment, who scored Seattle's first goal in the second period. "That was a huge game and a huge couple of saves by him to keep us in the game."
Just like two nights earlier in Chicago, the Kraken pulled off a third-period rally, this time getting to overtime for the ninth time this season and eventually saw Montour collect the game winner after most of the extra session was played in Seattle’s end of the ice.
Pittsburgh had only two official shots in overtime and Grubauer turned away both, including a great stop on Kris Letang early in the extra session.
The Kraken have won two of the three games on this road trip heading into Sunday’s finale of the trip on Long Island against the Islanders.
Marchment scored his first goal since the season opener against Anaheim for what stood for much of the night as the only time Seattle was able to beat Pittsburgh’s young Russian goalie Sergei Murashov.
The Kraken pulled even at 2-2 with 7:24 remaining on Beniers’ third goal of the season. Beniers started the play by winning the puck on the forecheck and started a long stint of offensive zone time for Seattle. The puck eventually fell to Marchment, who found Beniers with a cross-ice pass and the center tucked his shot into a tiny upper corner of the goal.
While Beniers had 11 assists entering the game, he last scored on Nov. 3 against Chicago.
"First of all, he played well, but he just saw an opportunity," Lambert said. "I thought their goalie maybe potentially went down a little bit early and that was a snipe."
Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin — yeah, those guys — scored the two goals for Pittsburgh, but Grubauer was otherwise outstanding and continued to look more like the goalie that led Seattle to the playoffs a few years ago.
Crosby posted his 500th career multi-point game when he picked up a secondary assist on Malkin’s power-play goal early in the third period.
The Kraken got away with taking three penalties in the first period against the best power play in the league, but didn’t get away with a fourth when Vince Dunn was called for hooking during a wild scramble in front of Grubauer’s net early in the third period. The Kraken were almost clear of Pittsburgh’s man-advantage, but the chopping of sticks in front of Grubauer eventually saw the puck fall to Malkin’s blade and the go-ahead goal with 13 seconds left on the power play.
The Kraken have now allowed at least one power play goal in nine straight games.
"It just seems like for whatever reason we just can't quite keep it out of our net for 60 minutes," Lambert said of the penalty kill.
Marchment’s first 19 games in a Kraken uniform had amounted to one goal that came in the season opener against Anaheim, two primary assists and six secondary assists through the first quarter of the season. Last season with Dallas, Marchment had six goals and 12 assists by this point of the campaign.
It was clear Marchment was growing frustrated with his struggles getting on the scoresheet. It was also clear the feeling of relief when that second goal finally found the back of the net 1:24 into the second period. Marchment forced a turnover in Pittsburgh’s defensive zone, then beat Murashov over his shoulder to give Seattle the lead.
He also picked up his 200th career point with the assist on Beniers' goal.
"I've been through this before and just keep playing. As long as the chances are coming and I'm working hard, that's all I really care about, Marchment said.
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