Lane Lambert decided to shake things up.
So the Seattle Kraken coach, with his team having lost four consecutive games and six of its past seven, altered all four of the forward lines and two of three defensive pairings for Wednesday’s home game against the New York Islanders.
The moves paid off as the Kraken won 4-1.
Seattle will look to sustain that success when it plays host to the Pacific Division rival Anaheim Ducks on Friday night.
“It did feel good to beat them, there’s no question about it,” said Lambert, who was fired as coach of the Islanders on Jan. 20, 2024. “But it felt better just to get a win. We need to get on track.”
Jared McCann, the Kraken’s career scoring leader, was moved back to the No. 1 line with Matty Beniers and Jordan Eberle, and had a goal and an assist, as did defenseman Vince Dunn. Beniers and Kaapo Kakko also scored and goaltender Philipp Grubauer made 24 saves.
The Kraken, whose penalty kill was the worst in the league entering the game, stopped six of seven opportunities against the Islanders.
“We can’t take that many penalties,” Lambert said. “I don’t necessarily know if they were all penalties, but they were called.”
Dunn said the victory gave the Kraken a boost.
“The little slide we had (recently), it seemed a little bit different. We didn’t quite have the energy and the execution,” Dunn said. “So it’s nice to get over that with the win and put that in the past.
“A little bit of a roller-coaster year.”
A little bit?
A 1-9-1 skid that started just before Thanksgiving dropped the Kraken into last place in the NHL’s overall standings.
An 8-0-1 streak followed, putting the Kraken in playoff position in the Western Conference before the aforementioned bad run.
The Ducks have been in a similar circumstance.
They were pushing for the division lead before enduring a nine-game losing streak that started with a 3-1 loss to visiting Seattle on Dec. 22.
The Ducks have won five in a row since, including a 2-1 shootout victory Wednesday at league-leading Colorado.
Lukas Dostal made 40 saves for the Ducks, then added two more stops in the shootout.
The Ducks rebounded after Colorado’s Artturi Lehkonen tied it with 3:39 remaining in regulation.
“It’s a team win and ‘Dosty’ played a great game, but I thought a lot of guys played a great game,” said Ducks forward Cutter Gauthier, who assisted on Jeffrey Viel’s goal in regulation and scored in the shootout. “Obviously, when a team scores late on you after having a lead for (over half the) game, it (stinks), but you have to do what you can and control what you can control to get the job done.”
Gauthier leads the Ducks with 22 goals and ranks second on the team to the injured Leo Carlsson with 43 points.
Ducks forward Mason McTavish was a late scratch after warmups because of an upper-body injury and coach Joel Quenneville said afterward he was unsure of McTavish’s status for Friday.
“I don’t think it’s too serious, but we’ll know more (in the) next day or so,” Quenneville said.
