Joey Daccord stopped 28 of 29 shots to lead the visiting Seattle Kraken to their third consecutive win, 2-1, over the Los Angeles Kings on Monday night.
Matty Beniers and Brandon Montour both scored goals for Seattle (34-38-6, 74 points). Daccord was aided by 30 blocked shots by the Kraken.
Quinton Byfield scored a goal for Los Angeles (44-24-9, 97 points), which had a four-game win streak snapped. Despite the loss, the Kings maintained a four-point lead over third-place Edmonton, a 3-2 loser at Anaheim, in the Pacific Division in the battle for home ice in the playoffs.
Darcy Kuemper finished with 26 saves for Los Angeles. Kuemper extended his streak of allowing two goals or less to 14 games, tied for the second-longest since 1967-68 behind Calgary’s Miikka Kiprusoff’s 16-gamer in 2003-04.
Los Angeles jumped out to 1-0 lead at the 1:48 mark of the first period on Byfield’s 20th goal, tying a career high. Kyle Burrough backhanded a shot from along the left boards that Byfield deflected and swept in the rebound with one hand.
The Kings had an excellent chance to build on the lead midway through the period when Josh Mahura picked up a high-sticking penalty and Adam Larsson hooked Andrei Kuzmenko just nine seconds later. But Los Angeles managed just one shot on goal over the 1:51 of the 5-on-3 power play.
Seattle then took a 2-1 lead at the end of the period with two goals in the span of 54 seconds. Beniers tied it at the 18:35 mark when he redirected a Jamie Oleksiak pass into the crease into an open net. Montour followed with a wrist shot from the left circle past Kuemper’s glove side and inside the far right post for what proved to be the game-winner.
Kuemper kept it a one-goal game during a scoreless second period with a trio of Grade-A saves, including a highlight-reel paddle save on Jaden Schwartz, reaching back with his stick to turn away Schwartz’s wrist shot at a wide-open left side of the net.
The Kings, who twice hit the post on shots by Brandt Clarke and Warren Foegele in the third period, pulled Kuemper for an extra attacker with a little over two minutes remaining but failed to garner a good scoring chance.
