Mahura’s OT goal lifts Kraken past Maple Leafs

Josh Mahura scored at 3:06 of overtime for the Seattle Kraken in a 4-3 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena on Saturday.

Mahura, who ended a streak of 134 straight games without a goal, took a pass from Jordan Eberle at the blue line, cut around William Nylander and shot past Anthony Stolarz from the slot for the game-winning goal. His last goal was on Jan. 17, 2023 also at Scotiabank Arena against the Maple Leafs when he was with the Florida Panthers.

“It’s been a minute I guess but it’s nice to get the two points,” Mahura said. “It feels good to be able to see one go in the back of the net for me but I’m just proud of the guys with how we worked and the adversity we kept overcoming throughout the game with whatever was going on so it was a great win for us.”

Stolarz was left angry with his team’s compete level in overtime.

“I mean a lot of guys have been here for a while,” Stolarz said. “Overtime, you can’t let someone beat you up the ice there. It’s a clear cut breakaway, a minute left and you want to be on the ice in that situation, you’ve got to work hard. You’ve got to work back and it cost us a point there. It’s early, we have some time to jell but at the end of the day, it’s more or less just about working hard. When we work hard, the results come.”

Shane Wright had a goal and an assist, Mason Marchment and Chandler Stephenson each had two assists and Joey Daccord made 26 saves for the Kraken (3-0-2), who were 0-0-2 in their past two games. The Kraken extended the longest season-opening point streak in the franchise’s five seasons.

Seattle was without defenseman Brandon Montour, who is taking a temporary leave of absence to attend to a family matter.

“It’s huge,” Seattle coach Lane Lambert said. “To maybe not come away with two points tonight would have been super disheartening because we’ve been in that situation the past couple of games but we are in tight hockey games. That’s the way it is. That’s the fourth overtime game in a row so we expect to be in tight hockey games for the most part and we have to be comfortable playing in those games.”

John Tavares scored twice, Nylander had two assists and Stolarz made 24 saves for the Maple Leafs (3-2-1), who had won two in a row.

“Inconsistent more than anything,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said. “When we wanted to play the right way, we were good but we had too many lapses in the game that cost us.”

“(On the overtime goal), we’re too spread out, we are all man on man. It’s a difficult play for Nylander but he’s got to have that guy if he wants to man up like that and the guy skated by him.”

The Kraken went up 1-0 at 7:29 of the first period when Wright, who was playing in his 100th NHL game, put in a rebound from Marchment’s shot just below the left face-off dot on the power play.

Morgan Rielly tied it 1-1 at 14:56 when he took a pass from Auston Matthews on a 2-on-1 and shot blocker side from just below the top of the left face-off circle.

Jani Nyman put the Kraken up 2-1 at 14:19 of the second period when he one-timed a pass in the slot from Marchment.

Tavares tied it 2-2 at 16:01 when he got to a loose puck and shot high blocker from the top of the left face-off circle.

Vince Dunn gave the Kraken a 3-2 lead at 17:44 when he one-timed a pass from Eeli Tolvanen from the top of the right face-off circle as Seattle’s Jaden Schwartz was pushed into Stolarz by Toronto’s Brandon Carlo in the crease.

“That was huge,” Marchment said. “Schwartz did a great job in front of the net and just getting in front of his eyes. It was good to get that one back on the board (quickly).”

Stolarz expressed frustration that the Maple Leafs did not go to the Seattle net with the same aggressiveness as the Kraken did.

“I think we have to start going to the cage a little harder, make it harder for their goalies,” Stolarz said. “It’s not fun. I don’t like having 225-pound guys lying on me so hopefully we learned our lesson here.”

The Maple Leafs tied it 3-3 at 1:21 of the third period when Tavares backhanded a rebound from Nylander’s shot between Daccord’s pads at the top of the goal crease. The goal was his 500th point with the Maple Leafs.

“It was a good third period, but the first two periods we kind of let them walk all over us,” Stolarz said. “We just didn’t play our game, they outworked us in front of the net, they blocked shots, they beat us up and down the ice and the score was indicative of that. They just outworked us, plain and simple.”