Vancouver Canucks at Seattle Kraken

McCann, Eberle lead way as Kraken beat Canucks 5-2, extending Vancouver's skid to 4

Vince Dunn and Justin Schultz also scored for the Kraken, who took the season series against their Pacific Northwest rival and are 3-0-1 since a 2-7-1 skid. Philipp Grubauer made 19 saves in his first home start and second overall since suffering a lower-body injury on Dec. 9.

“It was a solid performance all the way through,” Seattle coach Dave Hakstol said. “We got good contributions from everybody. Our play with the puck drove a lot of our success tonight. Moving the puck, taking care of it, making good, hard plays and getting through the neutral zone. We played fast.”

McCann had the first four-point game of his nine-year career. He has 11 goals and 11 assists in his past 15 games.

“He’s playing with a lot of confidence,” Hakstol said. “He’s feeling a lot of confidence with the puck coming off his stick.”

J.T. Miller and Sam Lafferty scored for Vancouver, which is 3-5-1 since a 12-game point streak. Thatcher Demko made 26 saves.

The Canucks fell into a tie with Boston — which lost to Calgary 3-2 in overtime on Thursday — atop the NHL standings at 80 points. Prior to its current four-game skid, Vancouver hadn’t lost more than two straight all season.

The Canucks went scoreless on all four power-play opportunities. They are 1 of 28 on power plays over their past nine games.

“Not much compete from the guys,” Vancouver coach Rick Tocchet said. “That’s on me. I’ve gotta take the blame for that. I didn’t get the guys to compete hard enough, so I’ll take the heat on this one. There were a lot of no shows tonight.”

Miller opened the scoring 4:34 into the first period, when he poked in a loose puck after Grubauer lost his stick behind the net. It was Miller’s 29th goal of the season and fifth in his past three games.

Dunn tied it at 13:22 of the first, one-timing a slap shot from the point.

McCann gave Seattle a 2-1 lead with a power-play goal 20 seconds into the second. He snagged the puck off a clearance attempt and fired his team-leading 25th into the upper-right corner.

Vancouver tied it 2-2 at 4:57 when Pius Suter’s shot pinballed into the net off Schultz’s skate and Lafferty’s shoulder.

Seattle regained the lead when Schultz fired a slap shot from the right point at 13:28 of the second.

Eberle gave Seattle a 4-2 lead just 1:11 later, burying his own rebound after a nice pass from McCann behind the net. He added an empty-netter for his 12th of the season, including his eighth in the past 15 games.

“I still think we have another level, and I think we got to it tonight,” Eberle said. “That’s kind of the standard for us, and we need to find a way to get that consistency each night.

“And if we do that down the stretch and we find a way (into the playoffs), we’ll be a dangerous team.”

UP NEXT

Canucks: Host Boston on Saturday to begin a three-game homestand.

Kraken: Host Minnesota on Saturday night.

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SEA wins series 2-1