from Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet,

Until they eliminated the Stanley Cup champion Colorado Avalanche on Sunday, the Seattle Kraken's most incredible accomplishment this season was constructing a 100-point campaign despite some of the poorest goaltending in the National Hockey League.

Starting goalie Philipp Grubauer’s .895 save percentage ranked 40^th among 52 goalies in the league who logged at least 25 games. One of the 12 guys behind him was Kraken teammate Martin Jones, whose .887 save rate was 48^th.

But the sub-par goaltending was evidence of how strong the Kraken actually were as a team. They outscored opponents by 49 goals at five-on-five and profiled as an elite team at even-strength. And now that Grubauer is giving them excellent playoff goaltending, the Kraken are playing like an elite team.

It was Dallas Star Joe Pavelski’s night on Tuesday when he scored four times, but it was still the Kraken’s game as the second-year team won 5-4 on Yanni Gourde’s overtime goal to take a 1-0 lead in the teams’ Western Conference semi-final.

It was Seattle’s fourth win in five games since the Kraken took over their first-round series against the Avalanche.

Seattle scored 18 times in that seven-game win and the Kraken got goals from 15 players, which says everything you need to know about coach Dave Hakstol’s team. On Tuesday, five different players scored: Gourde, Jordan Eberle, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Justin Schultz and Jaden Schwartz.

And while Gourde’s winner at 12:17 of OT was opportunistic, as the two-time Cup winner with the Tampa Bay Lightning spun and fired a standing puck over Dallas goalie Jake Oettinger’s shoulder from a sharp angle after Gourde’s attempted pass bounced back to him off Star Wyatt Johnston, there was nothing lucky about Seattle’s win.

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