OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Josh Norris scored twice in his 100th career game, including a power-play goal 2:34 into overtime, and the Ottawa Senators beat the Seattle Kraken 4-3 on Thursday night.
It was the first meeting between the Senators and the expansion Kraken. Ottawa visits Seattle on April 18.
Norris has 39 career goals to tie Alexei Yashin for the most by an Ottawa player in their first 100 games.
“That’s a cool stat,” Norris said. “They’ve put me in great spots since the first day I got here, even when I got called for those three games my first year pro so I’ve had a lot of help along the way and it’s a cool milestone and just want to keep going.”
Brady Tkachuk and Parker Kelly also scored for the Senators in the opener of a five-game homestand. Anton Forsberg made 30 saves.
Ottawa was coming off a rough 1-4-0 trip.
“Obviously that can’t happen,” Tkachuk said. “We dug in and found a way to win. Josh said after the game all that matters is winning, right, so it wasn’t pretty, but we’re just gonna learn from those little things that kind of we strayed away from so we’ll learn and we’ll get better because of it.”
Jared McCann, Ryan Donato and Mason Appleton scored for the Kraken. Chris Driedger, originally drafted by Ottawa, stopped 23 shots.
“The first two periods are inexcusable,” Donato said. “I think we knew that. The momentum was dead. We needed something. Jared (McCann) had a big goal and once we had that feeling of, ‘We’re back in this,’ I think a lot of guys felt a lot better about the situation.”
The Kraken have dropped the first four on a five-game trip. They play Saturday night in Montreal.
Trailing 3-0 to start the third, the Kraken roared back to tie the game. Seattle scored twice in a span of 36 seconds and completed the comeback at the 13-minute mark.
McCann beat Forsberg from a sharp angle at 9:14, and Donato tipped in Jamie Oleksiak’s point shot with 10:10 remaining in regulation.
Appleton tied the game at 13:01 on a wrist shot that slipped past Forsberg.
Norris got his 21st goal 8:32 into the first, and the Senators added two more in the second.
Tkachuk made it 2-0 when he knocked a puck down in the slot and scored off his backhand. It was his 20th of the season.
Kelly made it 3-0 at 7:40. He took advantage of a Kraken giveaway and broke in alone to beat Driedger with a wrist shot.
UP NEXT
Kraken: At Montreal on Saturday night.
Senators: Host Chicago on Saturday night.
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