Up from the deep: Kraken clinch Stanley Cup Playoff berth in record 2nd-year turnaround

This is why they were created.

The Seattle Kraken have done in year two what the franchise’s owners and founders set out to do: earn their way into the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Jared McCann scored off a scramble late in the first period. Seattle then took advantage of an Arizona mistake for a second goal en route to a 3-0 lead. Then 20-year-old phenom and All-Star Matty Beniers scored on a breakaway early in the third period at packed, roaring Climate Pledge Arena in the Kraken’s 4-2 win over the Coyotes that clinched the franchise’s first postseason berth.

“Everyone wrote us off from day one,” Kraken right winger Jordan Eberle told reporters after his goal and two assists Thursday.

Eberle helped complete Seattle’s league-record turnaround from year one to year two for a franchise.

Thursday’s win leaves the Kraken with 44 wins, 26 losses and eight overtime or shootout losses this season. Those 96 points in the standings is the best improvement from an expansion season to the second year of a team in NHL history.

Seattle finished its 2021-22 inaugural season with 27 wins and 60 points.

The previous league record for a second-season turnaround had been 26 points. It had been shared for a quarter century by the 1973-74 New York Islanders and the 1925-26 Boston Bruins.

The Kraken announced after Thursday night’s clinching win a limited number of tickets to home playoff games will go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. online.

The Kraken are on the brink of earning the first of the two wild-card entries into the postseason in the NHL’s Western Conference. With four games left in the regular season that ends April 14, Seattle has a seven-point (three wins plus an overtime game) advantage over the Winnipeg Jets and Calgary Flames, who are tied for the conference’s second and final wild-card playoff spot.

The Kraken are in line to play the defending NHL-champion Colorado Avalanche in the first round of the playoffs. All NHL playoff rounds are best-of-seven series, with the first two games at the better seed. Games three and four of the first round (plus a Game Six, if necessary) will be in Seattle.

The first Kraken home playoff games in franchise history will likely be over three days between April 20 and 27, depending on national television schedules set by the league with its networks.