Fresh off milestone, Steven Stamkos leads Predators into Seattle
Perhaps Steven Stamkos has found a frozen fountain of youth.
The 35-year-old Nashville forward scored the 600th goal of his career as the Predators defeated the host Vegas Golden Knights 4-2 in a Wednesday matinee.
Stamkos will look to add to his total when the Predators play Thursday night in Seattle.
Stamkos became the 22nd player in NHL history to reach the 600-goal milestone and just the third active skater, joining Alex Ovechkin (912) and Sidney Crosby (646).
No. 600 for Stamkos came on the power play on a slap shot from the left faceoff circle at 15:37 of the first period after a cross-ice pass from Filip Forsberg, tying the score at 2-2.
"I haven't scored a ton of those this year, but I guess if it was going to be No. 600, it was kind of like I've scored a lot of other ones," Stamkos said. "Awesome to do it in a win like this. ... That's how you envision doing something special like that. Really cool to have the guys come on the ice and share that moment."
Stamkos scored six times over the past six games and totaled 12 goals in December, including four against St. Louis on Dec. 11. That boosted his team-leading total for the season to 18.
Per the NHL's PR department, Stamkos' tally Wednesday was the 119th tying goal of his career, equaling Luc Robitaille for 10th place on the league's all-time list.
Stamkos also has 98 winning goals, tied with Bobby Hull and Guy Lafleur for 11th place.
The Predators improved to 3-1-0 on a seven-game trip that will conclude with stops Saturday in Calgary and Tuesday in Edmonton, moving within a point of a wild-card spot in the Western Conference.
"You want to roll into a new year with some momentum, and we have," Stamkos said. "Proud of the guys, and we're looking forward to the next year."
The Kraken, meanwhile, had a four-game winning streak snapped Monday with a 3-2 shootout loss to visiting Vancouver.
Seattle ended a drought of 10 consecutive games without a first-period goal, tallying twice in the opening 20 minutes against the Canucks. But the Kraken couldn't net another.
"Toward the end there, we sat back a little bit, kind of gave them some chances. And it's not the way you win games," said Jared McCann, who scored 8:50 into the contest. "We had some good opportunities offensively, hemmed them in their zone quite a bit. We should be proud of ourselves."
Kraken coach Lane Lambert agreed.
"We keep playing that way, we'll have success more often than not," he said.
The Kraken's resurgence, which comes after a 1-9-1 skid, has been helped by their special teams. Seattle has scored with the man advantage in eight of its past 11 games, though it failed to convert a chance in overtime Monday.
"I thought we had some good chances and that goalie (Kevin Lankinen) made some big saves for them," said McCann, who fell an assist shy of a Gordie Howe hat trick after dropping the gloves with Vancouver's Conor Garland. "But all in all, we got a good point out of this and now we move forward."