San Jose Sharks, Macklin Celebrini beat Seattle Kraken

SAN JOSE – Taking advantage of some poor goaltending, the San Jose Sharks scored four goals in the second period en route to a wild 8-5 victory over the Seattle Kraken on Friday in a rare matinee game at SAP Center.

Jake Walman scored two goals and was among seven players to score two points for the Sharks, who set a new season high for goals in a game and finished with a 2-2-0 home record. The Sharks scored seven goals in a win over the Los Angeles Kings earlier this week.

After a back-and-forth first period, Mikael Granlund and Macklin Celebrini scored goals 53 seconds apart in the second period to give the Sharks a 6-4 lead.

But after Kraken forward Yanni Gourde scored late in the second period to cut the lead to one, Ethan Cardwell helped seal the win for San Jose when his shot on a partial breakaway bounced off goalie Philipp Grubauer’s glove for the 7th :5 went into the net advantage.

Walman added an empty-net goal with 4:47 left in regulation.

The Sharks gave Grubauer fits as six of their first 19 shots found the net. Timothy Liljegren, Klim Kostin and Will Smith also scored goals for San Jose. Grubauer finished with 19 saves.

Kostin also assisted on Granlund’s goal at the 13:10 mark of the second period and beat Kraken defenseman Will Borgen in the third period for his first career Gordie Howe hat trick, with a goal, an assist and a tackle.

The Sharks and Kraken will play each other again on Saturday evening at Climate Pledge Arena. This will be the first of six straight road games for San Jose, coming next week to Washington, Tampa Bay, Florida, Carolina and St. Louis.

Granlund’s goal in his first game back after missing the last two games with an upper-body injury gave the Sharks a 5-4 lead. Celebrini then provided some security when he later scored his eighth goal of the season.

Granlund, who was the Sharks’ leading scorer before Friday with 24 points in 23 games, participated fully in Thursday’s practice and started Friday’s game on a line with Smith and Kostin.