LOS ANGELES – This was the ending the Kraken hoped for ahead of a three-week break to gear up for a playoff sprint to the finish.

They’d entered this final trip ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games Milano Cortina hoping to emerge with a winning record against three Pacific Division opponents all fighting for postseason spots. And though it wasn’t easy, a 4-2 win Wednesday night over the Los Angeles Kings at crypto.com Arena accomplished that part for now and has the Kraken playoff positioned this deep in any season for the first time in three years.

Shane Wright scored his second of the game on the powerplay off a bang-bang passing sequence to break open a one-goal game just under six minutes into the final period. Wright had earlier opened the scoring to launch a flurry of three opening period strikes by him, Adam Larsson and Vince Dunn that erased a one-goal deficit and put the Kraken ahead to stay.

Kraken goalie Joey Daccord stopped 25 of 27 pucks fired his way, several of them during a tense second period in which the Kings held an 11-4 edge in that department and saw Andrei Kuzmenko score his second power play goal of the night to draw the home side within one.

The Kraken will resume play on Feb. 25 assured of being deadlocked in third place within the Pacific and technically holding the tiebreaker on that front with the Anaheim Ducks based on regulation wins. Anaheim for now holds the final Western Conference wild-card spot, while both teams are just one point behind second place Edmonton while each holding two games in-hand.

The top three teams in each division gain automatic playoff entry regardless of their conference standing. After that, the best two remaining teams in the conference qualify for wild card spots.

After pulling off a big win at Vegas to begin the trip, the Kraken wound up splitting a pair against the two Southern California teams and will enter the break having won five of six and six of eight.

Considering the Kraken played the night before in a loss to Anaheim while the Kings had two days of rest between contests, the first period outburst by the visitors was somewhat surprising. They were the ones jumping on loose pucks and winning battles, whether via the Stephenson turnover or the centerman working in behind the net to set up Larsson in the high slot for his go-ahead goal.

The Kings had entered the game on an emotional high, having traded earlier in the day for New York Rangers top-scoring threat Artemi Panarin as a reinforcement for their own playoff push. As it now stands, the Kraken are three points ahead of the Kings while having played one additional game.

The Kraken, meanwhile, came in with Jaden Schwartz sidelined by a lower body injury from the prior night and with Oscar Fisker Molgaard called up from Coachella Valley and inserted on to the fourth line. Molgaard’s next game will be for Team Denmark at the Winter Olympics.

Dunn’s goal gave the Kraken some needed breathing room the rest of the way, a power play marker that epitomized what his team is trying to do systems-wise. It came off a neutral zone turnover caused by Chandler Stephenson and led to Jared McCann feeding Dunn in full stride ahead of the defender beating two opponents and putting a backhand shot behind goalie Darcy Kuemper.

It’s the kind of talented play Dunn has flashed before, especially when he was the team’s Most Valuable Player during the 2022-23 season that led to their first and only playoff bid.

And it was huge as it gave the Kraken a multi-goal lead. They’ve yet to lose a game this season in which that has happened, improving to 21-0-0.

Wright’s first goal was an important tying marker off a behind-the-net feed from Ryan Winterton, taking the pass and deftly shifting from forehand to backhand to beat Kuemper. That made it 1-1 just 1:34 after the Kings had opened the scoring on the first of two power play goals by Kuzmenko.

Larsson’s goal would come just 58 seconds after Wright’s and shifted the game’s momentum the remainder of the period.

And while the Kraken experienced a letdown of sorts in the middle period – managing only four shots on goal – the initial flurry was enough for them to still hold a one-goal lead entering the final frame.