Gourde scores short-handed twice for Kraken in win against Wild

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Yanni Gourde scored two short-handed goals for the Seattle Kraken in a 4-3 win against the Minnesota Wild at Xcel Energy Center on Thursday.

“Ultimately, you want to win hockey games, and that’s what we did tonight,” Gourde said. “Everybody battled, everybody worked hard and it was a great team win tonight.”

Matty Beniers and Tye Kartye also scored for Seattle (34-35-13), which had lost four straight. Joey Daccord made 21 saves.

“We ground pretty hard,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “For Game 82, sometimes these games are hard to play, but I liked the way our guys showed up and played from the drop of the puck. The second period was a good period to turn the momentum our way and put ourselves in a good position, and then obviously a little bit of crazy third. But, you know, a good way to close it out.”

Kirill Kaprizov, Mats Zuccarello and Ryan Hartman scored for Minnesota (39-34-9), which had won two in a row. Marc-Andre Fleury made 23 saves.

“… I think tonight we know what happened, but to me, I think it’s important that it’s really the focus coming into tomorrow when we have our meetings with guys and we’ve got to start to push this thing in the right direction,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “It starts tomorrow, and then we’ll work our plans through the summer and get ready as the summer continues to go along and make sure we’re ready to go in September.”

Kaprizov gave Minnesota a 1-0 lead at 4:04 of the first period on the power play with a wrist shot shot from left circle. He has 20 goals in his past 21 games.

“He’s always good,” Zuccarello said of Kaprizov. “No surprises there. That’s Kirill.”

Beniers tied it 1-1 at 11:00 of the second period with a power-play goal, tipping in Jaden Schwartz’s shot through traffic.

Gourde put Seattle ahead 2-1 at 6:38 of the third period. Brandon Tanev won the puck from Declan Chisholm in the neutral zone and sprung Gourde, who scored short-handed on a breakaway.

Zuccarello tied it 2-2 at 11:13, taking a stretch pass from Matt Boldy and scoring with a wrist shot from the slot on a breakaway.

“I think we’re all professionals, so we go into a game and you want to win,” Zuccarello said. “Obviously, it’s heartbreaking not to go to the playoffs. I think that’s what we all play for, but some years are like that. Everyone’s gotta get better the next year and look forward to that and come back stronger.

We wanted to win in front of our fans one more before we head in different paths here.”

Kartye gave the Kraken a 3-2 lead at 17:20 when he redirected Oliver Bjorkstrand’s shot from the blue line past Fleury.

“It’s tough when you’re out of it, but I thought we did a solid job,” Beniers said. “Playing hard every game, that’s kind of all you can ask for.”

Gourde scored short-handed into an empty net to push it to 4-2 at 18:14.

Brock Faber scored a wrist shot through traffic from the blue line on the power play with Fleury pulled for an extra attacker for the 4-3 final at 18:55.

“It’s been tough sledding all year, and I think it was only fitting that we brought it down to the wire there at the last second,” Daccord said. “Guys made some huge blocks and some great plays all night.”

NOTES: With two short-handed goals, Gourde joined Travis Konecny (Oct. 21), Mark Stone (Nov. 4), Pavel Buchnevich (Nov. 11) and Dylan Cozens (March 2) as the only players this season with two or more such tallies in a game. …With two assists, Boldy extended his point streak to six games (three goals, six assists). He finished the season with 69 points (29 goals, 40 assists) in 75 games, surpassing Marian Gaborik (67 points in 2001-02) for the most points by a Minnesota player aged 23 or younger in a season.