Wheeler scores in fourth straight game, Jets top Kraken to end season

WINNIPEG --Paul Stastny got his 800th NHL point on Blake Wheeler's fourth goal in as many games, and the Winnipeg Jets rallied to defeat the Seattle Kraken 4-3 at Canada Life Centre on Sunday.

It was the final game of the NHL regular season. The Stanley Cup Playoffs begin Monday.
Stastny's face-off win set up Wheeler's one-timer at 4:49 of the third period to cut Seattle's lead to 3-2.
"Playing with [Wheeler and Nikolaj Ehlers], I've played with some good players, had some good line combinations, but that's up there," Stastny said. "That was just fun. When you have fun playing the game, you just go out there and enjoy it. Every time we're out there, we're making things happen. It was too little, too late, but you can go into the summer feeling good about the game knowing that you still have a little something to give."

Jets center Mark Scheifele, who missed the final nine games of the season with an upper-body injury, said he expects to discuss his future with general manager Kevin Cheveldayoff on Monday. Scheifele has two seasons remaining on the eight-year, $49 million contract he signed July 8, 2016.
"Obviously I love it here," Scheifele said. "It's been the only place I know. I obviously think there's a lot of big questions to be asked this off-season about where the team's going and what's all going to happen, and that'll happen tomorrow. I'd love to be in Winnipeg, but I also have to see where this is all going and what direction this team is going in, and I guess we'll see this summer."
Morgan Barron had a goal and an assist, Jansen Harkins had two assists, and Eric Comrie made 27 saves for the Jets (39-32-11), who won their final four games. They went 26-22-6 after coach Dave Lowry replaced Paul Maurice, who resigned Dec. 17.
"We didn't get to the playoffs, and that was the goal at the start of the year," Lowry said. "I look at how some individuals played, I look at some of the personal improvements in their games. We had a bunch of guys that had career years. From a team standpoint, we didn't get to where we needed to go, but I thought a lot of guys showed signs."
Alex Wennberg had a goal and an assist, and Chris Driedger made 23 saves for the Kraken (27-49-6), who lost five of their final six games in their inaugural season.
"Obviously not the way you want to end the season," Seattle forward Jared McCann said. "It's going to weigh on you going into next year. But at the same time, I feel like it's a learning experience for the entire organization. Like I said before, we've got a bright future and we've just got to go up from here."
Barron gave the Jets a 1-0 lead at 3:47 of the first period, finishing a give-and-go with Harkins on a 2-on-1 rush.
"We had a real good first two periods," Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. "We unraveled in the third period a little bit with a five-minute span, we gave up three pretty quick ones. We just didn't follow up the first two periods."

Wennberg tied it 1-1 at 5:55 of the second with a power-play goal before Daniel Sprong put the Kraken ahead 2-1 at 12:24 on a partial breakaway.
Riley Sheahan scored 55 seconds later to increase the lead to 3-1 at 13:19 after finding a deflected cross-ice pass from Wennberg.
"Our play really since the [March 21] trade deadline and a couple weeks before; really sound, really solid," Hakstol said. "We've been real competitive each and every game, doesn't really matter who the opponent is this time of year. So there's a lot of pieces to our game that we've really liked over the stretch here coming down the last two months. Those are the pieces we will take. We will start to dig in, reevaluate things, and that process starts tomorrow."
Dominic Toninato tied it 3-3 at 7:16 of the third period before Kyle Connor scored his 47th goal of the season at 9:05 for the 4-3 final.
"We've been in this situation before here, and I've always been proud of the fact that we've never been a team that's just tanked and stopped playing," Wheeler said. "A really tough road trip we went on, pretty sour taste coming off that four straight losses and how we lost the games. I had no doubt we'd come in and finish the right way."

NOTES: Winnipeg swept the season series from Seattle (3-0-0). ... Stastny has 284 goals and 516 assists in 1,072 games over 16 NHL seasons. With 21 goals and 24 assists this season, Stastny eclipsed the 20-goal and 20-assist mark in the same season for the first time since 2013-14, when he played for the Colorado Avalanche. … Kraken forward Matty Beniers, the No. 2 pick in the 2021 NHL Draft, had an assist. He had a point in nine of his 10 NHL games (three goals, six assists). … Defenseman Adam Larsson was the only Kraken player to play all 82 games this season.