ST. PAUL, Minn. — Kraken goalie Joey Daccord was his team’s feel-good story in their third season of franchise existence, so it was almost inevitable he’d be tasked to salvage the Thursday night finale of a disappointing campaign.

And though the Kraken took a while to get their offense going, they played a tight enough defensive game for Daccord and company to emerge with a season-ending 4-3 victory over the Minnesota Wild. A solid road effort in which the Kraken held the Wild to just 12 shots the opening two periods also enabled the visitors to avoid ending their campaign on a five-game losing streak.

Tye Kartye scored with 2:40 to go in regulation on a net front deflection of an Oliver Bjorkstrand blast to put the visitors ahead to stay. Yanni Gourde then scored his second short-handed goal of the game on an empty net with the goalie pulled for an extra attacker — finishing the season with three goals and an assist in his final two contests.

That turned out to be the actual game-winner as Brock Faber would get one back for Minnesota on the power play with a minute to go.

Earlier in the period, Gourde had given the Kraken a 2-1 lead, taking a breakaway pass from Brandon Tanev off a turnover and snapping a puck past goalie Marc-Andre Fleury six minutes into the final period to put the visitors on top. But Mats Zuccarello tied it on a breakaway of his own with 8:47 to go.

In a season with few highlights, journeyman center Pierre-Edouard Bellemare — who battled his way from France to the NHL, where he debuted just before his 30th birthday — played his 700th career game against the Wild at age 38. But Jared McCann fell just one goal short in his bid for 30, while Eeli Tolvanen wound up two shy of his career high of 18, ringing a puck dead off the goal post late in the second period.

There were too many near misses for the Kraken throughout a season in which they never quite recovered from a tough opening 10-game start, seven of those contests against teams now going to the Stanley Cup playoffs. In similar fashion, their Minnesota opponents, having made the playoffs a season ago, are also sitting this postseason out after a dreadful start in which they fired their coach, recovered with a prolonged stretch of wins, but never made it all the way back.

The Kraken fell behind 1-0 after a power-play goal by Kirill Kaprizov in the opening period, but then a flurry of Wild penalties in the second helped them gain some momentum and tie it up. Matty Beniers, who struggled often his second season, notched his 15th goal of the season on a redirection of a Justin Schultz shot.

Beniers finished with 15 goals, well off from his 24 in last season’s Calder Trophy campaign.

For the Kraken, the end of their season could not have come quickly enough.

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