Montour's 2nd goal lifts Kraken past Lightning in OT

TAMPA -- Brandon Montour scored his second goal of the game at 2:47 of overtime for the Seattle Kraken, who recovered from blowing a two-goal lead for a 4-3 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Benchmark International Arena on Thursday.

Montour received a pass from Shane Wright in the left face-off circle and buried a low wrist shot through the pads of Andrei Vasilevskiy for the game-winner.

"Shane with the backcheck...3-on-2, I've tried the five-hole a couple of times, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't," Montour said. "With a good goalie like that you hope to catch him off guard and luckily we did."

Bobby McMann and Kaapo Kakko each had a goal and an assist for the Kraken (32-29-10), who ended a four-game losing streak (0-3-1). Philipp Grubauer made 30 saves.

Seattle is three points behind the Nashville Predators for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference.

Jake Guentzel had a goal and an assist for the Lightning (44-21-6), who are 4-0-2 over their past six games. Charle-Edouard D'Astous had two assists, and Vasilevskiy made 15 saves.

Tampa Bay remained in second in the Atlantic Division, two points behind the Buffalo Sabres and four points ahead of the Montreal Canadiens.

"Since we went on the road we haven't lost in regulation in our last six and played some pretty emotional games with a lot of travel in there," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "We need points to keep our head above water here and they keep getting them. You want to be greedy and get both."

Montour gave the Kraken a 1-0 lead at 15:18 of the first period. Frederick Gaudreau skated into the offensive zone and fed a pass to Montour, who snuck behind the defense by cutting through the right circle and beat Vasilevskiy with a backhander to the blocker side.

"We're a desperate team right now and we have to be engaged on every shift," Montour said. "We got two points, we move on."

Anthony Cirelli tied it 1-1 at 17:01. Brandon Hagel threw the puck to the net and it deflected off the stick of Kraken defenseman Ryan Lindgren and rolled to Cirelli, who chipped it past Grubauer's blocker from in front.

"We were a little bit soft in the first period and [going] through the motions," D'Astous said. "Once we got into the game, emotionally I think we took control of the game."

Kakko put Seattle up 2-1 just 1:11 later at 18:12, burying a centering pass from Chandler Stephenson past a sprawling Vasilevskiy from the slot.

"It was kind of like an old-school game," Kraken forward Berkly Catton said. "We showed a lot of heart and it was awesome to see. We rallied together and got the job done against a really good team."

McMann made it 3-1 with his sixth goal in seven games at 3:35 of the second period. Adam Larsson's point shot hit off Kakko and McMann collected the rebound and stuffed it in at the right post behind Vasilevskiy.

"We competed hard, we stepped up," Grubauer said. "We were grinding it out. They had a couple of chances in the last period, but so what. We found a way to win."

Guentzel cut the deficit to 3-2 at 5:56, finishing a stretch pass from Darren Raddysh on a breakaway by snapping the puck over Grubauer's glove.

"Why are we falling behind?" Cooper said. "That's my problem. We're falling behind. Hey, listen, stick taps...we came back. You hope good teams can come back, but we didn't close it out."

Corey Perry tied the game 3-3 at 10:18 with a power-play goal at 10:18 when he beat Grubauer with a snap shot to the glove side that went under the bar from the slot.

"We battled hard to come back, get a point and we'll move forward," Perry said. "Once the emotion got up a little bit, that's when we play our game."

NOTES: Montour has four points (two goals, two assists) during a three-game streak. ... Kakko has five points (two goals, three assists) over the past four games. ... Kraken forward Oscar Fisker Molgaard had an assist and one shot on goal in 11:46 of ice time after being recalled from Coachella Valley of the American Hockey League on Wednesday. ... Seattle dressed 11 forwards and seven defensemen. ... Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov had an assist on Perry's goal to extend his point streak to six games (six goals, nine assists).