Kraken forward Yanni Gourde returns to Tampa with a winner
TAMPA — Former Lightning center Yanni Gourde spent Monday night back in Tampa eating dinner with ex-teammates Alex Killorn and Anthony Cirelli. His stroll through the hallways of Amalie Arena Tuesday morning still felt special, bringing back memories of hoisting the Stanley Cup in the building in 2021.
“I enjoyed my time here, and it was fun,” Gourde, now playing for the Seattle Kraken, said before Tuesday’s game against the Lightning. “This is always going to be a special place for me and my family, and it’s special walking in this building and seeing a lot of familiar faces. It means a lot.”
In his second trip back to Amalie, where Gourde was the engine of back-to-back championship teams, he returned with a second-year Kraken team that has quickly become a contender. This is why Seattle drafted Gourde in the expansion draft two summers ago — to be the been-there, done-that piece of a winning formula.
After an inaugural season in which they finished with the third-fewest points in the NHL, the Kraken seem to have found the right mix in Year 2.
“It’s great, the leadership from all of our veteran guys, especially the veteran guys that have been at the top of the mountain and have been able to have that success,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “Those guys are very, very important, and Yanni is right in the middle of that for us. He brings it every day, and sometimes that’s the highest compliment that you can pay to a player is that he does what he does and brings it in every single day. And Yanni does that.”
Seattle is tied for the fourth-most points in the Western Conference with 35. It owns the second-best road record in the NHL at 9-2-1 after winning just 11 games away from home all of last season. And it is scoring a lot of goals, 3.56 per game to rank fifth in the league.
“They were a hard out last year when we played them,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “Now they’ve added some pieces, and they solidified a lot of their game. But it’s no fluke. Probably the one thing that is maybe surprising is how much they’re scoring, but they don’t really give anything up.
“They’re not spending a ton of time in the D zone, and (Hakstol) is doing a hell of a job. This is kind of how the expansion, you want it to go. You want to build, and they’ve done really, really well in how they built this team.”
Much as he did with the Lightning, where he anchored the third line, Gourde sets an example for his teammates with his compete and effort, fighting for everything at both ends. When he has been on the ice this season, the Kraken have outscored their opponents 16-11, outshot them 169-152 and have had 75 high-danger scoring chances to their opponents’ 63 during 5-on-5 play.
“Every single game (is) huge in this league,” Gourde said Tuesday morning. “You can’t ever take one off, because it’s tough to make the playoffs. So we can’t really sit on a good run or sit on something that is not really going well. You just gotta go out there and make the best of what you can do that is in front of you. I take a lot of pride in doing that.”
Seattle’s line of Matty Beniers, Jordan Eberle and Jared McCann has been remarkable in the month since it was assembled, outscoring opponents 12-2 in 5-on-5 play, including two goals in the Kraken’s last game, a 5-2 win at the Panthers on Sunday. The line had scored at least one goal in 11 of its 12 games together.
Seattle has received an additional boost from free-agent acquisition Andre Burakovsky, the former Colorado wing who leads the Kraken with 17 assists and 27 points.
Expect the Lightning to counter with an 11-forward, seven-defenseman lineup. Forward Vladislav Namestnikov did not practice Monday and didn’t participate in Tuesday’s optional morning skate. Asked about his status, Cooper said Namestnikov should be considered day-to-day.
That likely means that left-shot defenseman Haydn Fleury will draw in as the Lightning’s seventh defenseman. Fleury has been scratched in seven of the team’s last eight games.
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