Photo: Getty Images
Morgan Geekie was running on 20 games without a goal, red lamp last lit on December 11 against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
That’s when the Seattle Kraken forward took the forecasting of a sibling who delivered a proclamation as strong as a 99-mile per hour fastball.
“I have to give credit to my brother, he said I was going to score tonight,” said Geekie. “We’ll give that one to him.”
Nope, it wasn’t Conor, a projected first round NHL Draft pick, with this hot take. Morgan’s 21-year old brother, Noah, a junior pitcher and outfielder for the NCAA Division-II outpost Emporia State (KS) University baseball program, threw a strike for his prediction as Geekie ended his drought Sunday, but short of a winning effort as the host San Jose Sharks upended the Seattle Kraken, 3-1 at SAP Center on Sunday.
Geekie’s slick backhander on James Reimer was a quick strike response, nine seconds after Ryan Dzingel scored his first goal as a Shark with 2:41 left in the first period – a 20-minute frame where the Kraken blitzed Reimer with 19 shots.
The rest of the night turned into a struggle for offense. Though the Kraken would outshoot San Jose, 40-24 and - according to naturalstattrick.com - own a 58 percent advantage in shot quality, San Jose broke free of the tie game in the second period with back to back tallies from two forwards who both struck for their first career NHL goals.
“We got no reward for our effort tonight – those are things you have to handle and overcome,” said Kraken head coach Dave Hakstol. “I thought we continued to go. We lost our momentum after the second goal against. We didn’t get it going again in the second period.”
Scott Reedy broke the tie game at 7:15 of the second period off an offensive zone face-off win. Jonah Gadjovich, from the same play, went to the front of the net to boost San Jose to a 3-1 lead with 5:23 left.
The Kraken had an apparent 2-1 lead overturned on a rebound to Calle Jarnkrok in the second period, negated after a coach’s challenge due to goaltender interference with Marcus Johansson at the front of the net. The Kraken attempted the same plot twist on Gadjovich’s goal, upheld after a lengthy video review.
“(Gadjovich) was in the crease,” said Hakstol. “How much interference - I’m looking on the initial shot if there was interference, obviously they determined there was not.”
Reimer, playing every minute on the back end of three games in four days, earned the win with 39 stops. Philipp Grubauer took the loss on 21 stops.
Penalty issues in the third period stalled Kraken momentum at even strength, despite holding to San Jose to an 0-of-4 clip on the power play. The Kraken penalty kill has wiped 16 of the last 17 chances.
“You’re not as going to be as dominant three periods in a row, as we were in the first period, but taking out the six minutes of penalty kill time in the third period, we didn’t generate as much,” said Hakstol.
The Kraken will host San Jose for one final meeting on Apr. 29 in Seattle and will look to snap an 0-6-1 skid on Wednesday when they host the Nashville Predators at 7pm (950 KJR / Kraken Audio Network).
KRAKEN LINEUP, FEB. 27:
Johansson-Jarnkrok-Eberle
Blackwell-Gourde-Appleton
Sheahan-Wennberg-Donskoi
Donato-Geekie-Czarnik
Giordano-Soucy
Oleksiak-Larsson
Dunn-Lauzon
Grubauer
Driedger