PITTSBURGH — It seemed almost fitting that Kraken forward Morgan Geekie would be sitting alone in a far corner of the visitors’ dressing room Thursday night in Minnesota savoring his team’s latest road victory.
Geekie, after all, has often become the Kraken’s forgotten young centerman in a season that’s been largely about monitoring the every move of rookie centers Matty Beniers and Shane Wright. Still, with goals in three consecutive games and four of his past five, it wasn’t surprising Geekie, 24, was asked by media members to turn down an adjacent team boom box blaring out 1970s tunes in what’s become a winning postgame locker-room ritual to discuss his own on-ice uptick.
To hear Geekie tell it, nothing much has changed between last season and now — despite his current goal total sitting only three back of what he compiled over 74 games in all of 2021-22.
“It’s nothing, really, honestly,” he said. “I just stick to my game for the most part. And I’ve got a couple of good linemates to help me out.”
Geekie is quick to mention how those linemates, Daniel Sprong and Ryan Donato, have helped him.
“I think we all kind of think about the game the same way,” he said. “I think we’re very offensive-minded players, but we know how to take care of the puck when we need to. So, we just kind of feed off each other. We all bring different attributes to the table, and we all work off each other.”
Donato, who’d notched an assist in beating the Wild, at one point walked over from the showers and sat in the vacant locker stall next to Geekie’s. The two exchanged some quick quips at each other’s expense, causing all nearby to laugh, before Geekie added: “I think we’ve got a lot of chemistry and everything. So, I’m just trying to be in the right spot at the right time and feed off them.”
Geekie doesn’t care much to delve into whether other forces have also been driving the trio. In fact, he tends to bristle at suggestions competition among the team’s bottom-line forwards might be behind some of his increased productivity and that of those next to him.
“I’m just going to come in and do the same every day,” he’d said after scoring in a recent home win over Buffalo. “I’m a pretty even-keeled guy, so it’s nice to get in and contribute. But I’m just trying to come in here and do the best that I can every day.”
Still, the competition part is tough to ignore. In fact, the difficulty of finding spots to fit some of the team’s “bottom six” forwards on the third and fourth lines has become a spotlighted issue of late.
It’s no secret the Kraken, above .500 for the first time ever at 6-4-2 heading into Saturday night’s game against the Penguins, have struggled to find playing time for teenager Wright. He sat four straight games as a healthy scratch before playing for just more than 13 minutes in Minnesota.
When Wright was playing earlier on this season, others were sitting — most notably, Geekie and Sprong.
But that pair has piled on the points ever since, to where they’re making it impossible for coach Dave Hakstol to pull them from the lineup.
Sprong has two goals, five assists in five games since sitting out a week while he worked in practice on getting his timing perfected.
Geekie sat a couple of early games, then got back into the lineup two weeks ago in Chicago. In six subsequent games, he’s notched the four goals and added an assist.
Brandon Tanev also has four assists his last five games bouncing between the third and fourth lines.
Hakstol said heading into Minnesota that everybody in the lineup must contribute. “Everybody’s got a role to do, so it’s based off of the type of job that they’re doing,” he said. “And a little bit on chemistry and how that line fits together. At the end of the day, everybody has to contribute to helping us win hockey games.”
But that contribution bar appears to be much higher than a year ago.
There were times last season when Geekie would enthrall the Kraken staff with his natural ability to make a one-handed pass from the corner of the rink on to the stick of a soon-to-be goal scorer. Or find the back of the net with a pinpoint shot. And win faceoffs at a rate higher than anyone else on the team.
But other times he’d seem to go missing for a game or two. The team was patient about that and some perceived defensive lapses, figuring it was his first full season and he’d learn from mistakes. This season, it’s a different story, where lapses by anybody might see them sitting in the press box.
The Kraken have stressed two-way hockey for all of their forwards, but especially those on the bottom two lines. And whether it’s a 16-goal scorer from last season such as Donato — now scrambling for fourth-line ice time — a shooting specialist such as Sprong, or a blossoming young centerman such as Geekie, all know full well that nothing can go missing in either their offensive or defensive games.
Rather than fold under that pressure to perform, Geekie and others seem to be embracing the situation.
“We’re having fun,” Geekie said. “It’s way more fun to win.”
And in doing that winning, the Kraken just might have found a third young center worth keeping an eye on for quite a while to come.