HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. – Morgan Geekie is making it clear to the Carolina Hurricanes that he should be back with the big club. Sent down to the Chicago Wolves on Thursday, the forward scored a pair of goals for the second straight night, this time leading the Wolves to a 4-1 victory over the Iowa Wild. That helped move Chicago to 7-0-0, the last AHL team still left undefeated.
Saturday, it took Geekie just 19 seconds to score his first goal of the season. Hours later, he was on the scoreboard 8:25 into the contest. David Gust had the puck in the corner of the Iowa zone. He passed it to the point to Joey Keane, who fired a wrist shot that Geekie deflected past Wild goaltender Joel Rumpel for his third goal of the year.
With a little less than two minutes left in the first period, Geekie extended the lead to two. The Wolves were on the power play when Keane passed the puck to Geekie at the right faceoff circle. He wound up and blasted a laser over the glove of Rumpel for his second tally of the night.
Geekie spent nine games in Carolina this season without recording a point, but he is definitely making a statement that he is ready to return. In two games with Chicago, the forward has four goals and an assist.
In the second period, the Wild stepped up the pressure, outshooting Chicago 14-3, but the Wolves would score first. Just before the one-minute mark, Frederic Allard fired a shot from the point that Rumpel knocked aside. Rem Pitlick scooped up the loose puck near the right faceoff circle, then blasted a slapshot that the Wild netminder got a piece of, but it slipped by him, barely crossing the goal line to make it 3-0 Wolves.
The Wild were in a big hole, but they did not give up, and it would finally pay off as Iowa finally got on the board just before the 12-minute mark. Gabriel Dumont passed the puck into the slot to Mason Shaw. He wound up and fired a slapshot that beat Wolves netminder Beck Warm on the blocker side for his first goal of the year. Dumont extended his point streak to six straight games with the assist.
Trailing by two, the Wild put the pressure on in the third, outshooting Chicago 19-5. However, Warm was letting nothing past him. He finished with 40 saves in earning his third win of the year. Warm now has a .958 save percentage.
With four seconds left in the game, Tanner Jeannot added an empty-net goal, his third tally of the season. Pitlick had an assist on the goal, his second point of the game.
The struggling Iowa special teams’ units continue to look shaky. The Wild were 0-for-4 on the power play. They were 0-for-10 with the man advantage this weekend and are now 2-27, a 7.4% success rate, worst in the division. The penalty-killing units allowed a goal in four chances. They have allowed eight goals in 28 short-handed situations, a 71.4% success rate.
The Wild (2-3-1) head to Texas to take on the Stars on Wednesday for the first of a three-game set in Austin. The puck drops at 7:00 pm CT.
