Nobody on the San Jose Sharks roster is more disappointed that their season series with the St. Louis Blues is over than Macklin Celebrini.
Celebrini dazzled on Thursday night, scoring twice and adding an assist as the Sharks held on to beat the Blues 4-3 to snap a three-game losing streak and finish a 13-day road trip with a 3-3-0 record.
New Sharks forward Nikolai Kovalenko had his first career three-point game with three assists, and goalie Alexandar Georgiev made 17 saves, including six in a tense third period, to win in his San Jose debut.
The Sharks finished with 21 blocked shots, including seven in the final 8:20 of regulation time, and went 2-for-2 on the penalty kill.
“It took everyone,” Celebrini said on NBC Sports California. “With those penalties, we had so many blocked shots and guys selling themselves out. That’s the reason we won that game.”
Celebrini assisted on Tyler Toffoli’s first-period goal and scored at the 5:43 and 19:53 marks of the second period to give the Sharks a 3-1 lead and register his second career three-point game.
Celebrini’s first goal came off his second effort. His intended pass to Toffoli on a 2-on-1 hit a sliding Colton Parayko and came back to him before he beat Blues goalie Jordan Binnington, who was out of position, for his ninth goal of the season.
On his second goal, with the Sharks on the power play, an active Celebrini took a seam pass from Mikael Granlund, stickhandled the puck, and snapped a shot past Binnington.
Blues forward Brayden Schenn and Sharks defensemen Jake Walman traded goals early in the third period before Jordan Kyrou scored at the 7:57 mark to cut San Jose’s lead back to one.
But that was as close as it got. Celebrini had three goals and four assists in three games against the Blues, and the Sharks finished their season with St. Louis with a 1-0-2 record.
The Sharks were looking to end a three-game losing streak in which they were outscored 14-4. After beating Seattle and Washington to start the trip, the Sharks were outclassed by Tampa Bay 8-1 and Florida Panthers 3-1 last week before losing to Carolina 3-2 on Tuesday on a late third-period goal by Jalen Chatfield.
“We had a couple of tough games down in Florida and the last three games,” said Celebrini, who now has 19 points in 20 games this season. “But I thought we played hard; we played to our identity and what we want to strive to do in every game. It was a great group win.”
The Sharks wanted to take advantage of the fact the Blues played late Tuesday night, winning 4-3 in overtime in Vancouver, and didn’t return home until Wednesday afternoon.
The Sharks then scored just 81 seconds into the first period. After a hard forecheck, winger Kovalenko got the puck to the front of the net. Celebrini then got a shot on net before the puck came to Toffoli, who, on a second effort, scored his 12th of the season from beside the net.
The Blues got that goal back at the 10:26 mark. Breaking out of their zone ahead of the Sharks’ forwards, St. Louis defenseman Ryan Suter fed the puck to forward Jake Neighbours, who carried it into the San Jose end, toe-dragged around a backchecking Timothy Lilejegren and fired a shot that beat Georgiev high to the glove side.
Still, the Sharks outshot the Blues 14-4.
Georgiev, acquired from the Colorado Avalanche on Monday, will likely get several more opportunities to prove he can still be a full-time NHL goalie.
Georgiev, a pending unrestricted free agent, and Kovalenko were acquired from Colorado as part of the multi-player, multi-draft pick trade that sent fellow goalie Mackenzie Blackwood to the Avalanche. Georgiev made his last net start for the Avalanche two days before the trade, as he stopped 29 of 30 shots in Colorado’s 2-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings.
In his last five appearances for the Avalanche, Georgiev was 2-2-0 with a .883 save percentage. Before Thursday, Georgiev had an 8-7-0 record in 18 games this season with a less-than-desirable .874 save percentage.
Undoubtedly, he was under tremendous scrutiny in Colorado, which hopes to make a deep playoff run and challenge for its second Stanley Cup in four years.
But if Georgiev can recapture some of the form he showed earlier in his career, the Sharks might have another trade chip before the March 7 trade deadline. The Avalanche retained 14 percent of Georgiev’s contract, so his cap hit is $2.924 million.
For now, Georgiev will tandem with Vitek Vanecek, another pending UFA, as the Sharks next play the Utah Hockey Club on Saturday to begin a three-game homestand.
The Sharks were playing a Blues team that was 5-1-1 since firing Drew Bannister as coach on Nov. 24 after a 9-12-1 start to the season. They replaced him with Jim Montgomery, who had been let go by the Boston Bruins five days earlier.
The Sharks are now 5-10-4 away from home this season, a record which includes a 3-2 shootout loss in St. Louis on Nov. 21.
NOTE: Sharks forward Klim Kostin left Thursday’s game late in the second period for undisclosed reasons and did not return. Just before he left the game, Kostin leveled Schenn with a check to the left of the Sharks net, then got into a skirmish with Dylan Holloway.
