After he wasn’t traded to a playoff contender last week, goalie James Reimer left no doubt that he was going to continue to play with pride to help the San Jose Sharks finish the season on as positive a note as possible.
Reimer did his part Monday to give the Sharks a chance against the Winnipeg Jets.
Tomas Hertl then scored with 10.2 seconds left in the third period to send the game into overtime, and Logan Couture scored on a breakaway in the extra session to lift the Sharks to a 3-2 win over the Jets at Canada Life Centre.
Couture’s goal came at the 1:21 mark of overtime, as the Sharks improved to 5-12 this season in games that have gone past 60 minutes.
Steven Lorentz scored a first-period goal and Reimer finished with 36 saves as the Sharks snapped a five-game losing streak.
Nino Niederreiter and Nate Schmidt both scored for Winnipeg, with Schmidt’s goal breaking a 1-1 tie with 5:07 left in the third period.
Reimer, in his 13th NHL season, expressed some disappointment last week that he wasn’t dealt to a playoff contender prior to Friday’s NHL trade deadline.
General manager Mike Grier said, though, that there wasn’t a huge market for goalies, particularly after Joonas Korpisalo went from Columbus to Los Angeles, and Jonathan Quick was acquired by the Vegas Golden Knights after the Kings had sent him to the Blue Jackets.
Reimer, too, has battled inconsistency this season as he entered Monday with a 9-16-6 record and a .892 save percentage.
Reimer, who is from Morweena, Manitoba, about a 90-minute drive north of Winnipeg, said after the deadline that he was going to focus on what he could control, as he finishes the final year of a two-year contract he signed with the Sharks as a free agent in July 2021.
“Every day in this league is a gift and you want to take advantage of it and you want to enjoy it,” said Reimer, a pending unrestricted free agent, on Friday. “The organization has been great to me and I just want to go play with pride and passion and do the jersey right.”
Monday, Reimer had 24 saves in the first two periods, including seven while shorthanded as the Sharks went 4-for-4 on the penalty kill.
Defenseman Nikolai Knyzhov played his first NHL in close to 22 months
Knyzhov, in his first NHL game since May 12, 2021, played a role on the Sharks’ penalty kill as he took the roster spot of Radim Simek, who was injured in Saturday’s home game against the Washington Capitals and did not make the road trip, which continues with games against Colorado on Tuesday and St. Louis on Thursday.
Knyzhov, at 6-foot-3 and 222 pounds, had surgery in early August to repair a torn right Achilles tendon, an injury that typically takes about six months to fully heal.
He skated for the first time in early November and had made steady progress in recent months. He played 12 games for the Sharks’ AHL affiliate, the Barracuda before he and fellow defenseman Nick Cicek were recalled on Sunday.
Prior to the Achilles tear, Knyzhov, 24, has needed multiple surgeries, including sports hernia surgery and others involving his adductor muscles. He also had to fight off a bone infection during that time.
Knyzhov had just under 10 minutes of ice time in the first two periods as the Sharks had to play most of the game with five defensemen after Jacob MacDonald was injured in the first period and did not return.
