He has taken off, his always-impressive shot meeting a situation in which Geekie has been given the ice time and the confidence and the linemates to shine.
“It’s weird because those people are still so far above me, it’s weird to see your name up there,” Geekie said of Draisaitl and Pastrnak, with whom he played on a dynamic line at the end of last season and the start of this season. “It’s obviously an accomplishment you’ll look back on, like, oh, that was pretty cool. But I mean, just, I don’t know. Those are household names. You feel out of place, almost.”
The production has necessitated a shift in mentality from Geekie, a change in approach, a reevaluation of his place in the hockey ecosystem less than three years after the Seattle Kraken declined to extend a qualifying offer to him. He was on his second NHL team at that point, after the Carolina Hurricanes left him unprotected in the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft.
He had not yet found his footing. But Bruins general manager Don Sweeney believed he saw something in Geekie, believed there was something more in him in the summer of 2023, when he was out there on the open market.
As Sweeney said on July 1, 2023, after Boston signed Geekie, “Could he get into an elevated position and produce more? Could he still have that high-end production 5-on-5? He’s played bumper on the power play; he has a really good release as a right shot.”
Sweeney was right. Geekie has been all the Bruins could have hoped for, and so much more.
So much more that Pastrnak, who himself has topped 50 goals once, when he scored 61 in 2022-23, believes that Geekie is capable of getting to that mark, saying earlier this season that he has “everything to score 50 in this league.”
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Bruins assistant coach Jay Leach acknowledges that, sometimes, when players sign major contracts, like the six-year, $33 million deal ($5.5 million average annual value) that Geekie signed on June 29, there’s a natural letting down of their guard, a foot off the gas pedal that occurs.
Not with Geekie.
“Morgan is the complete opposite of that,” said Leach, who has coached Geekie with both the Kraken and the Bruins. “He works and has honed his craft. He came back to training camp and, I’m telling you, every scout and coach in there was like, ‘He looks faster.’
“So that tells you everything you really need to know about ‘Geeks,’ is you sign a well-deserved long-term deal and you have a choice: Are you going to kind of rest a little bit and enjoy what you’ve done? Or are you going to try to prove to people that I’m worth it and then some?”
Leach has a unique perspective on Geekie, having coached him in 2021-22, the Kraken’s inaugural season, when he scored 22 points (seven goals, 15 assists) in 73 games as a fourth-liner with a “needs improvement” on skating. It was, as Leach put it, a disaster, for everyone.
“I give him a lot of credit,” Leach said. “You certainly knew he had a hard shot, but I think any one of us would be lying to you if they didn’t say, ‘Hey, you’re going to be a third-, fourth-line winger, checker.’ … [What he’s done since is] a testament to him with his work ethic and his belief in his ability.”
Though he fully admits that he didn’t think Geekie was on a path to becoming a 40-plus goal-scorer, he thinks Geekie himself believed, remembering back to some of the skates he had with him as an extra forward in Seattle.
“I can tell you that deep down, he thought that,” Leach said. “He had belief in that. I really think he believed in his shot.”
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