How Morgan Geekie Feels About Fit on Bruins Top Line With David Pastrnak, Pavel Zacha

Morgan Geekie has become the unlikely top line center for the Boston Bruins in recent games, and the 25-year-old forward is taking the good with the bad as he settles into his new role.

BOSTON – If you had to guess before the season who the Boston Bruins’ 1C would be entering 2024, it probably wouldn’t have been Morgan Geekie.

Yet a week into the new year, that’s exactly who it is. Now, that title is based more on the line chart than anything else, and Charlie Coyle has been the team’s best and most important pivot so far this season, but with Geekie centering a line between David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha, his role is still far greater than any would have expected.

“Opportunity lends itself a lot in this league because of injuries, because of shifts and the team winning or losing, and he’s taken advantage of it,” Bruins coach Jim Montgomery said after Saturday’s morning skate. “I think he’s developing some real consistency to his game as far as how hard he is to play against at both ends of the ice.”

However, in Boston’s last game – a 7-3 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning – the results were mixed. Geekie’s two giveaways behind the Bruins net on the first shift led to NHL points leader Nikita Kucherov finding Brayden Point to give the Lightning a 1-0 lead just 21 seconds into the game.

“I kinda cost us one there behind the net,” Geekie said after the game. “They made a good play on it, but that’s something, against those guys, you can’t give them those opportunities, so I like the way we responded obviously, and I think we’re taking steps in the right direction as a group.”

Geekie also committed two separate penalties, including an interference call against Anthony Cirelli at 7:41 of the second period, which turned the remaining 1:35 of a Bruins power play into 4-on-4 play, in which Kucherov scored to cut the Lightning deficit to 3-2 at 7:53. Pastrnak wound up scoring 30 seconds later to put the Bruins lead back up to two goals, but Point scored again to make it 4-3 at 15:53. All in all, it was a rough 40 minutes for Geekie.

It took just 95 seconds in the final period to flip the script. Hampus Lindholm hit Pastrnak in the neutral zone with a cross-ice pass and Pastrnak bumped it up to Geekie, who drifted inside the right face-off circle and rifled a wrister to the top left corner to push it to 5-3.

“I saw [Pastrnak] out the side of my eye when Hampus had it, so I figured that’s who he was trying to pass it to, and ‘Pasta’ made a great play to draw that defender in, and I just tried to get a shot off as fast as I could,” Geekie said.

An empty-net goal from Jake DeBrusk and a breakaway tally from Coyle just 40 seconds apart late in the third put icing on the cake as the Bruins rolled to a win, but Geekie’s goal early in the frame provided a much-needed cushion against a Lightning team that outshot Boston 8-4 in the final 20 minutes.

Given how often Montgomery changes up the lines, it would be a little surprising if the Zacha-Geekie-Pastrnak line is still together by the end of the season. Although, maybe not. Through six games and 64:45 together at 5-on-5, the line has outshot opponents 30-27 and has contributed four goals while allowing three. Their Corsi For Percentage is below 50 percent (47.47%), but so far Boston has gotten results with that trio together.

“It’s fun, I think that’s the main thing. Those two are fun to play with,” Geekie said. “I just try to get open for them. Obviously you see the way that they both make plays, and even the 4-on-4 goal [from Pastrnak], I was a huge fan of that one too. So I just try to get out there, make space for them and make it a little easier.”

Even with the line’s growing chemistry, Geekie hasn’t picked up any Czech from either linemate. He even joked that they probably speak about him behind his back, but as far as the coaching staff’s conversations go, they don’t appear to be talking about changing that line for the foreseeable future.