Morgan Geekie’s strong start shows his importance to the Bruins – The Hockey Writers Boston Bruins Latest News, Analysis and More

Morgan Geekie’s strong start shows his importance to the Bruins – The Hockey Writers Boston Bruins Latest News, Analysis and More

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What a difference a year can make to a man. The start to the 2024-2025 season wasn’t particularly good for anyone on the Boston Bruins, but it was especially bad for Morgan Geekie. In fact, the Canadian forward finished as a healthy clean sheet in five of the first 20 games, with his first goal of the season not coming until November 12, 2024.

Related: Bruins’ Mittelstadt looks poised for a bounce-back in 2025-2026

Fortunately, Geekie turned things around and reached the 30-goal mark for the first time in his career, after a great second half of the season that helped him achieve his goal. contract extension for six years this summer. The deal has an average annual value (AAV) of $5.5 million.

If there were any concerns about Geekie having another slow start to a season, he completely put them to bed. With the first month of the season now complete, he currently has nine goals and eleven points in fourteen games, bringing him to 50 goals this season. In just a few seasons, he has fully shown that he is an essential part of this lineup and perhaps the best free agent signing of his career for GM Don Sweeney.

A flying start for 2025-2026

Scoring has been an issue for the Bruins for several seasons, especially when it comes to depth. When Brad Marchand was traded at the deadline last season, there were a lot of legitimate concerns about who could step up consistently to take some of the pressure off David Pastrnak. At this point last season, Geekie had successfully turned things around after his slow start, but there were still some concerns, especially since he didn’t have a contract extension yet and he didn’t have a long track record as a proficient scorer at the NHL level.

Morgan Geekie, Boston Bruins (Winslow Townson-Imagn Images)

With his good start to the 2025/2026 season, Geekie is starting to establish himself as a solid, consistent goalscorer. As mentioned, he is currently on pace for 50 goals this season. Even if he loses pace, there’s still a good chance he hits the 40-goal mark, which seems a bit more realistic and is still quite an achievement in the NHL.

Geekie earned a spot on the top line playing alongside David Pastrnak and Elias Lindholm before being sidelined by an injury that will keep him out for at least a few weeks. All three had great chemistry to start the season and have been a bright spot in the up-and-down start to the 2025-2026 season.

Besides the team-leading nine goals (yes, more than Pastrnak), Geekie was one of the most impressive looking players on the ice and he has even more stats to back it up. He leads the team in shooting percentage (32.1%) and has the third-most points on the team. He has the most even goalscoring score (7) of anyone on the team and has only four penalty minutes, which is a positive considering how bad of a problem this team has been in the early days of the season.

NHL Evolution

Since arriving in Boston in 2023-2024, less than three seasons ago, Geekie has become essential to the Bruins and emerged as a top NHL player. It wasn’t long ago that there were questions about whether he would ever become a full-time NHL player. While with the Carolina Hurricanes, who drafted him in the third round of the 2017 NHL Draft, he was never quite able to earn a full-time spot and often played in the bottom six when given a chance. In 2020-21, he played 36 games for the Hurricanes and averaged less than 10 minutes of ice time per night, scoring just three goals in that span.

After his left exposed in the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft, Geekie was selected by the Seattle Kraken, where his NHL evolution really began to take place. With more opportunities and playing time, he managed to score seven goals and 22 points in 73 games. The following season he took another step forward with nine goals and 19 assists for 28 points in 69 games.

The upward trend continued when he arrived in Boston on a two-year contract after the Kraken failed to make him a qualifying offer in 2023. The contract had an AAV of $2 million and quickly became one of the best contracts on the roster as he scored 17 goals and 39 points in 76 games in 2023-24 and then, even with a slow start, had 33 goals and 57 points in 77 games in 2024-25.

Morgan Geekie Boston Bruins
Morgan Geekie, Boston Bruins (Jess Starr/The hockey writers)

To sum it up, in the five seasons since 2020-2021, Geekie’s goal totals have increased from three to seven to nine to 17 to 33, and now he’s on pace to post another career year in goals for the sixth straight season. It was incredible and very impressive to see. His current contract with its $5.5 million AAV could look like an absolute steal in a few seasons, especially if he eventually becomes a consistent 40+ goal scorer.

The 27-year-old’s evolution is truly a great reminder that not every player will come to the NHL and contribute right away. Sometimes boys need more time and the right opportunities to reach their true potential.

Will Geekie Reach 50 Goals?

The 2025/26 season is only a month old, so it’s too early to say whether Geekie will be able to maintain his current goal-scoring pace. He is currently on pace to score 52 goals, barring an injury that could prevent him from playing in all 82 games this season. Although the season is still young, it is not impossible that he can maintain this pace.

Related: Bruins’ 3 standout performers of the week

In the 55 games in the 2025 portion of the 2024-2025 season, Geekie scored 31 goals, good for third in the competition behind Pastrnak and Leon Draisaitl of the Edmonton Oilers. So for this calendar year he has 40 goals in 69 games so far. Again, reaching 50 goals in 82 games doesn’t seem entirely outside the realm of possibility.

Despite all thoughts of a regression at some point given his continued upward trend since arriving in Boston, Geekie shows no signs of stopping at the moment. He has made himself a vital part of the Bruins lineup and has been one of the team’s most impressive players of the 2025-2026 season thus far. Since the 2023/24 season, the question has arisen as to how far and how high he can climb, and the answer remains: who knows?

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