The Bruins struck gold with one player who was not qualified by his old team in Morgan Geekie. Can it happen a second time?
While it may seem like a lot to ask for defenseman Jordan Harris to take the same kind leap that Geekie – who went from being to being an unwanted player in Seattle to a 33-goal scorer who last month signed a six-year, $33 million deal with the B’s – he is embracing his new opportunity with his hometown Bruins.
The Haverhill native and Northeastern product was scheduled to be a restricted free agent with Columbus, but Blue Jackets management chose not to give him a qualifying offer, making him an unrestricted free agent. The 25-year-old Harris said Boston was the most aggressive suitor and he signed a one-year, one-way deal for $825,000 on July 1.
“Boston seemed most interested through the process, which is great. You want to be a part of an organization that wants you as a player. It goes both ways. I’m definitely real excited and fortunate and happy to be here,” said Harris after a workout at Warrior Ice Arena on Thursday.
“I’m super excited, obviously, being form Haverhill and knowing the history of the team – I’ve skated here for years at Warrior, I skated here in college and John McLean, the skills coach, I’ve been skating with him since I was 10. I’m just really, really excited and proud, especially being from Haverhill. I think my parents are the happiest of anyone. It’s definitely really exciting.”
Drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in the third round of the 2018 draft, he played two-plus seasons for the Habs after his four-year career at Northeastern. Before the 2024-25 season, Harris got his first taste of hockey as a business as he was traded to the Blue Jackets for oft-injured but very talented Patrik Laine and a second-round pick after Laine, carrying an $8.7 million cap hit, had asked out of Columbus.
That was a tough blow for Harris, who only knew one organization in his short career, but it was a learning moment.
“I loved Montreal, but that’s the way it is in pro hockey,” said Harris. “Chances are you’re not going to be in your organization your whole career. Some players find that out sooner rather than later, some players are lucky to be in one spot their whole career. I was definitely disappointed because I loved Montreal. I started my career there, had a lot of good buddies there. But again, you can’t really choose how things work out.”
For whatever reason, it did not work out in Columbus. He found himself getting healthy scratched often and was limited to 33 games with a goal and four assists. He could see the writing on the wall that a qualifying offer may not be happening there for him, though he didn’t find out for sure until a few days before free agency.
Harris still wasn’t sure why his season played out the way it did, but he took positives out of it and held no ill will toward the organization.
“I can’t really say. I’d say the one thing I was really proud of was that I feel I got better as a player and I learned a lot. I learned a lot about myself, I learned a lot going through all the scratch games and the workouts. I really got to watch and I walked away truly believing I could hold my head up high and say, ‘I improved as a hockey player,’ ” said Harris. “And that’s all you want to do at the end of the day. Obviously, you want to help your team the best you can. And obviously you want to play. Every player wants to play. And I can’t say why some decisions were made. I tried to talk to the coaches, have those conversations and be proactive about it and didn’t really get much of a definitive answer. It just seemed that that’s the way it was. But there was definitely a silver lining to it all no matter how disappointing it was as a season.”
The personable Harris is an easy athlete with whom to converse and should assimilate well into the B’s locker room. He credits that partly to what, for the sport of hockey, is still an unusual upbringing. His father, Peter Harris, is bi-racial and Jewish, and his mother, Virginia Heikkinen, is of Finnish descent. Harris has leaned into all aspects of his upbringing and is glad he has.
“I think I’m very lucky the way I grew up because of how many different influences I’ve had from different perspectives,” said Harris. “There’s the Jewish side of my family. My mom’s almost 100 percent Finnish, so I’ve learned about here culture, and my dad being bi-racial, I think it really taught me that you just want to be around good people, regardless of their background or where they come from. And I also think it taught me to be able to blend in well with different cultures. And that’s what you need in hockey, especially at this level where people come from everywhere around the world. So I learned that early, just seeing people for how they are. I think I learned that at a really young age, and I think it’s helped in certain situations, like joining a new hockey team.”
He said he never felt that things that made him different were ever a burden.
“Definitely not,” he said. “Again, I’m very happy and lucky the way I was able to grow up and learn what I did at a young age.”
He also grew up in a hockey family. Peter was a goalie who played at UMass Lowell and was a late-round draft pick of the Islanders who played a couple of years in the ECHL, and his older brother, Elijah, was also a goalie.
“I tried to be a goalie. I wanted to be a goalie so bad,” he said with a laugh. “My older brother was a goalie and he played at Endicott and I wanted to be a goalie so bad. I played it for a little bit, but my dad was like ‘No, we’re not going to have another goalie.’ I think it was probably too expensive.”
With the Bruins, Harris will have a battle just to get into the lineup, more than Geekie did when he came to the B’s. As of now, the 5-11, 187-pound left-shot D-man is fourth on the depth chart behind Hampus Lindholm, Nikita Zadorov and Mason Lohrei. He’ll also have to compete with Michael Callahan, who signed a one-year, one-way extension for $775,000.
Competition, said Harris, is what it’s all about.
“I always think competition pushes everyone,” said Harris. “You don’t get to this level without going through competition, whether it’s high school or joining a team like at Kimball Union, when I was 14 or 15 years old. And then you go to university and there’s competition there. Then you go to World Juniors or wherever. At every level, you’re going to face competition. And it’s great, because it pushes you and makes everyone better. And you just try to do what you can. Trust in your preparation and your training. It’s healthy to have that competition.”
Time will tell if the B’s have found another diamond in the rough in Harris.
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