After Morgan Geekie potted 33 goals last season – 30 of which were scored after December 2 – it was fair to wonder what kind of season he could put together if he got off to a decent start.
David Pastrnak, after watching Geekie score on a 95 mph slapper from well above the left circle in the B’s 5-2 win over the Islanders on Tuesday, set the bar high for his pal.
“I think he has everything to score 50 in this league,” declared Pastrnak, who knows a thing or two about scoring goals.
Apprised of Pastrnak’s comment, Geekie tried to take it for what it as worth.
“I appreciate it. We’ll see. It’s pretty early still. I mean, any time a player of his caliber says something like that, you take it to heart,” said Geekie after Thursday’s morning skate. “I appreciate it. We’re good friends, but it’s still early. There’s a long way to go. It’s not really on my mind. My favorite projections are the ones when someone has three points in the first game and they’re on pace for like 200 points. We’ll see how things go.”
Geekie has avoided the slow the start that dogged his first couple of seasons as a Bruin. Going into Thursday’s game against the Sabres, he was among a group of players with eight goals, trailing only Nathan MacKinnon, Cole Caufield, Jack Hughes and Pavel Dorofeyev, who all had nine.
Geekie, who signed a six-year deal worth $5.5 million a season over the summer, has so far rolled last year’s finish into this season’s start. Mentally, he got a head start that he had never had before. His previous best 17 goals, scored the previous season.
“I think it’s tough to create confidence when things don’t go in,” said Geekie. “I didn’t come into the league as a guy who was going to score a bunch of goals, so it’s tough to become one of those people without results. So to see them go in last year, especially towards the end of the year, you know you can do it and now when you get the opportunities this year – even the ones you might have passed up on previously – you try to take those chances. Right now, they seem to be going in.”
Geekie would have been the first to tell you that part of his success last year was being put on a line with Pastrnak. But coach Marco Sturm has switched the lines, moving Marat Khusnutdinov up to play with Pastrnak and Elias Lindholm and putting Geekie with rookie center Fraser Minten and Tanner Jeannot. We’ll see if he can have the same kind of success there.
“I think Geeks is a guy who needs a motor in the middle and I think Mints has been absolutely excellent the last few games because of his speed, and he’s pushing. I feel like he’s going to push Geeks to another level,” said Sturm. “And Geeks can do both, he can keep up with it but also he can lead and he can play a grinding game, so that’s why I like that combination a little bit. We had it a little bit in Ottawa, tough game, but last game I went back to it. Not just because of Geeks and that line, but Khus also gave (the top line) a little more speed, too.”
This combo could also help Geekie look for his offense even more.
“He was one of those guys, let’s face it, he was looking for Pasta all the time,” said Sturm. “I always told him, be selfish. Because he’s a goalscorer. He got better at it and I think he’ll be even more direct. He already got better, even on the power play. He’s not looking around anymore. The last goal he scored, that’s being selfish. But in a good way. And that’s what we want him to be. Because he has the quickest release I think on this team and we want him to do that more.”….
After some rough going early on, the second line of Casey Mittelstadt-Pavel Zacha-Viktor Arvidsson has settled down to the point that Sturm now trusts them in key defensive situations. Moving Zacha to the middle has certainly helped.
“They struggled early. We sat down, we watched video. I could see they were trying to get better, trying to fix things. And that’s exactly what they did,” said Sturm. “It was good on them, and now look at it. They’re my number one line against the top lines, too. They’re not just playing better, but I have more and more trust in them to shut down the MacKinnon line or in the last game and the (Matthew) Barzal line. I put them out there all the time.”…
Joonas Korpisalo was pegged to go back in net for the B’s, the first time he’s gotten back-to-back starts since he’s come to Boston. At the end of last season, GM Don Sweeney had concurred with Korpisalo that he probably should have gotten a little more playing time. And if not now, when? He’s coming off an excellent 33-save win over the Islanders while Jeremy Swayman allowed seven goal on 24 shots in Ottawa on Monday….
Hampus Lindholm missed the morning skate, setting off immediate alarm bells considering his recent health history. But it turned out to be joyous news. He and is fiancee Amanda welcomed a baby girl in the morning. The big defenseman was expected in the lineup. If he’s ready to go, Mason Lohrei was set for his second straight scratch.
