Boston Bruins 2023-24 Player Grades: Morgan Geekie
Following the retirements of Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, the Boston Bruins came into the 2023-24 season with a gaping hole in their top two centermen roles.
Figuring they needed to find a solution (and fast) given how late into the offseason both Bergeron and Krejci announced their respective retirements, the Bruins decided to move Pavel Zacha and Charlie Coyle to the top two spots, which largely worked throughout the season, the latter of which worked out quite well for Boston.
Then out of nowhere, the Bruins signed Morgan Geekie to a two-year, $2 million contract following four seasons elsewhere - two with the Carolina Hurricanes, and two with the Seattle Kraken.
At first, Geekie's role wasn't exactly defined, but as the season wore on, he became a fixture on Boston's power play, anchoring the man-advantages center role and taking faceoffs like a champ winning his draws at a 44.1% clip, good enough for third on the team behind the aforementioned Coyle and Zacha.
Geekie also played the role of third line center perfectly, but you wouldn't know it was the third line the way he played his role.
Geekie's regular season stats
Unfortunately, for Geekie goal scoring came at a premium to start the season, as he only tallied eight goals and 15 assists before the All-Star break. However, much to his (and the team's) delight, Geekie's stick came alive in the second half of the season and he became bit more selfish with the puck.
Geekie only racked up seven more assists, but tallied nine goals as he finished the regular season playing in a career-high 76 games with 17 goals and 22 assists.
While, he tallied his second highest plus/minus rating at +6, he also set a career-high in average time on ice per game with a time of 15:24. Geekie also set a record for shot percentage with a total of 13.1%.
Some of his most productive time came when he was on the power play where he scored four goals, and tallied eight assists.
Geekie's postseason stats
Geekie was one of the more dynamic skaters that the Bruins had out there in the postseason, where he shared second place in goals scored with David Pastrnak with four, only trailing fellow forward Jake DeBrusk who had five in the postseason.
He played in all 13 games throughout the playoffs, and in fact, scored one of their last goals of the season when he opened the scoring in Game 5 in Florida.
Geekie had many other smooth goals throughout the playoffs other than this one, but this was perhaps the cleanest looking one and one of the most devastating for the Panthers, so, of course, we had to pick this one.
Overall assessment
In his first year with Boston, Geekie definitely played a big part on the team, and helped them to get to where they needed to be (past the first round of the playoffs). Geekie was a solid member at the faceoff dot, was disciplined on the ice, and took the shot when he needed to, but was not afraid to dish out a pass when someone was open.