How Surging Morgan Geekie Found Groove On Bruins’ Top Line

The Boston Bruins won a tight game against the Ottawa Senators on Thursday night at TD Garden.

Morgan Geekie scored the game-winning goal just 2:06 into the second period for his 13th tally of the season.

The 26-year-old forward struggled at the beginning of the season, but since interim head coach Joe Sacco put Geekie on the top line with David Pastrnak and Pavel Zacha, he’s found his offensive rhythm. He scored six goals in December and five so far in January.

“I think just chemistry. Just going out there and playing,” Geekie told reporters, as seen on NESN’s postgame coverage. “At least for me, a lot less thinking. Just kind of going and playing. We’re all creatures of habit. We like to do the same things all the time. And you get to learn where those guys are all the time and the tendencies they have.”

Geekie scored the opening goal against the New Jersey Devils the night before to extend his goal streak to two games, and David Pastrnak had the primary helper on his goal in the win over the Senators to extend his scoring streak to six games.

“We think we can produce and help the team,” Geekie said. “I think that’s something that we’re trying to take a lot of pride in as a line and be responsible in our own end as well.”

Last season, Geekie had career highs in goals (17), assists (22) and points (39) across 76 games with the Bruins. Geekie has 13 goals, 11 assists and 24 points in 45 games this season. It’s more than likely he will at least eclipse his goal output this season if he keeps the pace up over the last 32 games of the regular season. His 13 tallies put him third on the team behind Pastrnak (24) and Brad Marchand (17).

The Bruins needed to win this game after losing a deflating 5-1 decision to the Devils the night before.

“It’s huge. I mean, it speaks volumes,” Geekie said.”Just how we can play when we play our game and the way we responded, is something we gotta take a lot of pride in. It’s a game we can build off of for sure. … Just play well in our own end, we know the chances will come, obviously. It was a tight game today, but a few of those chances go in for us, and we can open it up. We’re going to do ourselves a lot of favors going down the road.”

The Senators outshot the Bruins 30-26, but Boston used their physicality and took the body every chance they had, outhitting Ottawa 27-20.

“We’ve got a lot of big bodies on this team,” Geekie said. “A lot of guys that play heavy but can make plays, and I think that’s something that we sometimes get away from, and we forget what the strengths of our team are. Behind the net is something I think a lot of guys thrive off of, and anytime you can go low to high, get our D-men involved too, it creates chances.”