The St. Louis Blues don’t need a reminder to keep track of Boston Bruins winger Morgan Geekie Tuesday night.
When the teams played Dec. 4 in Boston, Geekie scored a goal and earned two assists as the Bruins rolled to a 5-2 victory. His scoring ability will be top of mind for the Blues when they host the Bruins in the rematch.
Geekie has scored 10 goals in his last nine games, giving him 22 goals in 30 games.
“Just doing whatever it takes to win,” Geekie said after the Bruins defeated the New Jersey Devils 4-1 Saturday. “Sometimes, they aren’t pretty.”
NHL.com notes that during the last five decades, Geekie has scored the third-most goals by a Bruin through 30 games, behind only Cam Neely (34 in 1993-94) and David Pastrnak (25 in 2019-20).
After scoring 39 goals in his first 256 NHL games, Geekie has scored 55 goals in his last 107.
The key to his growth, Geekie said, is getting to the right spot in the offensive zone at the right time.
“You just learn,” he said. “It’s a league of repetition. As much as every game isn’t the same, goals are scored in a lot of same areas all the time. Just being able to consistently get there is something that’s big for me.”
Pavel Zacha scored twice in the previous Bruins-Blues game and Viktor Arvidsson had a goal and an assist. Joonas Korpisalo drew the start in goal in that game and made 37 saves.
The Bruins and Blues have both won their last two games. After falling at Boston, the Blues won 2-1 at Ottawa and 4-3 at Montreal over the weekend.
“I still feel like we have a long way to go, and we know that in this room,” Blues captain Brayden Schenn said. “But you have to start somewhere and you have to build slowly and play hard for one another. I think we showed that the past two games.”
St. Louis embarked on its three-game road trip without injured forwards Jimmy Snuggerud, Nathan Walker and Alexey Toropchenko. Then winger Jordan Kyrou suffered a left leg injury against the Canadiens.
Those casualties forced coach Jim Montgomery to continue shuffling his forward lines while searching for new combinations that click.
“There’s a lot of juggling with lines and guys are trying to find it, guys are playing different positions from shift to shift,” Schenn said. “But at the end of the day, there’s no complaints. Guys are going out there and playing hard for one another. When you do that, you start to build something and you can feel it.”
Forwards Pavel Buchnevich (three goals, four assists in his last nine games) and Dylan Holloway (three goals, five assists in nine games) have picked up their scoring pace after suffering cold starts this season.
“I think we’ve been trending in the right direction, just playing for each other, making plays,” Holloway said. “I think when we’re at our best and we’re playing four lines, getting it in deep, rolling them over, I think the offense will come. We’ve got a lot of skill up front, obviously, we’re missing a few guys, but we really pulled through together for each other.”
–Field Level Media
