Morgan Geekie is back in Raleigh, N.C., on Tuesday night, this time wearing Bruins colors against the team that drafted him in June 2017. The 67th pick in that NHL Draft will face the Hurricanes with both clubs near the top of the NHL standings.
That is part of what makes Bruins Vs Hurricanes matter beyond a normal early-season game. The Bruins are 9-2-1 through 12 games and own the NHL’s leading points percentage at.792, while the Hurricanes are 9-2-2 through 13 games and are right behind at.769. Geekie, who signed with the Bruins as an unrestricted free agent in the summer of 2023, has 9 points through the first dozen games and comes in after a career-high 68 points in 81 games last season.
He has traveled a long way from the uncertainty that followed his time in Carolina. The Hurricanes did not protect him in the Seattle expansion draft four years after they picked him, and he later landed on the Kraken’s inaugural roster. Geekie has talked openly about how hard that stretch was at a young age, saying he started to question himself and the kind of player he was when he was not established.
Now the numbers point the other way. He has 246 regular-season games for the Bruins and 90 goals in Bruins play, and he said he does not care about the fact that he has only one goal through the first dozen games this season. Eight Black-and-Gold forwards already have three goals or more, and that spread has allowed him to focus on whatever helps the group most, including work around the bumper position on the power play if he gets the chance.
Geekie said the championship run in Charlotte was a key turning point for his confidence, and his first two NHL games followed the next season before he played 36 NHL games in the COVID-shortened 2020-21 season. He now sounds like a player who knows exactly where he fits. After Monday’s workout in Brighton, he pointed to the matchup ahead and said, “We’ve got the two best records in the East going at it tomorrow,” adding that it is hard to complain when the team is sitting at the top. Tuesday night will show whether that confidence travels with him back into the building where his NHL story began.
