If the Boston Bruins are going to have even a remote chance to do anything during the Stanley Cup playoffs, they were going to need to get Morgan Geekie back online offensively.<\/p>\n
That finally happened on Tuesday night as Geekie exploded for a hat trick while snapping a 17-game goalless streak, and the Bruins salvaged a point in a 6-5 overtime loss to the Carolina Hurricanes at the Lenovo Center.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole bench was happy when he scored,\u201d said Marco Sturm. \u201cWe need him.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a solid comeback as the B\u2019s fell apart defensively in the second period to the point that Sturm pulled Jeremy Swayman from the game, but stormed back in the third, led by Geekie, Pavel Zacha, and some strong relief goalie work from Joonas Korpisalo.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just lost control in that second period,\u201d said Sturm. \u201cWe just did a lot of bad things out there. This is playoff hockey and you just can\u2019t do those things like that. I don\u2019t we understood that.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut in the third period we wanted to play a certain way that would at least give us a chance. Guys responded really well in the third [period].\u201d<\/p>\n
The goal-scoring outburst, not so surprisingly, coincided with Geekie moving back over to the left wing, and being paired back up with B\u2019s game-breaking winger David Pastrnak.<\/p>\n
It was Pastrnak that collected primary assists on Geekie\u2019s first two goals around the net front prior to Geekie tipping home a Nikita Zadorov blast in the third period to cap off the second hat trick of his career.<\/p>\n
The three-goal performances provide a lot of credible evidence that the Bruins should leave Geekie and Pastrnak together for a prospective postseason, even if Sturm has liked No. 88 skating with rookie Fraser Minten and Russian energizer bunny Marat Khusnutdinov for long stretches of this season.<\/p>\n
The scoring binge was obviously good news for the scuffling Geekie, and the overall five-goal barrage was a welcome bit of offense for a team that struggled to score at all on the four-game road trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s awesome. He\u2019s a heck of a shooter and player for us,\u201d said Pastrnak of Geekie reclaiming his scoring touch. \u201cIt\u2019s good he got the goals\u2026happy for him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The struggles for Geekie seemed to reach a boiling point in Philly when he smashed a stick into the glass in Philly after a golden scoring chance from the slot was blocked by a Flyers defender. But the release that comes with the goal eases the pressure a bit ahead of a potential postseason run for Boston and could portend a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the Boston Bruins are going to have even a remote chance to do anything during the Stanley…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5099],"tags":[154,95,5132,530,5,4,19262,46049,46050],"class_list":{"0":"post-547949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boston-bruins","8":"tag-boston","9":"tag-boston-bruins","10":"tag-bostonbruins","11":"tag-bruins","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-sticky","15":"tag-top-bruins","16":"tag-top-story-2"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116370875852528483","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}