Jim Montgomery Feels Morgan Geekie’s Doing This Right For Bruins

Morgan Geekie spent some time on the Boston Bruins’ top line while Pavel Zacha was shelved for three games with an upper-body injury.

In those three outings, Geekie flourished as he lit the lamp twice and added an assist while Boston went 1-0-2 in the tough stretch against Metro Division opponents — the New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders and New York Rangers.

Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery noted Geekie’s success was in part because of the forward’s ability to generate second and third efforts in the game.

“If you don’t have it you can’t succeed in this league,” Montgomery explained, per team-provided video. “It’s a second and third-effort league. He has really in the last, I would say eight games… He’s been consistent with his effort. Hanging on to more pucks, he’s separating people and we just need that to be more common. I don’t think that he goes out of his way to lay big hits.”

Montgomery added: “I don’t think that he goes out of his way to try and lay big hits. (…) That natural second and third effort and going through people, it stops plays and it creates either offense, or it gets you out of your (defensive) zone and you’re not playing defense like last game. We had a lot of plays that could have been ended and we didn’t end them, especially in the third period.”

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Along with Geekie, Montgomery pointed out the play of the fourth line in the Bruins’ loss to Minnesota on Tuesday night.

“I saw (Jakub) Lauko, (Oskar) Steen and (John) Beecher … they were all physical last game,” Montgomery said. “But, they didn’t run out of position except for maybe one when Steen put (Pat) Maroon on his rear end behind the net but he probably went five feet out of his way and sometimes that’s your role.”

Even though the Bruins goal scoring is down from last year, Montgomery said the focus is on Boston’s defensive game.

“We’re not too concerned that it’s down. We expected it to be down,” Montgomery said. “We are a little more concerned about how hard and firm we are defensively. That’s a bigger concern, to be honest, because that’s an area where we thought it’s teachable. Myself and the coaching staff, we need to be better to make sure that we’re firm and hard and not giving up as many quality chances as we are.”

With the Bruins surrendering the lead and losing three of the last four games in overtime, Montgomery pointed to what needs to change to change the losses to wins going forward.

“Better puck management. Better defensively and just overall a little more urgency,” Montgomery said. “We’re 2-6 in overtime 3-on-3. We’re not near good enough, and we just got to get better, and we got to practice it more.”

The Bruins bench boss said the entire team needs to play a better 200-foot game to stop the odd-man rush to help close out games.

Boston gets back to work on Friday night when they face the Winnipeg Jets at Canada Life Centre.