Morgan Geekie’s contract is one of the best values in the NHL. The 27-year-old signed a six-year, $33 million extension in June, giving him a $5.5 million cap hit through 2031. Coming off far and away his best season, scoring 33 goals and 57 points in 77 games, the deal looked team-friendly for the Bruins. There was some risk in committing long-term, given how much of an outlier the season appeared to be, but the cap hit was still more than reasonable, even if his numbers regressed.
Nineteen games into the first season of this deal, Geekie hasn’t regressed at all. In fact, he’s actually outpacing last year by a wide margin. With 12 goals and 18 points, he’s projected to score roughly 52 goals and 78 points over an 82-game season. If general manager Don Sweeney felt good about the extension based on last season’s production, he must be over the moon at the way this season has unfolded.
At $5.5 million, Geekie’s current pace is giving the Bruins clear top-line output at a mid-range cap number. In a salary-capped league, deals like this are rare and give the Bruins room to invest elsewhere in the long term. Team-friendly deals when resigning players have become somewhat of the norm for Sweeney throughout his tenure as the team’s general manager and it’s allowed the Bruins to maintain a competitive level throughout the majority of his time in Boston.
Realistically, Geekie probably won’t maintain this torrid pace over the course of the entire season. That said, he is playing across from David Pastrnak who has been one of the most dominant forwards in the entire NHL for the majority of his career. It’s not out of the realm of possibility for both players to maintain this pace and be complete difference makers for the Bruins the rest of the way.
The number that looks particularly high for Geekie this season is his 26.1% shooting percentage. Though that number looks unsustainable at first glance, it’s important to note that he had a 22% shooting percentage last season, which was a jump from his 13.1% from the season prior. While the number keeps rising, the fact that he was able to sustain such a high mark last season means that this season’s mark maintaining its level throughout the season isn’t impossible.
When you compare Geekie’s $5.5 million cap hit to other forwards producing similar goal totals, the value becomes clear: Nathan MacKinnon ($12.6M), Martin Necas (newly signed $11.5M), Leon Draisaitl ($14M), Bo Horvat ($8.5M), Cole Caufield ($7.85M), Pastrnak ($11.25M), Sidney Crosby ($8.7M), and rising star Wyatt Johnson ($8.4M). All of these players are in the same goal-scoring neighborhood as Geekie, yet the Bruins are paying significantly less for someone producing at a comparable level.
Other players with the same or higher goal totals have either yet to sign extensions, such as Cutter Gauthier, Leo Carlsson, and Kiefer Sherwood, or are at the tail end of their careers with friendlier cap hits, like John Tavares and Brad Marchand. For the production Geekie has delivered, his contract ranks as one of the biggest steals in the NHL.
Playing alongside Pastrnak has obviously made things easier for Geekie, but it’s also not fair to just call him a passenger at this point. Nobody in the world is going to look at the Bruins and say that Geekie and Pastrnak are the same caliber of player, but it’s also not fair to say anyone could produce the way Geekie has, dating back to last season. Geekie’s skillset complements Pastrnak’s in a very big way. Ultimately, when a player with legitimate finishing talent gets to play next to a top-three goal scorer in the league, it’s not surprising that the results look amplified.
The Bruins have also put a lot more trust in Geekie since his first season with the team. His average ice time has increased every season since signing with the Bruins back in 2023. His first season saw him average 15:25 of ice time over 76 games. The number jumped to 16:55 of ice time last season, and it’s gone up again this season to 18:05 minutes per game. This increased ice time, including nearly 70% offensive-zone starts over the past two seasons, has allowed Geekie and Pastrnak to feast and there’s no indication this will be changing any time soon.
The Bruins are currently tied with the Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators with 22 points apiece in the Atlantic Division, though the Bruins have played one more game than the Senators and two more than the Canadiens. Still, this season has gone better than anyone could have expected of the Bruins, especially after a six-game losing streak created some difficult conversations. The team has bounced back since then and Geekie has been as important a cog in the machine as anybody else on the roster. His contract should only increase in value as the NHL’s salary cap continues to increase, putting the Bruins in good shape when other young players require extensions in the future.
The Detroit Lions have a key Sunday night game against the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles and the game will go a long way towards determining postseason positioning in the NFC. The Eagles have a 7-2 record and are one game ahead of the Lions, but if Detroit can win this challenging road game, the Lions will have the tiebreaker if the two teams finish with the same record in the standings and both are division champions.
Beating the Eagles on their home turf is a difficult assignment, but ESPN insider Mina Kimes pointed out that the Lions would be in a solid position to pull off the victory if they employed three-WR setups with some degree of frequency.
That suggestion appears to be an insightful one because the defensive backfield does not appear to be the Eagles’ area of greatest strength.
If the Lions are employing three wide receivers — including Amon-Ra St. Brown, Jameson Williams and Kalif Raymond — the Eagles are expected to counter with three cornerbacks. They include Quinyon Mitchell, Adoree Jackson and Kelee Ringo. Those three cover men may be vulnerable against the Lions. St. Brown is the dominant receiver of the trio, while Williams can be explosive when he is on the receiving end of Jared Goff’s passes.
Goff is one of the best quarterbacks in the league, and he is having a sensational season. He has completed 202 of 273 passes for 2,235 yards with an impressive 20-3 TD to interception ratio. As long as the Lions offensive line can give Goff adequate time to survey his receivers, he is a remarkably accurate passer.
St. Brown is one of the best route runners in the league. He has been targeted 82 times this season and he has caught 64 passes for 693 yards with 8 of his receptions resulting in touchdowns. St. Brown should have a physical advantage over any of the Philadelphia cornerbacks.