Hurricanes getting poised play, nice boost from rookies Martin Necas, Morgan Geekie
Martin Necas had the winning goal in Game 1, getting off a big shot, getting a break.
Morgan Geekie set up a big goal in Game 2, fighting for the puck, making the right pass.
Heading into the Carolina Hurricanes’ qualifying round postseason series with the New York Rangers, one question centered on how the two rookie forwards would play, handle themselves in the heat. The answer after the series: pretty well.
The Canes finished up a sweep of the Rangers on Tuesday at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena, closing out the best-of-five series with a 4-1 win. The Canes claimed a spot in the 16-team Stanley Cup playoff field and will face one of the top four seeds in the Eastern Conference — Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, Washington or Boston.
The playoff brackets will be set after the qualifiers are completed and the seeds set from the round-robin series being played by the top four teams. The Stanley Cup playoffs will have traditional best-of-seven series.
Neither Necas nor Geekie were a part of the Canes’ playoff run to the Eastern Conference finals last year. Both were with the Charlotte Checkers, the Canes’ American Hockey League affiliate, and a part of a Calder Cup championship team.
Necas, a former first-round pick by the Canes, was injured late in postseason training camp at PNC Arena and missed practice time once in Toronto. But the Czech winger was in the lineup Saturday and scored in Game 1 on a blast from the left circle, the puck glancing off the skate of Rangers defenseman Marc Staal and past goalie Henrik Lundqvist for a 3-1 lead.
Necas, 21, took a big hit at center ice early in the game, sandwiched between the Rangers’ Pavel Buchnevich and Brendan Smith. Welcome to the show, kid. But he bounced up and played on.
“It was a fast game, especially for me in the first period,” Necas said after the 3-2 Canes victory. “I touched the puck my first shift and got hit right away, kind of a wakeup call. Everything was fast but it was a good game.”
Necas played 64 games in the 2019-20 regular season, using his speed and quickness to score 16 goals. “There’s a dynamic ability that he has you just can’t teach,” Canes coach Rod Brind’Amour said during training camp.
It was a different path for Geekie. A third-round draft pick in 2017 by Carolina, Geekie, 22, was a callup from the Checkers in early March.
In his first NHL game, against the Pittsburgh Penguins, the center had two goals and an assist and was named the game’s first star as the Canes won. He scored again in his next game, March 10 at Detroit in another Canes win.
Then, the long pause. The coronavirus pandemic made for a four-month break in the NHL, leaving some to wonder how Brind’Amour might use Geekie when the postseason training camp finally opened July 13 in Raleigh.
“We’ve got to remember he is just a young kid and doesn’t have much experience,” Brind’Amour said during camp. “He definitely showed in that small sample size that he can be part of something for us, for sure.”
Brind’Amour had Geekie centering the fourth line with Brock McGinn and Jordan Martinook in against the Rangers. In Game 2, barely a minute after Andrei Svechnikov gave the Canes a 2-1 lead in the second period, Martinook scored what might have been the back-breaker for New York.
Geekie first won a puck battle with defenseman Tony DeAngelo below the goal line coming off the end boards. He backhanded a pass across the crease to an open Martinook — Geekie’s first NHL postseason point.
Welcome to the show, kid.
“He’s poised,” Martinook said. “He holds on to pucks and he works. He’s a good complement to me and Brock.”
In Tuesday’s game, Geekie had almost 13 minutes of ice time and won six of eight faceoffs. It was his line that was a part of the long, grinding shift in the Rangers zone -- Geekie was out for 1:32 -- that ended with Teuvo Teravainen scoring in the second period for a 1-1 tie.
Necas was credited with an assist on Warren Foegele’s third-period goal that gave the Canes a 2-1 lead.
A year ago, Foegele was a rookie forward making noise for the Canes in the playoffs. This year, it’s Necas and Geekie in Toronto.
This story was originally published August 4, 2020 at 3:44 PM.
