Despite the rarified air he is currently occupying, Morgan Geekie is not a player to demand his “flowers.”

We are now past Thanksgiving and Geekie – a player who just three summers was not even qualified by his former team, the Seattle Kraken – remains in a neck-and-neck race for the Rocket Richard Trophy with the most explosive player this side of Connor McDavid, Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon.

Both have 20 goals after Saturday’s games. And while MacKinnon has been the more complete offensive player – he’s got 20-24-44 totals while Geekie is going for the Cy Young with 20-6-26 – Geekie’s feat so far may be even more impressive than what the uber-gifted MacKinnon has done.

The Avs are a juggernaut. The Bruins, simply put, are not. And there have been nights this season when, if Geekie isn’t scoring for the B’s, no one is.

He’s even more important now that David Pastrnak has been out the last couple of games. Coach Marco Sturm wasn’t so sure how Geekie would perform without the B’s most gifted offensive player to him. But he’s scored three goals in the two games Pastrnak has been out, including both regulation goals in the B’s 3-2 shootout win over Detroit on Saturday.

“It shows me, and us, that he’s a damn good player,” said Sturm after that win.

Though Geekie scored 33 goals last season – most of which came after Thanksgiving – he’s getting a kick out of his see-saw battle with MacKinnon.

“I’m not supposed to be there, so…I don’t know, it’s fun. It’s cool,” said Geekie with a bemused smile. “I used to watch that guy growing up. I know he’s not that much older than me but he was in the league a lot longer than I was. It’s cool, super fun, but it’s still early and there’s a lot of season left.”

Geekie admitted he feels he doesn’t quite belong in the same conversation as MacKinnon.

“A little bit, yeah. That’s not say that I don’t think I’m a good player, but those guys are a different caliber its seems, at least in my mind,” said Geekie.

But what he does take a lot of pride in is the way he’s stepped up for his team, especially since they’ve been beset by injuries. But he was careful to spread that credit around.

“I think I’ve been here long enough,” he said. “The core has changed a little bit since the first time I came in. Obviously we have a lot of our core guys out. And for a guy who’s supposed to be here for a little while longer, it’s kind of on our shoulders, me and (Nikita Zadorov) and (Hampus and Elias Lindholm) and just the guys who’ve been around here a little longer, (Pavel Zachha) – sorry, I don’t want to miss anybody — it’s upon us to lead these guys and however that’s going to be. Tonight, it was two goals. But you saw (Jeremy Swayman) and how he played and Lindy and Z on the back end, so I think it’s just a little bit of everything from everybody right now.”

He’s scoring in different ways. While he can pound the puck – he has the hardest shot of the season so far at 103.3 mph – he has scored on a couple of high tips in the last couple of games. It has been quite a season so far, one that has allowed the B’s to stay in playoff contention.

Maybe some day he’ll carry himself like a star off the ice, but he could not be further from that right now.

“I think he’s humble and that’s the kind of guy he is,” said Swayman. “He’s never going to be a ‘me me me’ guy. That’s a leadership quality. I’m so happy for him that he sticks to himself and has his own elite self-culture. It’s powerful and it bleeds into the room.”…

Speaking of Swayman, he finished off November an impressive 8-2 and has upped his save percentage to .915. He’s playing like the guy the B’s spent $66 million on last year.

Sturm said he had a conversation with him about not worrying about being a leader.

“I think one thing that may have happened in the past, because he’s an older guy, too, he’s been around a little bit, he thought he had to do more. That’s something I talked to him about. I want him to concentrate on just stopping the puck,” said Sturm. “I think we have another group and a lot of guys who can act as leaders. They are leaders. For him, it’s ‘you’ve got one job to do.’ I think that’s something he went back to. You don’t have to worry about anything else…That’s something I think helped him, for sure.”

Swayman should also be a strong candidate to wear red, white and blue come Olympic time. He might even play himself into playing time. Swayman was a backup for Four Nations and led the USA to gold in the World Championships last spring.

“It’s a life goal of mine to be on the Olympic team and I do know that if I do my job with the Boston Bruins it’s going to put me in good position to be there one day,” said Swayman. “So I’m just going to stick to my day to day life and hopefully it works out the right way.”…

Sturm said that Mark Kastelic may not have been wild about him moving to wing instead of center but the coach’s move has worked out. But Sturm said he’s taken his role on the third line and penalty kill and gotten more out of it than even the coach imagined.

Sturm also uses Kastelic to take the first faceoff in overtime, where possession is paramount to success. Is that a bone that Sturm throws to him?

“Not a bone. That’s the wrong word. We want the puck, first of all, and we think with him getting it on the faceoff, he’s our best guy. And now, he’s already waiting for it. That’s the best part,” said Sturm with a wide grin. “I talk to him about it and he’s like ‘yeah, that’s my job.’ And now when it’s OT, I can see him looking back. And of course I’m going to get him out there because we’ve been pretty good in our OT so far. And he’s been winning every one of them, knock on wood. Don’t want to jinx him.”

Kastelic, who scored a knockdown on Moritz Seider in a first period fight, takes pride in that particular niche role.

“It’s a great opportunity for me to do a job for the team,” said Kastelic, who heads to the bench once the faceoff is won. “I feel like I have a role. It’s just little moments like that where I take a lot of pride in personally. It’s great to feel that trust from the coaching staff to be put in those big moments. It’s been pretty cool to go out there and guys on the team. It’s such a little thing, but they hype me up so much. It’s awesome to see.”…

The B’s assigned Georgii Merkulov to Providence on Sunday.