Boston Bruins: Charlie Coyle a huge difference in win over Flames
By Luke Ryan
Charlie Coyle celebrated a year as a Boston Bruins player with a strong performance as they won 4-3 against the Calgary Flames.
After going down by three goals in the opening 4 minutes of the match-up, Charlie Coyle was one of several players that refused to give-up early and it was telling that he scored the Boston Bruins’ game-tying goal before the first period was over.
When you look to his Corsi score relative to his teammates, none of his teammates came close to his level of control on the ice; at even-strength his relative Corsi For was 32.12%. His Corsi For alone was 70.83% at even-strength; a truly astounding number.
The Calgary Flames only managed to get 2 shots on goal while he was out on the ice, while the Boston Bruins took 9 shots and netted 2 goals while he was out there.
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His dominance wasn’t the result of seeing more offensive zone starts or any other misnomer; he was actually on the ice at even-strength for more defensive zone face-offs than those at the other end.
Such was his control for the Bruins, Charlie Coyle actually saw the most ice-time of any of their centers bettering Patrice Bergeron by 39 seconds, which is quite surprising.
The newly minted grouping of Coyle, Anders Bjork and Karson Kuhlman is going to be a scary prospect for any upcoming play-off opponent, especially as we should now have the luxury of rolling out a second-line of David Krejci, Jake Debrusk and new signing, Ondrej Kase.
Perhaps more satisfying than Charlie Coyle’s performance was the Boston Bruins’ unwillingness to back down and give up the game, even after conceding three so early in the first period.
Other teams might well have rolled over and ended up allowing their opponents to rack up a ridiculous score. The Bruins instead knuckled down, refused to roll over and in fact were back to even before the first period was done.
That sort of fightback and determination is going to prove vital as we edge ever closer to the play-offs. In fact, even in the battle to win the Atlantic Division!
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Charlie Coyle continues to prove amazing value for the Boston Bruins; there’s very few trade deadline deals that have proven so successful. Hopefully, there’s plenty more to come from him!
Statistics courtesy of Natural Stat Trick.