When Boston Bruins general manager Don Sweeney traded for Charlie Coyle at the trade deadline in February of 2019, he was hoping that the Boston native would be able to solve the Black and Gold’s need for a third-line center.
Coyle proved to be the missing link in the bottom-six forward grouping that they were missing. Sweeney and the Bruins liked him so much, that they gave him a six-year, $31.5 million contract last season. In 2019-20, he scored 16 goals and had 21 assists in all 70 regular-season games with a plus/minus (+/-) of plus-9.
This season, however, has been a different story for the 28-year-old. He is off to one of the worst starts to a season in his ninth NHL season, but if the Bruins are going to be a team that wants to make the playoffs and make a deep run, they will need Coyle to be the player he was last season.
Bruins are hoping Coyle’s goal at Lake Tahoe can get him going.
Coyle has struggled in just about every aspect of the game in 2021. In 15 games prior to Sunday night’s outdoor game at Lake Tahoe against the Philadelphia Flyers, he had just two goals and two assists with a minus-2.
His Corsi-For percentage (CF%) is 51.1, while his Fenwick-For percentage (FF%)is 49.6. His expected goal for (xGF) is 3.5. He has 24 shots on the net with only 11 hits and is averaging 16:43 a night.
With all that said, Coyle was bumped to the second-line Sunday night between Nick Ritchie and Craig Smith against the Flyers after David Krejci was injured in Thursday’s 3-2 loss to the New Jersey Devils.
Coyle responded with one of his better games of the season to date. In nearly 18 minutes of ice time, he had three shots on the net and was second in penalty killing time behind Charlie McAvoy at 2:25.
He also scored his third goal of the season in the second period to begin a three-goal Bruins onslaught over a 99-second span when he scored on a wrist shot from the bottom of the right circle and beat Flyers goalie Carter Hart between the near post and his body. It was a shot that an NHL goalie stops most of the time, but this time the puck found the back of the net.
Can that tough angle goal get Coyle producing more? The Bruins hope so. I’m not saying that he needs to be a 20-goal scorer, but any secondary production is something that the Bruins will gladly take. Sometimes a lucky goal like that can get a player going and the Black and Gold hope that is the case with Coyle.