The Bruins’ leadership group is well known. There’s Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, David Krejci and Torey Krug. And since he was obtained at the trade deadline last season, Charlie Coyle has given every indication that he would one day join that core.
In Saturday’s 3-1 Game 3 win over the Carolina Hurricanes, Coyle may have planted his feet in the middle of that group.
The Weymouth native put the Bruins in the lead for good with a second period power-play goal – swatting an aerial rebound of a Marchand shot past Petr Mrazek – and then assisted on the game-winner in the third period on Sean Kuraly‘s shorthanded goal, waiting patiently for Kuraly to get to the front of the net before delivering the pass for the redirect.
“Well we need Charlie Coyle to be an effective player for us, an impact player. He doesn’t have to dominate every night, I don’t think anybody does on our team, but you know we still need secondary scoring,” said coach Bruce Cassidy. “On the shorthanded goal, I understand they gave it to Kuraly but by the same token Charlie was a big part of that. He’s added to our penalty kill. When he first got here we didn’t give him as much responsibility there, we had other guys in the lineup, but he’s kind of pushed his way into that conversation so good for him. You know that means he’s playing PP, PK, and driving a line with Jack Studnicka tonight, a young guy. It was (Anders) Bjork in the past, it’s been (Nick) Ritchie who hasn’t been here a long time so the onus kind of falls on him to be the leader of that line. So that’s what we expect out of Charlie, play well in all those situations. Tonight we got some offense, great, we need it, and he proved himself last year in the playoffs as a guy that we can rely on and he’s proving to be that again.”
Coyle saw a total of 17:08 in icetime, 5:53 on the PP and 2:24 on the kill. Being an all-situations player can bring out the best in a skater.
“If you’re not on special teams and there are a lot of penalties, sometimes you kind of get lost with the rhythm of your shifts, the regular shifts,” said Coyle. “When you’re playing that, PK and power play, you’re always in a situation no matter what happens during the game. I think more players than not are going to find their legs a little more, and it’s easier to stay in the game that way, because you’re involved in those situations. If that’s the case, that’s what they have me doing, then I have to take advantage of that opportunity.”
Teammates back Tuukka
All the players interviewed expressed support for Tuukka Rask in his decision to leave the bubble to be with his family.
“Obviously our first concern is the health and safety of his family. That’s the most important thing we were all kind of thinking about and obviously we support Tuukka’s decision. There is nothing more important than your family. You know at this point we want to make sure that everybody else respects his privacy and you know I think we all just want to wish his family the best and that’s it,” said Chara.
GM Don Sweeney said there was no heath emergency.
Said Bergeron: “Obviously we’re supporting him. We’re behind him and we understand. Family comes first. We’ve always said that. Obviously, we’re a tight group in this locker room. We’ve been together for a while and supporting each other. Obviously, we’re thinking about him and we’re supporting that decision. This locker room, it doesn’t matter who is being asked to step up, it seems like guys come in and do that every time. Jaro (Halak), it’s not an easy task and comes in and gives us a chance to win. He made some huge saves, especially early on to keep us in the game. And I’m talking about him, but obviously the other guys that came in and played great for us.”
Like to have back
Halak on his bad miscue in the third period that led to the lone Carolina goal: “Mistakes, they happen. We try to make the right play out there and I saw an opening, I tried to shoot it out and (Nino Niederreiter) caught it. It ended up in the net, but we were still up. I know I gave them a little bit of life, but I think we responded the right way. And we kept playing our game until the end. You have to give credit to our guys, just stepping up. Guys coming into the lineup and playing hard. That’s playoff hockey.”
#PlayoffKrejci
Krejci had another terrific game. He helped get the Bruins on the board at the start of the second with a perfect cross-corner dump that led to Coyle’s goal and, with the B’s protecting a 2-1 lead with Mrazek pulled, his lob pass sent Marchand off on a breakaway for the empty-netter. His new right wing Ondrej Kase continues to have trouble finishing – getting stoned on a breakaway – but he’s doing just about everything else right. Kase drew another penalty on Saturday.
Banished Bjork
It might be a while before we see Bjork again. He completed the ignominious penalty hat trick with a bad offensive zone trip in the third that led to Niederreiter’s goal. After that, Bjork was replaced on the top line with Chris Wagner.
Lineup shuffle
Cassidy made a couple of changes that worked out well. On the back end, he took out Jeremy Lauzon and inserted Connor Clifton. Then up front, out came Ritchie and Karson Kuhlman and in went Studnicka and Par Lindholm. Lindholm took over the fourth line center position, while Kuraly moved to third line left wing and Studnicka was on Coyle’s right wing.
Clifton skated 13:19 while starting the game with Chara and drew a penalty with a rush to the net, Lindholm had a strong game, especially on the PK and Studnicka had four shots on net.
Banged up
The Canes very well may have lost budding star Andrei Svechnikov long-term. Engaging with Chara in a net-front battle, Svechnikov fell awkwardly and his ankle appeared to bend in an unnatural way, though he appeared to be holding his knee in pain. He needed assistance to get off the ice. There was no definitive update after the game.
“I know he’s getting looked at right now. So it didn’t look very good obviously, fell really awkward. Certainly didn’t look good,” said coach Rod Brind’Amour.
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Bruins Notebook: Charlie Coyle comes through in the clutch again - Boston Herald
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