Haggerty: Time For Coyle To Elevate For Boston Bruins |BHN+

Let’s be honest here, Boston Bruins fans.

Charlie Coyle is probably never going to be a 30-goal scorer for the Boston Bruins, and he isn’t expected to ever to be a No. 1 center for a team like the Black and Gold. Coyle is a big, strong and fast two-way center that’s really a perfect fit for the third line of a hockey club with two high-end top-6 centers in Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci.

Even better, many of Coyle’s best qualities rise to the surface in the Stanley Cup playoffs where his considerable size and speed plays in a bigger way with the elevated intensity and heightened physicality in the postseason, and that’s a very good thing.

But there are times when Coyle falls into a rut during the regular season where he passes up shot attempts, loses some puck-possession aggressiveness in the offensive zone and stops crashing the net while generally fading into the background picture. It simply shouldn’t happen over a long period given the kind of talent that the 6-foot-3, 220-pounder brings to the table, but it’s happening again to the Bruins pivot as of late.