Talking Points: Coyle Brings The Offense in Boston Bruins Win

BOSTON – Here are the Talking Points from the Boston Bruins 3-2 shootout win over the Florida Panthers at TD Garden on Saturday night to hand the Panthers their first loss of the regular season.

GOLD STAR: Charlie Coyle. There have plenty of valid questions about whether or not the Weymouth kid is going to be able to bring enough offense to be the No. 2 center on the Bruins, but he had just enough on Saturday night. Coyle scored the B’s first goal in the first period when he sniped a Taylor Hall dish to the top corner of the net. It was the perfect shot through a moving screen that Spencer Knight was not able to pick up and it gave the B’s center his third goal of the season in the first seven games of the regular season. That’s really not too shabby for Coyle, who then went out and used his long reach and stick to beat Knight again in the shootout to cinch the two points for the Black and Gold. Coyle finished with the goal, four shots on net, two hits, a takeaway and a blocked shot while winning 10-of-16 faceoffs in 19:33 big minutes of ice time for the Boston Bruins.

When you look up “snipe” in the hockey dictionary pic.twitter.com/FCnVY1Wjfl

— Joe Haggerty (@HackswithHaggs) October 30, 2021

BLACK EYE: What has happened to Patric Hornqvist? The Swedish forward was somebody that you always noticed when he was playing for the Pittsburgh Penguins because he was hard-to-play-against, pesky around the net and able to chip in occasion offense as well. But he hasn’t really been somebody that’s been noticeable much all in the two Bruins/Panthers games played over the last four days and was downright invisible on Saturday night. Hornqvist managed only one hit and a minus-1 in 8:37 of ice time in a truly forgettable game. Maybe he’s just pretty close to done at 34 years old after logging some hard miles in the NHL?

TURNING POINT: The Boston Bruins power play has been much maligned over the last couple of days as it’s sputtered out of the gate this season, but it was the PP that salvaged the game for them in the third period. After going 0-for-2, the B’s got one more power play chance in the third and proved that the third time was the charm for the Boston Bruins. Just six seconds into the PP possession, Brad Marchand worked down the side boards and fed a pass to Charlie McAvoy crashing the backdoor for the game-tying power play strike. It was the power play kicking in a big-time goal at a time when it absolutely had to produce in order to prolong the game and eventually set up the shootout win.

HONORABLE MENTION: Linus Ullmark played a very strong game for the Bruins ultimately stopping 33-of-35 shots and standing tall in the shootout with a valuable point on the line. Ullmark continues to look more and more comfortable in a Boston Bruins uniform and was probably at his best in the second period when he stopped 14-of-15 shots while remaining quiet in the Boston crease. Ullmark currently has a .927 save percentage and a 2.23 goals against average in the four games he’s played while getting off to a 3-1-0 start to the season.

BY THE NUMBERS: 600 – the number of career NHL points for Taylor Hall after the opening assist on Charlie Coyle’s score against Florida. Hall would add a second assist to finish with 601 points at the end of the game.

QUOTE TO NOTE: “It’s all part of the Halloween costume.” –Charlie Coyle, joking about the gash above his eyebrow from a deflected puck hitting him in the head and the visor before leaving a mark.