Bruins’ Coyle the center of attention

Charlie Coyle has learned not to get stressed about things being just so, and as he and the Bruins prepare to resume an NHL season halted more than four months ago by COVID-19, that’s an especially valuable quality.

"Anything can happen — as we know with what everyone’s dealing with right now," said the 28-year-old center from Weymouth, Massachusetts. "So you’ve got to be ready for anything, for the unexpected, and be comfortable in it."

Coyle was [...]

Charlie Coyle has learned not to get stressed about things being just so, and as he and the Bruins prepare to resume an NHL season halted more than four months ago by COVID-19, that’s an especially valuable quality.

"Anything can happen — as we know with what everyone’s dealing with right now," said the 28-year-old center from Weymouth, Massachusetts. "So you’ve got to be ready for anything, for the unexpected, and be comfortable in it."

Coyle was one of the more fortunate Bruins through their first week back on the ice, which were marked by the absence of scoring leader David Pastrnak and Ondrej Kase, the right wings on their top two lines. Somehow, head coach Bruce Cassidy’s experiments with replacements left Coyle, who centers the third line, with the same wingers throughout the early practices: Nick Ritchie on the left side, Sean Kuraly on the right.

There was a catch, of course. Coyle hadn’t previously played with Ritchie, who was obtained in a trade with the Ducks on Feb. 24, and Kuraly isn’t a right wing.

So why would Cassidy form a brand-new line after a four-month layoff, and with only a few weeks to prepare for the resumption of their season on Aug. 2? Because the coach hoped to reestablish previous chemistry on the second line (left wing Jake DeBrusk replaced Ritchie, who played next to center David Krejci after he was acquired), he wanted to maintain chemistry and consistency on the fourth line (Joakim Nordstrom, Par Lindholm and Chris Wagner), which Kuraly has centered for most of his three seasons in Boston, and because a Ritchie-Coyle-Kuraly line would be huge. (Nordstrom was missing from Friday’s practice because he was "unfit to practice." )

"It’s a big line that can protect pucks down low, that can be responsible, gives you a bit of everything," Cassidy said of Coyle (6-feet-3, 220 pounds), Ritchie (6-2, 230) and Kuraly (6-2, 213). "The size factor, for that line, is intriguing."

The Bruins, who resume play in a three-game round-robin tournament before entering the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs, didn’t have a line like that a year ago. It didn’t prevent them from reaching the Stanley Cup final, but it did contribute to their inability to beat the bigger, more physical Blues over a seven-game series.

Coyle, acquired from the Wild for Scituate, Mass.’ Ryan Donato on Feb. 20, 2019, shined for the hometown B’s in the postseason, tying for the team lead with nine goals and finishing with 16 points over 24 games. He was at 16 goals and 37 points through 70 games this season, despite playing with a variety of wingers — including Danton Heinen, whom the B’s gave up to obtain Ritchie. Kuraly was his left wing for the last two games before the NHL entered its pause on March 12.

So new linemates are actually nothing new at all, and Coyle will work hard to adjust to Ritchie and Kuraly — and whoever else he might skate between.

"Three big bodies," he said. "We should be all over that puck, protecting it, making it hard for most teams to take it from us and go the other way. And yeah, It would be ideal to know who you’re playing with … get that chemistry, get the reps in practice, start to really get down each other’s tendencies so we can just read off each other.

"That’s the goal. Is it always going to be like that? No, it’s not. But we all know playoff hockey, with injuries, sickness, whatever the case may be, you’ve got to be ready. Next man up, do the best you can with what you’ve got."

Coyle, who signed a six-year contract extension worth more than $30 million in late November, made do throughout the NHL layoff. He and Wagner, a South Shore Kings teammates after Coyle played at Weymouth High School and Thayer Academy, worked out and skated together before the Bruins began practicing this week.

"Me and Charlie had a good little set-up going," said Wagner, who’s from Walpole. "(Coyle) drives the bus as far as that … He’s a workhorse on and off the ice, takes his off-ice training seriously. It’s nice to follow him in that aspect."

Coyle, meanwhile, is a follower when it comes to the health and safety protocols that have changed the previous routine at Warrior Arena, and will do the same once the Bruins get to the Eastern Conference hub city of Toronto, where they’ll live and play in a "bubble" environment. It’s a bit like adapting to new linemates.

"It’s just knowing the rules, obeying the rules, getting used to that kind of routine … It’ll just become natural," he said. "

"That’s what we’re kind of expecting, whether it’s right now at our own rink, or when we get to Toronto — the hotel life, stuff at the rink over there, getting used to the new way of doing it, and getting comfortable as quick as we can. Then we can just settle in and focus on what we need to focus on."