A few months after the historic 2022-23 season came to an abrupt end, Coyle and his wife, Danielle, welcomed their first daughter, Lilia Laine Coyle. While the 31-year-old Coyle was preparing for fatherhood, he also spent the summer preparing for the biggest promotion of his NHL career.
BRIGHTON, Mass. – Charlie Coyle had the summer of a lifetime.
A few months after the historic 2022-23 season came to an abrupt end, Coyle and his wife, Danielle, welcomed their first daughter, Lilia Laine Coyle. While the 31-year-old Coyle was preparing for fatherhood, he also spent the summer preparing for the biggest promotion of his NHL career.
Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci, the Bruins’ longtime one-two punch at center, both retired, and Pavel Zacha and Coyle will be replacing them.
Coyle, who has spent the majority of his NHL career as a third-line center, has experience playing in the top six as recently as the playoffs, when Bergeron missed the start of the first round series against the Florida Panthers, but never in a long term capacity.
“I’ve only got a little taste of that, playing with those guys. I’ve kind of had a solidified role, all my [four-and-a-half years here],” Coyle said. “Playing there in the playoffs when we had those guys out, and taking on other teams’ first, second lines and seeing how I fare. That’s just a small sample size, it doesn’t really say much. It’s a new year, so you know, it’s a great opportunity.”
Coyle put up nearly identical scoring numbers over the past two seasons, following up a 44-point 2021-22 with 45 points in 2022-23, scoring 16 goals and playing all 82 games each season.
However, in 2022-23 he stepped up in other areas, leading all Bruins forwards in blocked shots (68) and improving his face-off percentage from 49.1 to a career-best 52.6. It was just the second time in his 11-year career with a face-off percentage above 50 percent, and the first since 2017-18 with the Minnesota Wild (52.2%).
Even at Coyle’s age and experience level, he continues to try and grow his game wherever he can.
“I want to keep improving my game every year, and that’s what you take the summer to do, is go home or wherever you’re going, and put in the work and become better,” Coyle said. “That’s physically, mentally, everything. I want to be a better player and there’s job opportunities open in my position that I play, so it’s a great challenge that I want to take advantage of.”
Bruins head coach Jim Montgomery believes Coyle is ready to take advantage, expressing full belief in Coyle as a top six center when speaking to Steve Conroy of the Boston Herald last week.
“I have a lot of confidence that our top two lines will be very good because I believe Charlie Coyle knows he can do the job and will do the job and Pavel Zacha does too,” Montgomery said to the Herald.
After taking a step up in his defensive game, Coyle said he spent most of the summer fine-tuning the little details. With a bigger offensive role coming up, he wants to get into a mentality of shooting the puck more, and putting himself in better positions to do so.
To get in that head space, Coyle read books, listened to podcasts and talked to players, coaches and even sports psychologists to prepare his mind as much as his body gearing up for this season.
“I think that stuff really helps,” he said. “And maybe it only helps this much, but you’re that much better every time you do those little things, and so I’ve tried all different avenues like that and [we'll] see if it works out.”
The only part of his preparation that’s suffered for the new father Coyle: sleep.
“It could be better, but it’s for a good cause,” Coyle said. “I can’t talk much because whatever I’m not getting, my wife’s about five times worse than that. … Hats off to her, she’s done a great job.”
Whatever energy Coyle has lost at home, he hopes to make up for at TD Garden this season in the biggest opportunity of his career.