Bruins’ Charlie Coyle Responds To Challenge From Jim Montgomery

The Bruins’ first week of the season had mixed results, and they hope they can get into a groove during their first road trip of the season.

Boston lost to the Florida Panthers twice in six days, and Monday’s loss at TD Garden showed a lack of effort to head coach Jim Montgomery. He highlighted one player he would like to see step up.

“Charlie Coyle, he looks like he’s not up to speed right now, but he’ll get there,” Jim Montgomery told reporters Tuesday, per a team-provided video. “He’s a veteran player that we’ve relied on in so many areas. I don’t have concerns about Charlie getting to where he needs to be.”

Coyle is a minus-5 with zero points in four games. The middle-six lines in general are not performing to their standard, and Coyle understood what needed to change.

“I think he’s right,” Coyle said. “There’s some games, mostly the games we lost, we’re kind of hesitant a little bit. We’re not on our toes, and we’re not first to battles. When you’re late to battles, it’s hard to win most of them. I’m not saying that as an excuse, but we gotta be on our toes. We gotta be ready to go in the corners, in front of the net, wherever the battle is, right off the baseline. Kind of everywhere on the ice, we just got to dig in a little bit and go into battles saying, ‘Hey, I’m gonna go win this thing.’ Put that in your mind, you’d be amazed how often you come up with the puck or you win that. We need to do a little more of that.”

The 32-year-old noted he needed to get inside more and simplify his game to better help the team. Coyle and Boston will get a chance to bounce back when it takes on the Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena on Wednesday.