Charlie Coyle had his best NHL season in 2015-16 notching career highs in goals and points. Still he didn’t score a goal in his last 18 games, and it has everyone wondering if Coyle will be ready to assume his top line role again with the Wild?
It was hard to see the positives last season for the Minnesota Wild last season. The collapse of January into February made it hard to see that one player had an excellent breakout season. Charlie Coyle quietly started to rise above his 12 and 11 goal performances of the previous two seasons to finish with a tally of 21 which was a career high in 2016-17. It was a defining season where we all saw the promise of the young Coyle realized and the player go from having potential to having results.
Drafted in the 1st round of the 2010 NHL Entry Draft (28th overall) by the Sharks, Coyle was the traded to the Wild during the offseason in 2011 as part of the trade that send Brent Burns to the Sharks. So because he was part of the trade of such a beloved the fans and the Wild had high expectations for the former Boston University and QMJHL star to develop quickly. Sure his rise was fast a good, but up until last season he was really putting up third line numbers.
It just seemed that in his first seasons with the Wild, Coyle was being asked to play more physically and play a solid two-way game as a big center. He handled the roll very well, but it just seemed that he had something left in the tank he wasn’t able to get out. Coyle had scoring touch but something seemed to be holding him back.
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Looking back on his performance in college, the QMJHL, and the AHL Coyle was a Center and highly effective on both sides of the puck. However, his goal totals were never very high with his highest total coming in the QMJHL with 15 goals for the St. Johns Sea Dogs. As with most centers the need to be a strong up front and be a two-way player most likely was keeping Coyle from concentrating completely on scoring.
Very soon after his call-up to the Wild it became obvious that he could play the wing. Despite showing lots of promise as a winger, a shortage of center talent in the organization kept him playing up the middle. The Wild last season decided they needed to give Charlie that chance to play wing full time, and looked to acquire a center to take that spot and free him up to play the wing.
On December 15th the Wild picked up Jarret Stoll off waivers from the Rangers and brought him in to play center. This is when Coyle moved to Right Wing full-time and broke out. Since Stoll’s acquisition to March 1st Coyle scored 15 of his 21 goals. And what was more impressive is that he was scoring even with the rest of the team was slumping in January and February.
He just continued to score and climb up the lineup till he hit the top line. But at the end of the season Coyle seemed to have a goal scoring outage that saw him go goalless for the last 18 games, and he only notched one goal in the six playoff games against Dallas. It wasn’t because he changed lines, it just seemed that he slowed down.
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This season it has been widely predicted that Coyle will be on the top line again. But after his power outage at the end of the season can we Coyle back to his 20+ goal top line form? Or will he revert back to his lower scoring third line production?
The good money his that he’ll be able to get back to his 20+ goal form and stay on the top line. Having Eric Staal centering his line will be huge as he’ll be counted on more to purely score, and less to make plays and get back on defense. He can let Staal and Parise do what they do best, make situations happen.
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Sure there’s reason to think that maybe Coyle might continue his slip of the end of last season, but all signs seem to point to him starting at a high level and staying there. The extra time in camp as while everyone else plays in the World Cup will do him very well. But most of all Coyle will be playing with the best players on the Wild in a new more offensive system under Bruce Boudreau. The situation is in place the execution will all be up to Coyle, and we all know Charlie comes to play every game.