Charlie Coyle calls out Bruins’ ‘unacceptable’ performance following Christmas break
"You can't win many games when you're being outworked like that. That's embarrassing."
The Bruins have made plenty of positive strides following Joe Sacco’s rise to interim coach. Friday night’s performance, though, looked a lot closer to the team from early November that Boston hoped to bury in the past.
There weren’t many red flags being raised initially on Friday night; the Bruins played the Columbus Blue Jackets to an even and tight 1-1 through 20 minutes. But in the second period, Boston completely unraveled.
Sloppy defensive play, poor special teams and untimely line changes let Columbus rattle off four straight goals in the second period, and hand the Bruins a 6-2 loss at the final horn.
Charlie Coyle, who scored a relatively meaningless third period goal Friday, called the Bruins’ play “unacceptable” postgame.
“We weren’t winning any battles. They were quicker to the puck, they out-battled us,” Coyle said. “You can’t win many games when you’re being outworked like that. That’s embarrassing.”
Coyle wouldn’t chalk up any of the Bruins issues to the three-day holiday break either.
“It’s the same layoff for everyone. They were ready to play, we weren’t,” Coyle said. “It’s just unacceptable.”
Boston looked completely disjointed at times on Friday, particularly on the penalty kill. The Blue Jackets scored three power play goals against the Bruins; one of those came off a miscommunication that left Dmitri Voronkov completely unguarded in front of the net.
“When your special teams are good and you take responsibility of that, you give yourselves a good chance to win,” Coyle said. “When you give them those [chances], that only feeds into their game more, and takes away from us. So that’s definitely an area that we want to clean up.”
Three days off didn’t go well for Boston, but there will be little time to linger on the dud performance. The Bruins will be back in Boston tomorrow night hosting Columbus in the second half of the home-and-home doubleheader. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m. at TD Garden.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com