With Brandon Carlo returning to practice on Wednesday, Charlie Coyle is now the only Bruins player still in COVID protocol. With the NHL and NHLPA agreeing to updated protocols that shorten the required isolation period to five days, Coyle could be cleared to return for this weekend's games if all goes well.
Whenever Coyle does return, the expectation is he'll be reunited with Taylor Hall and Craig Smith on Boston's second line. It is a second line that has done some good things at times this season, but that on the whole has not been good enough.
Smith's early-season injury woes -- he missed seven games and played at much less than 100% in a few others -- certainly played a role in the line getting off to a slow start. But a bigger factor in the line still not really taking off is the fact that the chemistry between Hall and Coyle has not really taken off.
Last season, it was the near-instant chemistry between Hall and David Krejci that gave the Bruins arguably the best second line in the NHL over the final month of the regular season. Coyle is not Krejci, and no one expected him to be.
The question was never whether Coyle could be a direct one-for-one replacement for Krejci or lift Hall up in the same way Krejci did. The question was whether Coyle and Hall could play well enough together that the Bruins would still have a good second line, even if not quite an elite one.
Some of the numbers so far are pretty good. According to Natural Stat Trick, in 236 five-on-five minutes with Hall and Coyle on the ice together, the Bruins have 55.1% of shot attempts, 52.4% of scoring chances and 60.4% of expected goals.
The actual goal numbers are not as good, though. The Bruins have been outscored 12-11 with them on the ice (reminder: the Bruins outscored their opponents 14-1 with Hall and Krejci together in 16 regular-season games). Coyle's seven goals so far are not bad at all -- in fact he's actually scoring at a career-high pace -- but Hall's five are below what you'd expect from a player with his talent.
A look at how often Hall and Coyle have set each other up for goals is revealing. Coyle has assisted on two Hall goals -- one a primary helper at even strength, the other a secondary assist on the power play. Hall has assisted on one of Coyle's goals -- an even-strength primary assist. In 10 fewer games last regular season, Hall and Krejci set each other up for nine goals. Krejci assisted on seven Hall tallies, with five of those being primary helpers.
Bruce Cassidy is not giving up on the Hall-Coyle combination. There are things there he likes, like the fact that both can play setup man or finisher depending on the situation. He also likes the lefty-righty match, as it means the two are passing forehand-to-forehand more often than not.
But the Bruins coach also acknowledges that there is still plenty they need to work on, including meshing two styles of play that haven't been as immediately symbiotic as Hall and Krejci's were.
"I think at times, Taylor likes to have the puck in certain spots through the neutral zone," Cassidy said. "I think Krech was real good at identifying that. Charlie might be still sorting through that. Charlie likes to have it as well, so you have a little bit of that going on. How do they kind of share the puck in certain areas they both like to have it?
"I think Charlie likes the low cycle game -- he's very good at shielding people and holding them off -- whereas Taylor's more of an off-the-rush first guy. So Taylor has to learn to adjust and find the soft spots for Charlie. That's where they have to work on their game, to be quite honest, is probably below the circles and making sure they find each other quickly. There's not a lot of space down there. A lot of teams bring their wingers down, so you're basically three against four, three against five sometimes. So it has to be bang-bang plays, and that's an area that will need to improve for them to get better looks."
You could certainly argue that the Bruins should have been able to foresee some of these compatibility issues. You could also argue that they'll need to look for outside help at the trade deadline if the second line still isn't really clicking.
But for now, this is what the Bruins have. Either Hall and Coyle will have to find some chemistry, or Cassidy will have to try something else.
