This is the 2023-24 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Charlie Coyle
Boston Bruins Center
Fifty-eight per cent of his shots from inside twenty feet, and a promotion he did not ask for.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012-13 | MIN | 37 | 8 | 6 | 14 | +3 | 28 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 50 | 16.0 | 15:04 |
| 2013-14 | MIN | 70 | 12 | 18 | 30 | -7 | 33 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 135 | 8.9 | 17:05 |
| 2014-15 | MIN | 82 | 11 | 24 | 35 | +13 | 39 | 1 | 0 | 4 | 120 | 9.2 | 14:33 |
| 2015-16 | MIN | 82 | 21 | 21 | 42 | +1 | 16 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 140 | 15.0 | 17:18 |
| 2016-17 | MIN | 82 | 18 | 38 | 56 | +13 | 36 | 4 | 0 | 5 | 159 | 11.3 | 16:42 |
| 2017-18 | MIN | 66 | 11 | 26 | 37 | +8 | 18 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 117 | 9.4 | 16:32 |
| 2018-19 | MIN/BOS | 81 | 12 | 22 | 34 | -1 | 20 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 155 | 7.7 | 16:46 |
| 2019-20 | BOS | 70 | 16 | 21 | 37 | +9 | 21 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 145 | 11.0 | 16:47 |
| 2020-21 | BOS | 51 | 6 | 10 | 16 | -4 | 20 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 79 | 7.6 | 16:17 |
| 2021-22 | BOS | 82 | 16 | 28 | 44 | -6 | 32 | 3 | 0 | 5 | 131 | 12.2 | 17:24 |
| 2022-23 | BOS | 82 | 16 | 29 | 45 | +29 | 30 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 139 | 11.5 | 16:59 |
| 2023-24 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 785 | 147 | 243 | 390 | +58 | 293 | 15 | 6 | 30 | 1370 | 10.7 | 16:34 |
This Season So Far
The 2023-24 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
16 goals and 29 assists in 82 games — 45 points at 16:59 a night, plus-29, with a shorthanded goal on 139 shots, converting at 11.51 per cent, and 30 penalty minutes.
50.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,103 minutes, the 55th percentile — modest for this roster, and it is the third-line assignment rather than a failing. His ice went 51-32 against an expectation of 45.02-44.46, which is twelve fewer conceded than the chances predicted.
The Finesse Game
139 attempts at a median of 18 feet, with 58 per cent from inside 20 — the highest share on the club — and 13 per cent from beyond 40.
He is a below-the-dots player in every sense: he protects the puck on the wall, he cycles it, and he shoots from the slot or not at all. 243 career assists against 147 goals says the passing out of the cycle is the more useful half.
The Physical Game
6-3 and 221 and he is very difficult to take a puck from — he shields with his body and turns his back into a defenceman, and the wall is where he wins games.
293 penalty minutes in 785 games is unremarkable, which is the point: he is heavy without being dirty. The skating is fine at 22.7 mph, the 73rd percentile.
The Intangibles
Twenty-eighth overall in 2010 to San Jose, eleven seasons, 785 games and 390 points, and a Weymouth boy playing for the club he grew up watching.
He is 31 and has just been promoted, by two retirements rather than by anything he did, to first-line centre on a club that won 65 games. Nothing in eleven seasons suggests he is a first-line centre, and nothing in them suggests he will complain about being asked — which is the most Boston sentence in this book.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
66.8% of his attempts in the slot, 96th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
- durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“he protects the puck on the wall, he cycles it, and he shoots from the slot or not at all”
“6-3 and 221 and he is very difficult to take a puck from”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2022-23 · 1,103 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.3%
- 55th pct
- Shot attempts
- 48.4%
- 41st pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 51 for, 32 against. Expected: 45.0 and 44.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe report ranks him 36 points above where the numbers do. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason. Why the numbers land there sets out the club he did it on, the minutes he played and the men he played them with.
Both bars are percentiles among the 58 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 69 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Usual linemates
2022-23 · 1103 minutes at five-on-five
- Taylor Hallnow CHI32%
- Nick Folignonow CHI20%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2022-23
- The club
- BOS took 53.5% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 50.3% — 3.2 below the club he did it on.
- The role
- Second line, 1,103 minutes at five-on-five — 70th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trent Frederic | 54.7% | 43.4% | 53.8% |
| Connor Clifton | 49.9% | 50.6% | 51.6% |
| Taylor Hall | 50.1% | 50.4% | 54.0% |
54.7% together, 43.4% for him apart and 53.8% for Frederic apart. He was worse away from Frederic, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Frederic did.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
193 unblocked shots in 2022-23, 19 of them goals. His median goal came from 18 feet. 58% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 13% from beyond forty.