It has been just over a month since the Colorado Avalanche traded with the Boston Bruins, acquiring center Charlie Coyle in exchange for Casey Mittelstadt, prospect William Zellers, and a 2025 second-round pick. The trade has officially allowed Coyle to continue his very impressive streak he has going for himself since arriving to the NHL as a first-round pick in the 2010 NHL Draft by the San Jose Sharks.
See, Coyle never actually played a game for the Sharks, before leaving for the Minnesota Wild in 2012-13. That was the first time in his career that he was able to see some ice time in the NHL. Little did anybody know that for the next 14 seasons, Coyle would see the playoffs in checks notes all 14 seasons.
That sort of thing doesn’t happen to many players, especially a guy who was taken in the first round of the NHL Entry Draft. It really is just one of those things where he ended up on the right teams at the right times. He’s had just two 20-plus goal seasons in his career, one for the Wild and the other for the Bruins. For his career, he’s averaging 16:44 of ice time per game including 14:11 in 17 games for the Avalanche. Coyle played the most minutes in his time with the Avalanche so far against the Canucks on Thursday night.
He has one goal for Colorado—against the Blue Jackets—and eight assists, while carrying a plus-minus of plus-eight.
Another fun fact about his time with the Avalanche so far is that he has at least one point in each of the last four games. Any time you can get that streak going for a player who doesn’t get as much ice time as a top-line player, you’ll take it. The Avalanche have lacked depth scoring more times than not this year, and assists can obviously be a huge factor on goals.
Coyle has played an amazing 119 games in the postseason in his career and boasts a stat sheet of 25 goals and 27 assists. However, he does have a plus-minus of minus-29. Since he’s on a new team that will get to see his magic in the postseason, let’s hold off on the judgment of that plus-minus. He’ll get to play alongside some players who have also seen a fair amount of playoff action. To me, there’s no reason to panic about his production in the playoffs, unless he falls completely short of Jared Bednar’s expectations.
Coyle has been a fun player to watch since he came over from the Bruins a month ago. He’s under contract with the Avalanche for one more season after this, at a cap hit of $5.25 million. Has he done everything that has been asked of him so far? I’ve liked his game, and I’m sure the postseason might have something to do with whether or not the Avalanche decide on bringing him back or letting him walk. If he walks, it would be cool to see his playoff streak continue.
For now, we will get to see him perform in the Stanley Cup playoffs for yet another year.