What Bruins’ Charlie Coyle Felt From Sam Bennett On Game-Tying Goal
BOSTON — Charlie Coyle (literally) got pushed into the spotlight of the Bruins’ 3-2 loss in Game 4 to the Florida Panthers on Thursday night.
Coyle found himself on top of Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman on the play that tied the game off the stick of Florida’s Sam Bennett. The scoring play started with Bennett’s stick in Coyle’s back, though no interference was ruled after Boston challenged the call on the ice.
“The puck goes in the crease and I’m trying to make a play,” Coyle told reporters at TD Garden. “It goes through me. I feel a push from behind. I go down into (Swayman). The puck trickles past right to their guy with an empty net. I figured I could probably turn around and make a play on it and clear it. That’s what happened. It’s a tough call. Sometimes, you gotta play through things. Can’t make excuses, right?”
Coyle felt confident that the contact from Bennett certainly impeded the play, preventing multiple Bruins from being in the proper position to make a play on the puck and not allow the crucial goal.
“I’m falling over if I don’t hit him,” Coyle assessed. “I’m falling over all the way if I don’t hit Swayman. There’s no way he can get there. … My momentum hit him, so he can’t get over. I think that’s how it went.”
Both in the immediate aftermath of the goal and following the review, Coyle shared that he did not get an explanation for why the goal stood. He “figured” it would get overturned while understanding that one result over another was not a given for the Bruins.
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“I kind of said something right away,” Coyle said. “I didn’t get a reaction. We challenged. They saw it differently.”
Florida eventually took the lead on a goal from Aleksander Barkov to complete the comeback from the initial 2-0 Bruins lead. Coyle pointed right back to the Bennett goal as the true turning point of the game.
“It’s a huge swing,” Coyle added. “They score to tie it and a get a (power play) out of it. That’s the momentum and the swings of the game. We saw something different. They saw something different. I have no other words for that. Whether we agree with it or not, we gotta play through whatever.”
The Game 4 loss, especially in such fashion, came as a deflating blow for the Bruins. It’s up to the team in the Boston locker room to change the outlook of the series and battle back beginning in Game 5.