Boston Bruins Coyle Starts Camp With No-Contact Sweater

The expectation was that Boston Bruins center Charlie Coyle would be limited at the start of Boston Bruins training camp, and that was exactly the case on Day One as the Weymouth native was sporting a red no-contact jersey during his first camp action. Coyle skated with Group A during the morning session at Warrior Ice Arena but wasn’t a part of the line rushes and the contact drills in the second half of the high-paced, double session practice.

The expectation is that Coyle, coming off a pair of knee surgeries, will be ready to start the regular season next month, but it’s absolutely a situation that bears watching given the competition for the No. 2 center spot.

Aside from Coyle, the Bruins had a spirited double practice session that stretched over 90 minutes with a Zamboni flood in between and had some interesting line combos and defensemen pairings with exhibition games just a few days away.

On defense the pairings are pretty self-explanatory with the Boston Bruins coaching staff hoping to get a long look at Derek Forbort and Charlie McAvoy together as a top shutdown pairing, and Matt Grzelcyk and Connor Clifton a potential third pairing that could see NHL action this season. Slotting veteran Swedish winger Jesper Froden with Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron is a plum role on the first day of practice while pairing Jakub Lauko and David Pastrnak together could lead to some fireworks during the preseason.

The only line that could resemble one during the regular season is a potential Boston Bruins fourth line of Trent Frederic-Tomas Nosek-Curtis Lazar that was pieced together on the first day of training camp, with AHL tough guy Ian MacKinnon splitting duty with Frederic during the drills.

All in all, though, it was a fairly normal first day of training camp for the Boston Bruins aside from the media wearing masks during player availability, something that the B’s players greatly appreciated.

“With everybody, getting back to some normalcy is good mentally,” said Brad Marchand. “It’s a different pace and it makes going to work exciting again. It’s great to have people around and have people to interact with again, so it’s nice.”

Here are the Boston Bruins line combos and D-pairings from the first training camp group that took the ice at Warrior on Thursday morning:

Brad Marchand-Patrice Bergeron-Jesper Froden

Jakub Lauko-Cameron Hughes-David Pastrnak

Trent Frederic/Ian MacKinnon-Tomas Nosek-Curtis Lazar

Matt Filipe-Curtis Hall-Fabian Lysell

Brett Harrison-Alex-Olivier Voyer

Derek Forbort-Charlie McAvoy

Matt Grzelcyk-Connor Clifton

Jakub Zboril-Brady Lyle

Jack Ahcan-Ryan Mast

Linus Ullmark

Jeremy Brodeur

Kyle Keyser