Zach Senyshyn kept things 'simple' on Tuesday, and showcased plenty of promise in Bruins’ bottom-six corps

Charlie Coyle didn’t wax poetic about the play of Boston’s third line following their 5-4 loss to the Canadiens on Tuesday night. 

The B’s bottom-six trio may not have run skating clinics in Montreal’s zone, nor will they make the NHL’s daily highlight reel off of a couple of nifty dangles or tic-tac-toe passing sequences.

No, Boston’s latest iteration of a third line kept things rather simple on Tuesday. But that doesn’t mean that they weren’t effective.

“They were arguably our most effective line,” Bruce Cassidy said of his third line. “They had a good game.”

Coyle and Anders Bjork have logged some significant minutes over the last two weeks, skating for 36:37 of 5v5 TOI together through seven games. But that duo had a new linemate to work with in Zach Senyshyn — playing in just his third game in the NHL.

For as much as Senyshyn’s status as a first-round selection back in 2015 was due in large part to his offensive potential (114 goals in 195 games in the OHL), the 22-year-old winger has spent most of the previous two and a half seasons working on the finer details of his game down in Providence.

“I try to just take it one game at a time and show them what I learned down there,” Senyshyn said Tuesday night.  “Again, the reason why I got here was by learning those little things in my game and by bringing those things and bringing my speed and what I’m naturally good at. I think that’s what I tried to focus on, was playing to my strengths and showing them that I was able to play that complete game.”

Senyshyn might not have been flashy in his short, one-game sample size up with the big club. But he didn’t have to in order to make an impact against Montreal. 



In his 10:49 of ice time, Senyshyn landed one shot on goal and recorded an assist — with another helper taken off the board after an offside challenge from Montreal wiped off Coyle's tally at 5:23 in the third period. But beyond his secondary assist on Bjork's goal in the middle stanza, Senyshyn's attention to detail allowed the Coyle line to consistently string together strong shifts throughout the contest.

On a night in which both the Bergeron and Krejci lines were out-attempted, 12-6, in over 20 minutes of 5v5 TOI, Bjork-Coyle-Senyshyn tilted the ice back in Boston's favor.

In the trio's 8:28 of 5v5 ice time together, Boston held a 10-3 advantage in shot attempts, along with a 7-2 cushion in shots on goal. More importantly, Boston held a 2-0 edge in 5v5 goals scored during that stretch, due in large part to a 5-0 advantage when it came to scoring chances.

“We had some good looks," Coyle said. "I think we were just very simple, we just put the puck in and went to work. Tried to establish our forecheck and just win puck battles, get it to the net and it paid off for us a few times."

Even though Connor Clifton's tally at 7:17 in the second was tabbed as an unassisted goal, the Coyle line left its fingerprints all over the goal — with Senyshyn using his wheels to put a Montreal breakout on its heels and allow Boston's forecheck to cause a bit of panic in the Habs' zone. Similar to Bjork and how Cassidy has often used the speedy Notre Dame product as an effective F1 (the first man in on the forecheck), Senyshyn's efforts to disrupt down low lead to a fluttering puck that Clifton was able to bat down and start a great individual rush that culminated in the defenseman's first regular-season goal. Coyle assisted on the sequence, screening Carey Price down low before Clifton fired home his attempt.