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Originally Posted by eco's bones
FWIW Torts is giving Boyle plenty of ice time despite the fact that he's not producing numbers even close to last year's. And the team has been even a bigger success. Go figure. Last year's playoffs Boyle was like third in average ice time amongst the forwards despite not scoring any points. I don't know what kind of coach I would make but still Torts must be considering other things than offense--at least for certain players--when he doles out ice time.
Personally I don't think it's worth arguing about. The team is winning so as far as I'm concerned whatever he's doing is working.
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I think it's clear that Torts uses different tactics on different players. This is one reason I can't stand the constant "Torts holds players accountable" crap that people regurgitate over and over. Torts holds players accountable that he feels need to be held accountable. Other players he doesn't. You don't see him benching Ryan Callahan when he takes bad penalties. Torts picks and chooses. And I'm sure a lot of that has to do with how he thinks different players need to be coached. Boyle is a player that Torts believes in and it's clear that he hasn't reached the point with him yet where he feels the need to hold him accountable for his lack of offense, because of all the other things he brings. He's started showing the first sign of that hope waning with his comments about that line needing to step up offensively, and it's clear that Boyle has been spoken to about this because he even mentioned how he needs to produce to stay in the lineup at this point. Torts has had Boyle on a very long leash this season, different than he would have with a lot of other players (Feds as well), but he might be realizing his tactic hasn't been working and it's time to switch it up.