Charlie Coyle fires back at Jim Montgomery after being called out

«Charlie Coyle, he looks like he's not up to speed right now, but he'll get there,» Jim Montgomery told reporters Tuesday, per a team-provided video. «He's a veteran player that we've relied on in so many areas. I don't have concerns about Charlie getting to where he needs to be.»

«I think he's right,» Coyle said. «There's some games, mostly the games we lost, we're kind of hesitant a little bit. We're not on our toes, and we're not first to battles. When you're late to battles, it's hard to win most of them. I'm not saying that as an excuse, but we gotta be on our toes. We gotta be ready to go in the corners, in front of the net, wherever the battle is, right off the baseline. Kind of everywhere on the ice, we just got to dig in a little bit and go into battles saying, ''Hey, I'm gonna go win this thing.'' Put that in your mind, you'd be amazed how often you come up with the puck or you win that. We need to do a little more of that.»