Boyle making an impact

Brian Boyle, it seems, is taking full advantage of his second chance. Early in the season, he was a healthy scratch and a doghouse resident, as coaches demanded a more physical game. Upon his return, and his spot as a fourth-line center between Patrick O'Sullivan and Peter Harrold, he has mostly thrived. In Thursday's game, Boyle scored the game's first goal and was credited with only one hit but played a much more physical game than that statistic indicates. Here's what Terry Murray said about Boyle's recent play, and his development...

MURRAY: ``That was probably his best game, last night. For the 60 minutes, he was involved, he had an attitude to use his physical attributes and that's a mindset, that's an attitude. It's starting to come around on a more consistent basis. He has great hands, we know that. I didn't see it last year, but I know you guys saw a lot of the stuff that happened on the power play. He was able to contribute on the offensive part, scoring goals, but there's so much more to the game that we're starting to see from him. With that confidence that he's playing with, and he's playing with a couple good players. He's got Sully on the one side, and that's a pretty good hockey player to go out and play the game with. That was a big first goal. It really meant a lot to our hockey club. There was a lot of hard work going on before that, from all the lines, and their line, on their shifts, spent quite a bit of time in the offensive zone, so they got rewarded for their efforts.''

Question: If a player doesn't have that attitude, how does he develop it?

MURRAY: ``Probably from a coach staying on him every day, telling him he better dig in or he's not going to play. There are some demands that you have to learn to put on yourself, or they come from other places. It's just the way a player plays the game sometimes, through their whole career, and they have some success at it and the results are there. As I mentioned last night after the game, often a player evaluates his own performance by the goals and assists and the point column at the end of the season or the middle of the season. That's just the way it is, and it's pretty normal that that would be the evaluation.''

Question: Is it fair to say that the demands on Brian have come from other places?

MURRAY: ``They have been coming from other places. Not only from the coaches but throughout the organization. Everybody wants to see a player have success, and we think that there are some good attributes there that he can bring together to be an important player for this organization. That's why we're talking to players. It's the old thing of, if you're not talking to me, be afraid of it, because we're probably not that interested. But if we keep talking and trying to encourage you to do different things, that's a good sign. Players need to interpret that as being part of the process.''