A speedy 6-foot-1-inch, 207-pounder, Koepke has flashed a relentless forechecking style, which has endeared him to coach Jim Montgomery.
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Cole Koepke didn’t land in Boston with the same fanfare as some of the Bruins’ other July 1 free agent acquisitions, but you wouldn’t know it by the way he’s performed during training camp.
The pride of Hermantown High, which he helped lead to a Minnesota Class A title in 2016, Koepke has made stops in Sioux City Iowa (USHL), the University of Minnesota Duluth, where he won a Frozen Four (2019), before playing four seasons in the Tampa Bay organization — mostly with the AHL’s Syracuse Crunch.
A speedy 6-foot-1-inch, 207-pounder, Koepke has flashed a relentless forechecking style, which has endeared him to coach
Jim Montgomery.
Koepke worked on the right wing in Tuesday night’s 4-1 preseason win over the Flyers with center
Mark Kastelic (6-4, 227) and left wing
Johnny Beecher (6-3, 220). It’s a trio that has clicked well and will be counted on to make life miserable for opponents trying to generate fast breaks.
“Both of those guys are big bodies, and they play fast, and they play hard, and they are sound in the defensive zone,” said Koepke. “They get pucks in the offensive zone and go to work on the forecheck, and I think I can complement that style of game and just learn a lot from them and follow along.”
To Koepke, the formula for success when it comes to forechecking is simple: hound pucks.
“It’s having the second, third, fourth, and fifth effort, whatever it’s going to take,” he said. “It starts with puck placement, put it in the right spot and then from there try and get on them right away. And if you don’t get them the first time, you’ve got to just stay on and keep reloading and keep going until you get it back.”
Montgomery acknowledged he didn’t have a lot of background information on Koepke prior to working with him in camp. There’s a lot to like from the bench boss’s perspective.
“I like the way he’s managing the puck. I like his speed; I like his tenacity. He’s causing a lot of turnovers and turnovers lead to odd-man rushes. They lead to more O-zone time no matter where you create them. And he’s been creating a lot. So, I like those aspects of his game,” said Montgomery. “And then as we see and how does he build our team game offensively? Is he hanging on to pucks? Is he changing at the right times? All those things that you don’t know a player well enough yet, so we’ve got to see him develop.”
