On the eve of their 2021-22 regular season opener tomorrow night (7, NESN) at TD Garden vs. Dallas (1-0), the Bruins finalized the most important contract issue facing the team: they inked young franchise defenseman Charlie McAvoy to a huge eight-year extension worth $76 million. It is the biggest contract in team history and it shows just how much they believe in the 23-year old BU product who is about to enter his fifth season in the NHL. McAvoy finished fifth in the Norris Trophy (given to the league's best defenseman) last season and this deal makes him currently the fourth highest paid defenseman in the NHL. With that obviously comes more pressure and even higher expectations but that is nothing new for the former first-round pick (14th overall in 2016) who you will remember made his professional debut in the playoffs against Ottawa-the same year that he was drafted which is extremely rare these days in hockey.
Hopefully B's captain Patrice Bergeron is around for many more years to come but whenever he retires from the Bruins (please don't make me picture him in another uniform), McAvoy looks like a great candidate to be the next captain of the Bruins. He's tough, he competes hard every shift, he is physical and does not shy away from very difficult matchups with the best players in the world while logging heavy minutes (average time on ice of 22:51 for his career). If we are nitpicking, his offensive game is what still needs the most work. McAvoy has never topped more than seven goals or 27 assists in a full season. His defensive game is more full grown since he has been at least a plus-14 in each campaign including a career-high plus-24 in 2019-20 and he has blocked a total of 382 shots and registered 421 hits. In 235 career regular season games, he has accumulated 24 goals, 98 assists and he is plus-80. In 65 career playoff games, he has five goals and 27 assists, 119 blocked shots and 147 hits.
Charlie will start this season once again as part of the top defensive pairing along with a member of the first power play unit (which should help bump up his offensive stats). He is not huge for a No. 1 defenseman (6 feet tall, 208 pounds) but he skates well and plays bigger than his size in terms of throwing monster hits and blocking plenty of shots. He has always been a natural leader dating back to his brief two years at BU and also playing on the U.S. national team that won a gold medal at the World Juniors in 2017. At least for now, Tuukka Rask and David Krejci are no longer here with the B's and sadly, Bergeron and Brad Marchand will not play for the Bruins forever either. The positive news is that the next generation of Bruins players should be in good hands with McAvoy locked in for a long time.
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