B's Signed Defenseman Charlie McAvoy To The Largest Deal (8 Yrs, $76 Million) In Team History

 

    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.

B's Avoid Arbitration With Matt Grzelcyk & Re-Sign Him To 4-Year Contract Worth $14.75 Million

 

    Let's just get this out of the way first: Matt Grzelcyk is not Torey Krug and frankly, he never will be. Sure, if you are a lazy sportswriter or fan, you'll look at the two of them and think well they have so much in common (lack of height, left-shot defensemen that are American and in their 20s) which is true but that's where the most obvious similarities end. Krug quickly developed into one of the best offensive defensemen in the NHL as proven by his recently signed megadeal with the Blues. Don't misconstrue this: Grzelcyk has plenty of value to the Bruins who inked him to a four-year deal today worth $14.75 million dollars-with an annual NHL cap hit of $3.687500 per year. 

    Boston had a scheduled arbitration hearing with Grzelcyk set for next week so they were smart to get this settled without the help of needless lawyers. You couldn't create a much better local story than Griz growing up in Charlestown (while his dad worked at TD Garden for the bull gang), getting drafted by the Bruins in 2012 (3rd round, 85th overall), playing three seasons at BU then making the B's and over the last three seasons becoming one of their more dependable performers. By almost any measure, the 26-year-old Grzelcyk is coming off of his best season as a pro: he had a career-high in goals (4), assists (17), points (21), power play points (7) and games played (68). In 197 career NHL games, he's put up 10 goals, 44 assists, two power play goals, 15 power play points and a plus/minus of plus-45. In 43 career NHL playoff games, Matt has four goals, six assists, two power play goals and six power play points with a somewhat sketchy plus/minus of minus-10. 

    So much of this contract for Bruins GM is projecting what Grzelcyk can become if he reaches his ceiling. We all hope that his offensive game can round out a little bit more and clearly there will be plenty of time available with Krug gone if he can earn it on Boston's top power play unit. Remember he shows flashes especially in the postseason of some nice skills with some notable tallies using his underrated shot. He's not on track to be a Hall of Famer, probably not an All-Star or maybe even a top pair defenseman but I don't want to diminish Grzelcyk's solid role on a good team like the B's. For one thing, he's a little better defensively than Krug or at least it comes a bit more naturally to him. With his lack of size (listed at 174 pounds), he will also struggle from time to time against bigger forwards around the league (think the 2019 Stanley Cup Final vs. St. Louis). For what it's worth, Krug is 186 pounds so if there's a way that Grzelcyk can bulk up and add a few pounds, I don't think that would hurt his game at all. 

    Finally, Grzelcyk is three years younger than Krug and besides his much more affordable price, that's what makes him such an appealing option for the Bruins as they chase another Stanley Cup whenever next season begins. On any good hockey team, you need stars but you also have to possess plenty of solid middle tier players like Grzelcyk who accept their place on the roster but do everything they can to get the most out of their abilities. This is a nice move by Bruins GM Don Sweeney that won't garner too many headlines nationally but if you are a Black and Gold fan, you can see what Grzelcyk brings to the table every time that he is in the lineup and why Boston did not want to see him leave anytime soon in free agency.

Charlie McAvoy Cares Not For Holdouts As He Signs a Three-Year Deal With the Bruins

A few days after inking head coach Bruce Cassidy to a contract extension, Bruins GM Don Sweeney continued to get things done as this morning he signed defenseman Charlie McAvoy to a three-year deal with an average annual value of $4.9 million per year which is quite reasonable. There were never any whispers of a holdout by McAvoy so in many ways, this moment was a mere formality but it still represents an important day for the Black and Gold.

Coming into his third NHL regular season, McAvoy is still only 21-years-old (he turns 22 on Dec. 21) but the 2016 first-round pick for Boston (14th overall) is without question one of the most talented young defensemen in the league. In 117 career regular season games, he has put up a more than respectable 14 goals and 46 assists with a plus/minus rating of plus-34. In that span, he has nine power-play points (3 goals, 6 assists), five game-winning goals and two overtime goals. In the playoffs where scoring is understandably harder to come by, his offensive numbers are down but still solid: three goals and 13 assists with a plus-four in 41 games.

In his brief professional career, really the only thing to quibble over with McAvoy is his durability. He played in 63 regular season games his rookie season and an even more concerning 54 last year. Granted, the only game he missed in Boston's run to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final was a one-game suspension. McAvoy isn't huge by today's standards (6-feet-tall, 208 pounds) but he plays a pretty physical style so it's tough to pinpoint why he's already missed so much time. It hasn't been any major injuries with him but rather numerous minor issues including a bizarre illness at the beginning of last season.

The B's should again be a contender in the Metropolitan Division and the Eastern Conference so honestly, I don't expect nor do I want McAvoy to play 82 games in the regular season. As long as he plays more than he did in the first two campaigns and is healthy come playoff-time, who cares? On the eve of their preseason opener tomorrow night in New Jersey, the only player left unsigned for Sweeney is defenseman Brandon Carlo. He is a year older McAvoy both in terms of age (22) and years played already in the NHL (3). He also plays a far less sexy game meaning that he is a prototypical defensive defenseman that will never put up any real offensive statistics of note. Still, he is very good at what he does and could be a top-pairing defenseman if Bruins captain Zdeno Chara ever retires. Keep in mind though that Cassidy and many NHL head coaches love to play left shot and right shot defensemen together when possible.

Carlo is super low-maintenance and he has been a professional from Day 1 when he was a second-round pick (37th overall) of the Bruins in 2015. Despite being away from his teammates this summer and in the early going of training camp, Cassidy has expressed confidence that Carlo is in great shape and ready to hit the ice whenever he officially returns to the team. I have no inside information on this (I wish I did) but expect him to get a new deal this week for roughly the same amount of years and less money ($3 million and change per year?) than Charlie. These are two of Boston's best building blocks from the defensive end for now and hopefully years to come.

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Good Day for BU: Former Terriers Star Sacco Named B's Assistant Coach & Warsofsky Signs 1-Year Deal

There was a time in the not so distant past that Boston University was one of the premier men's college hockey programs in the nation. That has changed with the retirement of legendary head coach Jack Parker. Today, the Bruins kept BU alumni and fans in New England happy as they named former Terriers star (and Medford MA native) Joe Sacco assistant coach and signed defenseman David Warsofsky (another BU product, from Marshfield MA) to a one-year/two-way contract worth $600,000.

Last season, Sacco was sentenced to a year in NHL purgatory as he was an assistant for the pitiful Sabres. It was the crappy way he had to bounce back after being fired from the Avalanche where he served as head coach from 2009-2013. For Colorado, his overall record was 130-134-40 and he won the Jack Adams Award (best coach) in 2010 after leading the Avs to the postseason. He takes over for longtime assistant Geoff Ward who left the B's to take a head coaching job in Germany, um ok? In 13 seasons in the NHL and on five teams (Leafs, Ducks, Islanders, Capitals and Penguins), Sacco amassed 94 goals and 119 assists.

I mentioned Warsofsky not just because he's a local guy but since he seems to have a good opportunity to stick in Boston next season. In six games with the B's last season, he had a goal and an assist. With Providence, he put up six goals and 26 assists. He's basically Torey Krug Lite: 5-foot-8, 160 pounds, good skater and left-handed shot who excels at moving the puck particularly on the power play. At age 24 and with 190 games in the AHL under his belt, this appears to be a big chance for Warsofsky to take the next step in his career.

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