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It’s by necessity, but it’s officially Charlie McAvoy time for the Bruins.
After three morning skates with the Bruins, all spent with different pairing partners, the 19-year-old McAvoy appears set to skate on the right side of the club’s second pairing with Kevan Miller for his NHL debut in tonight’s Game 1 meeting with the Senators.
Asking McAvoy, who has played in just four AHL games since leaving Boston University just a couple of weeks ago, to jump right into the fire of the Stanley Cup Playoffs is a daunting task, but it’s one they believe that the poised 14th overall pick from last year’s draft can handle.
“But at the end of the day, once the puck drops, it’s hockey,… Bruins interim coach Bruce Cassidy said of the message to McAvoy. “That’s what we’ll tell him: you’ve got to play to your strengths and understand that you’ll be playing against men, so they’ll be much harder on the puck, but he’s has the luxury of playing some games down in Providence. It’s not the National Hockey League, but they’re older players, it’s older than college, so he has that under his belt.…
It’s all happened extraordinarily quickly, and McAvoy will be the first to tell you that.
“I’ve already played a stint in Providence. Now I’m in Ottawa for the playoffs. I mean, it’s crazy. It’s been a whirlwind,… he said.
McAvoy and Miller are not a guaranteed pairing, and it wouldn’t be shocking to see Cassidy bump McAvoy up with Chara or down with Liles as the night progresses and given his overall affinity for making in-game switches if something doesn’t click.
Although the Bruins head into this game without forward Noel Acciari (upper-body) and defensemen Brandon Carlo (upper-body) and Torey Krug (lower-body), good news comes for the Bruins with word that both David Krejci and Dominic Moore, who missed yesterday’s practice with maintenance issues, will be in uniform for tonight’s contest. Brad Marchand, the team’s leading scorer who missed the final two games of the regular season with a suspension, is also back in the B’s lineup.
Tuukka Rask gets the call in net for the Bruins. Rask finished his year on a high note, with a 4-0-1 record and .971 save percentage in his final six appearances of the season, and comes into action on the heels of a career-high 37 wins and eight shutouts this year. The 30-year-old has not played in the playoffs since 2014, but has 28 wins and a .930 save percentage in 47 career playoff tilts.
Ottawa counters with Craig Anderson. The veteran Anderson was a nightmare for the Bruins this season, with four wins and stops on all but one of the 95 even-strength shots the Bruins threw his way in four games this year. But when the Bruins did beat Anderson with goals, they came on the power play, where he stopped just eight of 13 shots thrown his way. Anderson has 12 wins and a .933 save percentage in 27 career playoff games, including two wins and a .972 save percentage in four games in 2015.
This is the first ever playoff meeting between the Bruins and Senators.
Ty Anderson is the Boston Bruins beat writer for WEEI.com, and has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010. He can be heard on the Saturday Skate program on 93.7 WEEI (Boston), can also be found in the New England Hockey Journal magazine, and has been part of the Boston Chapter of the PHWA since 2013. Contact him on Twitter or send him an email at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.