Bruins are ready to start the season without McAvoy, Carlo

The Boston Bruins need to keep up with their financial planning… That’s because the team has $7,2 millions left to spend and yet, restricted free agent defensemen Charlie McAvoy and Brandon Carlo are still without contracts just over a month to the start of training camp. 

While fans in Bean Town might be getting anxious, it seems that GM Don Sweeney and president Cam Neely are pretty cool, calm and collected about it. 

The president even revealed to NBC Sports over the weekend that the Bruins are getting ready to open training camp without the defensemen.

“We do have to plan and prepare for these players to not be at camp opening day,” Neely said. “But we have five, six weeks hopefully to get something done. We feel like we should be able to get something done with both of those guys at numbers that make sense for us, and hopefully makes sense for them. I think we’ve done a really good job of kind of managing the [NHL salary cap] and making sure that we’re OK to get these guys done.”

One of the issues when it comes to McAvoy’s next deal is that Sweeney and Neely are reportedly unwilling to offer the kid a long-term deal. 

Despite a tremendous start in the NHL, McAvoy’s health has been what the Bruins have worried about, especially when it comes to his new contract. 

“You look at a player that’s had some health issues two years in a row at a young age,” Neely said. “You look at that and say, ‘OK, is that going to stay the same or is it just bad luck?’ We all can see what Charlie is capable of doing. You’d like to see a bigger sample size, obviously. Since the cap has come into effect, we’ve all seen deals that have been signed where three years down the road you say it’s not as good as you anticipated it would be.

“Charlie has had three playoff years and two full seasons where he hasn’t been healthy. A lot of times obviously that’s not his fault, but it’s nice to have a better sample size of where a player is going to go. You see the skill set that [McAvoy] has. We want both Charlie and Brandon to be Bruins for their whole career, but we also have to do what’s right for the organization.”

The president has therefore admitted that it is status quo when it comes to McAvoy and Carlo, and therefore why the Bruins are serious about starting the year without them…