Bruins can’t afford McAvoy’s projected contract!

The summer is not going to get easier on the Boston Bruins, who lost the Stanley Cup in a Game 7 heartbreak to the St. Louis Blues.

They now face another massive challenge in re-sign restricted free agent defenseman Charlie McAvoy to a new contract. We don’t doubt the kid wants to remain in Bean Town… 

But here’s why it feels almost impossible to keep him with the Bruins. 

According to Adam Gretz of NBC Sports, McAvoy is one of themost intriguing players out of the RFA group that remains unsigned. 

He believes that McAvoy - along with Columbus Blue Jackets’ Zack Werenski - is coming off of his age 21 seasons and has already demonstrated an ability to play at a top-pairing level on playoff caliber teams.

See how Gretz breaks it down when talking about McAvoy and Werenski: 

Since the start of the 2007-08 season there have only been four defenders that have hit/all/of the following marks through their age 21 season:
* At least 100 games played
* Averaged at least .50 points per game
* /And/had a Corsi Percentage (shot-attempt differential) of greater than 52 percent at that point in their careers.

Those players have been Erik Karlsson , Drew Doughty , Werenski, and McAvoy.

That is it.

Pretty elite company.

Therefore, Gretz believes McAvoy should get something similar to the contracts Karlsson and Doughty received at the same point in their careers when they were coming off of their entry-level deals.

One problem: they are massive. 

Karlsson signed a seven-year, $45.5 million deal with the Ottawa Senators, while Doughty signed an eight-year, $56 million contract.

“At the time, those contracts were worth around 10 percent of the league’s salary cap.A similarly constructed contract under/today’s/cap would come out to an annual cap hit of around $8 million dollars, which would be among the five highest paid defenders in the league,” explains Gretz. 

That sounds like a major issue for the Bruins. Boston currently has about $ 7.3 million available to re-sign McAvoy and Brandon Carlo. While they are both RFAs, it is expected that both men will command a significant raise, especially McAvoy.

If the Bruins get Carlo to sign a bid ranging from $ 2 million to $ 2.5 million, Sweeney would have to find a way to convince McAvoy to accept less than $ 5 million a year. And you have to admit: the Bruins simply cannot lose McAvoy, who ranks up more than 25 minutes per game!

They appear to be way off for now. As we have mentioned many times before, the Bruins will be forced to make a trade and shed salary to get McAvoy under contract. 

It will be interesting to see what happens in Boston in the coming weeks…