Charlie McAvoy makes surprising admission about Bruins’ 2025-26 game plan

A lot has changed in Boston, especially when the Bruins traded out captain Brad Marchand to Florida, where he won his second career Stanley Cup with the Panthers this past June. Days later, he signed a six-year contract to stay put in South Florida, killing all hope of a return to Boston. The Bruins are now without a captain, and defenseman Charlie McAvoy has revealed that the team is not planning to name a captain for the upcoming season. He added that he and veteran winger David Pastrnak, assistant captains, are being tasked with sharing leadership duties this year.

“Going into this year, we’re both going to have A’s. That’s what I know. I don’t think there’s any fire under them to do anything with that. And guess what? That’s totally fine,” McAvoy told the Boston Herald. “Me and Pasta are spending the time together, which I’ve found incredible, learning about him a little bit more, about him as a leader. Just what I’ll say on that front is I love that we’re going to be able to take this on together. And regardless of letters, we know that this is our team, me and him. And for however many years we get to be here, it’s going to be us two, along with a lot of other guys, right? But this is our baby now, me and him, and there’s nobody else that I’d rather do it with and I know we’re going to make each other better, on and off the ice.”

“We’ve talked a lot about the group, ideas of how we can make this group come together as quickly as possible,” he added. “That’s been the biggest thing right now from a leadership perspective, some of the tendencies he has as far as meetings and messaging and stuff like that. That’s been the biggest thing. We’re really focusing on how we can make this team a cohesive group right from the get-go. There’s been a lot of turnover over the last two years. It’s kind of shocking to see that it’s just me and Pasta left from (the 2019 Stanley Cup Final team). And with all that turnover, you have to work on it. It doesn’t just (automatically) work. So we’ve got to pour some water on that seed and we’ve got to get this group together. We’ve got to learn each other and spend the necessary time it takes to make this a very tight group.”

Most fans expected that Pastrnak would be the one to take over Marchand’s spot as captain, but instead the Bruins will become the latest Original 6 team to do so in recent years, which also included the Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings.

The focus on the 2025-26 season is to get back to the playoffs as Boston sunk to the bottom of the Eastern Conference after the March 7 deadline, finishing tied for last with the Philadelphia Flyers with 76 points as their eight-year playoff streak came to an end. Their missing captain could be a lucky charm seeing that the only 2 teams in NHL history who won the Stanley Cup without a captain were the 1970 and 1972 Bruins.