"Charlie Wants To Be A Bruin" - Talks Between B's And RFA Charlie McAvoy Still Ongoing According To His Agent
It’s the end of August, players report to training camp in less than a month yet 2 key RFA’s in Brandon Carlo and Charlie McAvoy have yet to be re-signed. Fluto Shinzawa of The Athletic gave us an update on the talks between the Bruins, restricted free agent Charlie McAvoy and his agent yesterday…
“The conversations have been going fine and they’re still continuing,” said Michael Curran, McAvoy’s agent. “Time will come where we find a meeting place. I just don’t know when it’s going to be. Charlie wants to be a Bruin.” (via The Athletic)
Seems like it’s been a waiting game all summer long, not with just Carlo and McAvoy, but with other RFA’s around the league. Mitch Marner still hasn’t signed (it’d be a shame if he didn’t) and is threatening to head to the Swiss League. Matthew Tkachuk, Patrik Laine, Zach Werenski and Ivan Provorov and are also without deals. We’ve been waiting for a domino to fall all summer long but with the limited amount of cap space the Bruins have, I wouldn’t be surprised if McAvoy took a bridge deal.
The B’s are currently sitting at $7.294 mil in cap space to re-sign Charlie McAvoy and Brandon Carlo… not gonna happen. Unless the Bruins move significant salary out (*cough David Backes’ contract cough*, I think Charlie will be going the bridge deal route. Talked about this a little on my podcast with Ty Anderson from 98.5 The Sports Hub (you can listen below), but McAvoy is in an interesting spot because he has no leverage (due to burning a year of his deal in 2017 playoffs) and can’t be offer-sheeted. His only leverage would be to sit out, but he’d have to sign before December if he wanted to play in the NHL this upcoming year. That’s pretty much his only play.
By all means I would love to lock Chuckie Bright Lights up to a long term deal. He is a generational defensemen and the future of the franchise on the back end, but I’m sure Don Sweeney and co. are looking at his missed games due to injury. He hasn’t been healthy the last 2 seasons (not a knock on him, fluke injuries) and with the limited cap space something tells me this won’t get done anytime soon. Something’s gotta give.
Brandon Carlo on the other hand will not cost as much as Charlie McAvoy (due to offensive output) but is still just as important to get signed so they can have him in camp. He broke out in the playoffs this year after a rusty series vs. the Leafs. I imagine a deal between 3 and 4 million dollars is right in his wheelhouse. But again, the Bruins have just under 8 million in cap space to fit these guys in. Don Sweeney has his work cut out for him.
It’s not time to panic quite yet, we’ll see if something gets done with both McAvoy and Carlo these next few weeks.
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Next week on the podcast is special guest Andrew Raycroft send in any questions you have for Razor. Let me know who else you’d like to see on the pod.
h/t Fluto Shinzawa, The Athletic, Cap Friendly