Bruins fans are excited to see what Charlie McAvoy will look like in Jim Montgomery's system, but the defenseman is expressing patience as he recovers from offseason shoulder surgery.
Positive development was made Monday as the blue liner participated in Boston practice wearing a black practice jersey at Warrior Ice Arena in Brighton. This is an improvement over the non-contact sweater he had been wearing before and is a good sign the 24-year-old can make a comeback soon, similar to teammate Brad Marchand, who made an impact right away against the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday.
"I think he's easily one of the top defensemen in the league," Montgomery said, per team-provided transcript. "Everyone is different, (Cale) Makar does it differently than he does, but I don't like to put a ceiling on a player that is that talented. He can beat people 1-on-1, he can give and go, he can out-skate people, he can out-physical people, so yeah ... I'm starting to get excited now."
You can't blame the Bruins head coach for his excitement as the Black and Gold own the NHL's top record at 8-1-0 and lead the league with a plus-18 goal differential. The combination of McAvoy and Hampus Lindholm on the blue line would excite any Bruins fan.
"I'm feeling good," McAvoy said, per the team. "Today was back to a normal jersey so you go from non-contact to contact and I kind of alluded to it, but our practices are very respectful. No one is really hitting or bumping too much, but to just be in there and to do drills that sometimes have that incidental contact and to just be playing hockey and have guys flying around around me, taking rushes and stuff like that, it's just good.
"It feels really good. I know it's all sort of elementary just doing stuff like that, but for me it's been a while of just deking cones and pylons so to be out there with guys and to be back and feel like you can see the light at the end of the tunnel is really exciting."
McAvoy's return is uncertain, but Montgomery said the team will hope to keep its original timeline for the defenseman. Though, the head coach noted the 24-year-old is "ahead of schedule," similar to Marchand when he came back from his offseason double hip surgery.
"He's ahead of schedule, he's ahead of Dec. 1, but he's just starting in his progression," Montgomery said. "We have our internal timeline, we're hopeful that it will be before Nov. 24, to be honest. But he has to check boxes as we continue to progress here and he's just starting that now. Today was the first day where he had a little bit of contact, but everybody kind of knew that it was cautionary around him."
While McAvoy will not return in the beginning of November, the defenseman will travel with the team during their road trip this week as it hopes to keep its hot streak going.
