McAvoy Has Big Words For Bruins' Chances This Season

The Boston Bruins should be much better defensively and in net than last season, but that is only the initial look while nobody is injured yet. Injuries were a big cause of the downfall of the Bruins in 2024-25 to where they finished, but the plan isn't to rebuild, but rather retool quickly.

There are some players on the team that should give the Bruins and fans hope like David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, and Jeremy Swayman, but there are a lot of pieces that have to either work out or be changed before Boston can be a real threat again. According to McAvoy, that isn't the case though.

The team's top defender said, "we're a playoff team every day of the week...we have everything on this roster to be that." This can be analyzed in a few different ways.

McAvoy was part of the Bruins teams that outperformed expectations by a mile and had a record breaking season, so of course he thinks it can be done with a roster that looks like it does. Defense and goaltending can be very good when healthy and performing up to expectations, but the forward group looks rough.

Without Brad Marchand and lowered expectations for Elias Lindholm and Casey Mittelstadt, top-6 players, goals aren't going to come easy. There are talks of trades to come and players like Pavel Zacha, Viktor Arvidsson, Tanner Jeannot, Lindholm, Nikita Zadorov, Swayman, and more have to bounce back or do better.

I'm not saying it isn't possible, but like with many teams expected to finish outside of the playoff picture, a lot has to go right and that isn't very likely. I could see the Bruins being like the New York Islanders of the late 2010s and early 2020s when Barry Trotz was the head coach. They didn't score a lot, but great team defense and great defensive pieces up front and on the back-end all contributed to the success. It is an uphill battle with how the Bruins are constructed, especially with some of the contracts given out recently, but it can be done. We will have to wait and see how the season plays out.