BOSTON — Charlie McAvoy is among the Bruins players who feel responsible for the team firing coach Jim Montgomery. They know it was avoidable had they played better. And while there are many reasons Boston has struggled to start the season, it was Montgomery who took the fall.
Expectations haven’t been met through the first 20 games and general manager Don Sweeney said the Bruins aren’t a “hard out” and are “self-destructing for periods of time.” For McAvoy, he knows it’s more than the Bruins rediscovering their identity to make them a tough opponent again, it’s what he can do to help get this team back on track.
“I know that my biggest thing is I have to show up with the joy and the passion every single day. And I’ve certainly been trying to do that more so recently,” he said Wednesday. “And then I just have to be assertive and play. And those are the things that I’ve been trying to do. I’m trying to skate, use my legs, and I’ll drag guys into the fight. And that’s more of something that this team needs to needs to do mentally. We need to be mentally tougher.
“It’s not just going to go your way every single night. So that’s one thing identified and more guys dragging each other into the fight here,” McAvoy added. “I think that’s how you can really build the closeness of a group accountability aspect. But two, is just pulling the best out of each other. We need to get back to making each other the best version of ourselves every single day.”
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McAvoy is among the longest-tenured players on the Bruins, is an alternate captain and looked at a a leader in the dressing room. He can’t exactly pinpoint where things went so wrong for Boston — whether it was a disjointed camp or injuries the team faced early on — but instead is focused on how they can turn a new leaf.
“It’s really time to step up and work,” McAvoy said. “The only way to get out of this is to work our way out of it. And that’s compete, that’s accountability and that all starts in practice. The game is the privilege. The games, the fun part, where you get to show up and play in front of the great fans, that’s the most special thing about it. The work is what we have to put in every single day. And today was a good first step.”
The blueliner knows he’s someone who needs to step up his game if he and the team want to be competitive and in the playoff hunt. McAvoy believes interim coach Joe Sacco can help lead the charge because he understands what the standard is for the Bruins. But even though there’s a new voice in charge, McAvoy knows as a team they need to stick together in order to get out of this slump.
“That’s part of our overlying theme here that we’re going to rediscover moving forward is just, it’s all about working,” the defenseman said. “We can control our work ethic. We can control our pace every single day. Whether you got the legs or not, you control how hard you work, and that was something that we need to get back to, that we will get back to, controlling our compete level and being that Bruins team that no one wants to play.”
