A monster game from Charlie McAvoy helped Bruins right the ship during a 'must-win' game

There was no magic elixir prescribed Sunday that was going to magically revert Boston's sieve-like defense into the stout presence it was through the first month of the 2021 season.

No top-four reinforcements to shore up a D corps that relinquished 13 goals in the span of just two games.

No game-changing adjustment to stop the bleeding and curb the slew of Grade-A chances Boston was coughing up in front of Tuukka Rask and Jaroslav Halak.

No, if the Bruins were going to right the ship defensively, it was going to be incumbent on the six skaters on the blue line — five of which were all culpable for the sordid results that played out on Thursday and Friday in New York — to snap the B's out of these lopsided results.

It was a reality Charlie McAvoy was fully cognizant of when speaking Saturday, offering both a challenge — and opportunity – for the regulars on the B's defense to rewrite the narrative that a young and banged-up D corps wasn't up to the standards set by the Original Six franchise.

"The culture of this team is winning," McAvoy said. "It's what we're kind of accustomed to, it's what we're used to. So when we're losing games, you can tell — it's not something that we're okay with.'

Those sentiments certainly translated out onto the Madison Square Garden ice on Sunday afternoon, to say the least.

While Boston's franchise cornerstones up front in Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak and Brad Marchand have all been as advertised in terms of guiding the B's to their 12-5-2 start this season, you could make the case that the 23-year-old McAvoy has been right there with the trio as MVPs of this club — especially given McAvoy's importance on a Bruins D corps rocked by injuries and the incorporation of new, young talent.

And that value to this club perhaps has never been as evident as it was on Sunday afternoon, as a dominant showing from McAvoy on the blue line played a pivotal role in a bounce-back performance for the Bruins in what was, by all intents and purposes, a must-win game down in New York.

McAvoy's impact can be measured just in terms of his baseline totals following Sunday's 4-1 victory over the Rangers, with the top-pairing defenseman orchestrating Charlie Coyle's opening tally in the first period before later blasting home his third goal of the season in the second frame.

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That continued development of McAvoy's offensive game (his 15 points rank 10th among all NHL defensemen) has helped elevate the Long Island native into the Norris Trophy discussion this season, but McAvoy has been far more than just an offensive conduit in wake of Torey Krug's departure. In fact, when you factor in what McAvoy brings in the O-zone with the shot-suppression totals he's compiled this season, there are very few players in the league that have tilted the ice so far in the direction of their club quite like McAvoy has in 2021.

Look no further than McAvoy's performance against the Rangers, in which the Blueshirts struggled to generate much of anything when McAvoy was out patrolling the MSG ice.

In total, during the 18:43 of 5v5 ice time that McAvoy logged on Sunday, the Bruins held some lopsided advantages in terms of:

Shot attempts: 31-9
Shots on goal: 18-4
Goals scored: 1-0
Scoring chances: 12-3


Those are just some absurd numbers, especially when you factor in that only 40% of his shifts started in the offensive zone — meaning that plenty of these salvos of shot attempts came after McAvoy was either defending in Boston's end or carrying the puck through the neutral zone.

Even though rookie Jakub Zboril has only been utilized sparingly outside of a third-pairing role this season, slotting him next to McAvoy yielded positive results for Boston — with both D-men moving the puck with purpose and preventing the B's from being hemmed into their own end, as was the case for prolonged stretches on Thursday and Friday.

Whether it be this season with Jeremy Lauzon or in previous campaigns alongside an imposing presence like Zdeno Chara, McAvoy has often skated with more of a big-bodied, stay-at-home presence on Boston's top pairing — but the results have been perhaps even more encouraging alongside a fellow blueliner that can get moving in a hurry — such as when McAvoy and Matt Grzelcyk log shifts together (Boston holds a 32-20 edge in 5v5 goals scored during a McAvoy + Grzelcyk pairing's ice time over the previous three seasons).

"Sometimes you get two puck movers on a pair and they can be really effective as well if they're able to get past that first wave of forecheck," Bruce Cassidy said. "Then they're moving, forwards are getting pucks from both D and in good spots and you're getting through the neutral zone — getting out of your end and maybe making some plays in the O-zone. So it just depends how the other team decides to play against the forward group that's against them.

"Are they going to make it hard on them, are they going to get beat up the ice, are they going to run through them or chip them every time they touch the puck? So it can work both ways. We've seen it with Grzelcyk (and) Charlie — where they've been really good together. And they're both more puck-mover type of guys. So that was our thought process — was a lot to ask Vaak (Urho Vaakanainen) the other night up there. But until you see it, you just don't know. Lauzy's been able to pull it off, but he's a little more defensive-minded guy. It's certainly a different mix than Zboril. But well, we've looked at all three of them up there now so we're getting a read on some of these young guys, where they best fit. Small sample size for Zboril and Vaak, but we'll see where it goes from there."

Regardless of who McAvoy has skated with, Boston has generally been in good hands when McAvoy has been out on the ice. As noted by @Bruins_Stats (a fantastic Twitter follow, by the way), among the 85 defensemen in the NHL with at least 300 minutes of 5v5 ice time logged, McAvoy ranks first in shot share — with Boston holding a 203-127 edge in shots on goal during its top defenseman's 342:07 TOI. At those rates, if McAvoy were to play a full 60 minutes, opponents are only averaging about 22 shots on goal per game when he's out on the ice. That's dominant stuff.

Of course, Boston's defensive clinic against the Rangers (21 shots on goal, four high-danger chances against during 5v5 play) was not the byproduct of McAvoy's play alone. Zboril more than held his own, while Urho Vaakanainen blocked six shots in his 21 minutes of ice time. Add in a committed defensive structure from the forwards and some much-needed secondary scoring, and Boston left New York with one of their more complete victories of the 2021 season.

For years now, the Bruins have often been bailed out by their triumvirate of top forwards, who, especially when Boston has appeared rudderless, have often pulled the franchise out of concerning spells and helped steer their teammates in the right direction.

It might be time to start putting McAvoy in that same conversation.

"Really happy with how the team played today," McAvoy said. "We stuck together. We knew that it kind of felt like a must-win, really, in our room. We're not comfortable with dropping games consecutively. It was good to get the result we wanted."