Bruins Sign McAvoy To Three-Year, $14.7 Million Contract

The Boston Bruins have signed restricted free agent Charlie McAvoy to a three-year contract worth $14.7 million. The deal carries an annual cap hit of $4.9 million. The Bruins now have $3.2 million left in salary cap space, with restricted free agent defenseman Brandon Carlo left to sign. McAvoy and Bruins general manager Don Sweeney were to speak to the Boston media Sunday afternoon at 1 PM ET.

Per Capfriendly here is the breakdown of the McAvoy contract:

Charlie McAvoy #Bruins
3 years, $4.9M AAV

Confirmed Contract Breakdown:
2019-20: $1.2M base salary, $2.5M signing bonus
2020-21: $2.7M base salary, $1M signing bonus
2021-22: $7.3M base salaryhttps://t.co/o4J2O5Z297 pic.twitter.com/AfTEImiRfA

— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) September 15, 2019

A key in that contract breakdown is that McAvoy’s base salary in the final year of the contract is $7.3 million and that would be the qualifying offer the Bruins would be required to extend following the expiration of this new contract. One key though in McAvoy’s status though is that since he has two RFA years left at the end of this new contract, he will not be an unrestricted free agent, but rather restricted.

Interesting fact about the McAvoy contract in comparison to Werenski (CBJ) and Meier (SJS), two other RFAs who signed this off-season with a significant increase in the base salary of their final contract year pic.twitter.com/aYXumNzJAl

— CapFriendly (@CapFriendly) September 15, 2019

On Monday, the Columbus Blue Jackets signed RFA defenseman Zach Werenski to a three-year $15 million contract and there was optimism that as a result, the dominoes would fall and other RFA defensemen like McAvoy would follow suit. They did just that as the Philadelphia Flyers signed RFA blueliner Ivan Provorov to a six-year $40.5 million contract Thursday night and earlier in the day, the Winnipeg Jets locked up a defenseman who could’ve been an RFA next July to an eight-year contract worth $50 million in Josh Morrissey.

As of Friday, McAvoy and his camp were still pushing for contracts similar to those but it appears that McAvoy decided to take one for his cap-strapped team so that they can compete for the Stanley Cup again this season.

McAvoy had seven goals and 21 assists in 54 games last season and two goals and six assists in 23 playoff games. The 21-year-old defenseman, who was drafted by the Bruins 14th overall at the 2016 Entry Draft, has 14 goals and 46 assists in 1117 career regular season games and three goals and 13 assists in 41 career playoff games.