Charlie McAvoy is not small by the standards of any normal human being. He is 6-foot-1, 209 pounds. The average American man, according to the CDC, is 5-foot-9, 200 pounds.
McAvoy, however, is now small by the standards of the Bruins’ blue line.
“I’m the smallest D on the team now,” McAvoy said after Tuesday’s captains practice at Warrior Ice Arena.
He’s not wrong. Among the seven defensemen currently projected to make Boston’s opening night roster, McAvoy and Parker Wotherspoon are tied for the shortest. Everyone else has at least two inches on them. Andrew Peeke is 6-foot-3, Hampus Lindholm is 6-foot-4, Brandon Carlo and Mason Lohrei are both 6-foot-5, and free-agent addition Nikita Zadorov towers above them all at 6-foot-6.
Mark Kastelic, acquired from Ottawa in the Linus Ullmark trade this summer, is an objectively big man. He is listed at 6-foot-4, 226 pounds. He has been the biggest or one of the biggest players on his team for as long as he can remember.
In Boston, however, he’s realizing that he no longer stands out.
“I think that's something that stood out to me when I got traded here, is how big and heavy everybody is,” Kastelic said Thursday. “So, I fall into that category, and it's definitely different not being one of the biggest guys around. I think I feel pretty average here.”
Again, there’s no exaggeration there. In addition to the five defensemen mentioned above, the Bruins’ potential opening night roster could include eight forwards who stand 6-foot-3 or taller – Kastelic, Justin Brazeau (6-5), Pavel Zacha (6-4), Charlie Coyle (6-3), Trent Frederic (6-3), Morgan Geekie (6-3), Johnny Beecher (6-3) and Max Jones (6-3).
That’s 13 of 18 skaters on any given night who could be 6-foot-3 or taller. According to Elite Prospects, the Bruins’ projected roster has an average height of 6-foot-2, or 188.6 centimeters, which puts them mere millimeters behind the Vegas Golden Knights (188.8 cm) for the tallest team in the league.
These aren’t a bunch of tall, lanky players either. The Bruins have the heft to go along with the height. With an average weight of 207 pounds, Boston projects to be the heaviest team in the NHL this season. Zadorov again leads the way at 248 pounds, which makes him the second-heaviest player in the league behind only Seattle defenseman Jamie Oleksiak.
“That's the style of hockey I think everybody wants to play this year, is be big and heavy,” Kastelic said. “I think everybody’s excited about what we have in this room.”
General manager Don Sweeney said back in July that getting bigger wasn’t necessarily an explicit goal this offseason, but that in the process of addressing other needs, he happened to zero in on bigger players to do it.
“That wasn't our intention,” Sweeney said. “We've always wanted our pace, ability to arrive on time on the forecheck. We certainly had an eye towards that, possessing the puck, and the byproduct was that we found guys that do that and they happen to be a little bit bigger. But there was never staying away from small skill if that’s what you're referring to, because these guys all have the skill. They just come in a bigger package, and they all skate.”
That last part is important. Yes, there has been a trend in recent years of bigger teams winning – the Panthers last year, the Golden Knights the year before, the Lightning’s back-to-back Cups, and the Blues who beat the Bruins in the Final in 2019. But all of those teams could skate, too. Their blue lines, especially, were big, but also mobile.
Just like a small roster may not cut it in today’s NHL, neither will a slow one. The game is only getting faster and faster every year.
McAvoy believes the Bruins have found the right balance, especially on defense.
“It's good to have size,” McAvoy said. “I think you're seeing a little bit of the makeup of a lot of the good teams in this league. The sizes help. Obviously, I think the skating ability – you’ve got to be big, but you’ve got to be able to move. And I think we have that. I think we have a lot of dynamic defensemen.”