Charlie McAvoy practiced in a noncontact jersey with his Boston Bruins teammates on Friday and spoke for the first time since taking a slapshot to the face in a game against the Montreal Canadiens on Nov. 15.
The defenseman, who returned to the ice earlier in the week, had facial surgery for a linear fracture of his jaw following the injury, and said he is progressing although there's no timeline for his return.
"There are steps that we need to cross," McAvoy said. "Obviously, getting weight on, getting energy, feeling good is the biggest thing. You don't want to be out there and feeling like you're going to pass out. There's that, there's getting cleared by the doctor. There's X-rays, there are certain checkmarks that we have to get by before we can get back in a game. … We are doing everything we can to get back fast. I'm healing really good, so hopefully not too much longer."
McAvoy said there was "some displacement, lost a lot of teeth on my bottom, but I'll save you the visual. Just take my word for it."
He has lost almost 20 pounds since the injury, relying on a combination of soup, milk shakes and ice cream, since he will not be able to eat solids for three weeks, until it is fully healed, six weeks from the date of the surgery. Because of that, he said he has felt weak on the ice so far, with a lack of energy.
"The diet, that's the toughest part, is just trying to get what you need without being able to eat solid food," McAvoy said. "I lost a lot of weight, but working my way back now."
When the shot happened, he knew immediately that it wasn't good.
"I knew we were in trouble there," McAvoy said. "I'd never taken one before, but you don't take a slapshot to the jaw – I knew right away I was in some trouble."
McAvoy, who has 14 assists in 19 games this season and leads the Bruins with 23:46 of ice time per game, has missed nine games since the injury. The Bruins are 4-5-0 without him.
Boston (16-13-0), which failed to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs last season, is second in the Atlantic Division and hosts the New Jersey Devils on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; NESN, MSG).
"He's great," coach Marco Sturm said, emphasizing that the team will not rush McAvoy back. "I can't say it enough, he's such a big leader for our team, on and off the ice. We miss him every day. Just to have him around again, it puts everyone, a smile on their face, including us coaches. He's one of the best defensemen in the League, I think, and to see him hurt like that, it hurt all of us. That's why we can't wait to have him back."
He still feels the injury frequently -- "You feel it with everything," he said. "It's weird, it vibrates a lot, like when you lean down on shots and stuff, you feel it" -- and called it one of the strangest injuries he's ever had.
McAvoy, who was one of six players named to the United States' preliminary roster for the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, has gone through a lot physically over the past year. An acromioclavicular (AC) joint separation in his right shoulder suffered on Feb. 13 in a game against Finland at the 4 Nations Face-Off led to a staph infection. He missed the rest of the regular season.
"It's a lot," McAvoy said of the mental toll the injury has taken on him. "My family, the guys, the support of the staff and everybody, from the top down is in our corner and my corner. That just means the world to me and to allow me to focus on the things I need to focus on and know that there's so much love and support for us in this building, you can't describe it. It just means the world to us."
