Joe Haggerty of NBC Sports Boston: The new trend of “bridge deals” is this third-year kicker. We have seen it with the Pavel Zacha and Zach Werenski deals. Year 1 and Year 2 were a hair lower with the contract year boost.
The other parts of Boston’s core have taken lesser deals. David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand, and Patrice Bergeron all took these market contracts before getting “the big one”. Fortunately or unfortunately for McAvoy, the market has been set. So, expecting a deal in the $5-$6 million AAV range should not surprise anyone.