‘Nothing has changed' as Charlie McAvoy's absence reaches three weeks

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BRIGHTON, Mass – Charlie McAvoy hasn’t skated at all nearly in two weeks and hasn’t played since an Oct. 18 road loss to the Edmonton Oilers after complaining that he “didn’t feel right.” So the 20-year-old defenseman has now been out three weeks with an upper body injury, and clearly appears to have experienced some kind of setback roughly 12 days ago after skating prior to a gameday morning skate at Warrior Ice Arena.

The suspicion is that McAvoy suffered a concussion earlier in October and attempted to play through it for a couple of games, and is now suffering the after-effects from that situation, similar to the concussions that David Backes and Urho Vaakanainen suffered last month.

Bruce Cassidy has answered questions about McAvoy whenever they’ve been asked, and admitted more than a week ago that there’s “concern” about things being longer term with the young D-man’s injury. Cassidy once again updated everybody on McAvoy after Thursday’s morning skate, but it didn’t really clear up the picture at all.

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“I wish I had great answers for that. If there was any news then I’d hope that we’d provide an update. But really nothing has changed. He’s not skating, but he’s around doing off-ice workouts. That’s kind of where it’s been at. He hasn’t been shut down specifically where he’s off ice for three weeks or anything like that,” said Cassidy. “It’s a matter of him feeling up to the next stage, which would be hopefully getting on the ice and skating. That’s a bit up to him and the medical staff to make that determination. From there it’s getting into practice and getting into game shape. I hope he’s on the ice tomorrow, but I don’t have much for you there.”

Vaakanainen returned to the ice ahead of Bruins practice on Wednesday, and also continues to make steps in his recovery from his own upper body injury formally diagnosed as a concussion. But McAvoy remains out of action and the Bruins remain without their explosive young D-man who is so much a part of everything they do, including acting as a big cog in their offensive attack. 

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