Charlie McAvoy addressed the captaincy noise around the Boston Bruins Friday, and he's not biting on it.
Sitting in the Bruins dressing room in a backwards cap, arms crossed, McAvoy didn't dodge the question about the "C" that still isn't on anybody's chest.
He just wouldn't feed it.
"I haven't talked to anybody about it. I honestly haven't even talked to Pasta about it, really," McAvoy said.
He added: "I'm trying to control the things that I can control."
That's a veteran answer from a guy who's been fielding this question for a while now, and he knows it isn't going away on its own.
Picture a kitchen with five people standing around waiting for someone to grab the last slice.
Don Sweeney's deadline puts pressure on Boston's leadership group
Nobody wants to reach first, so everyone just keeps talking about the pizza instead of eating it. That's the Bruins captaincy right now.
Don Sweeney said last week a captain will be named before the season starts, which puts a real clock on a conversation the room has been avoiding.
McAvoy is the obvious name people keep circling back to. He carries a $9,500,000 cap hit, tenth highest among defensemen across the league.
Marco Sturm, hired as Bruins head coach back in June 2025, inherits a leadership group that has stayed without a permanent captain into his second season.
Boston's overall record still reads 0-0-0 this season, which means the captaincy question is arriving before a single game result can bury it.
The Bruins host the Washington Capitals tonight, and every camera in that room is going to keep asking some version of the same question.
McAvoy's answer Friday wasn't a no. It wasn't much of a yes either, and that's exactly the point he's trying to make.
He's a guy trying to stay out of a decision that's about to land on somebody in that room, maybe on him.
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Pretending the pressure isn't building is its own kind of tell.
Should Charlie McAvoy be named the next Bruins captain?
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