"Unbelievable. I can't say enough good things about him," said Grzelcyk. "Obviously, I got to play with him in college and could see from an early age that he's a special player. He's only gotten better and better each year. The biggest thing about him is when the spotlight is on him and the lights get brighter, Chuckie shows up to play and he elevates his game.
"Especially being his partner, I want to make sure that I'm supporting him, I'm putting pucks in good spots for him to get going the other way and transition. I think we read off each other really well. It's really fun to play with him. It's fun to watch him grow up kind of right in front of our eyes. He's one of the best defenseman in the league."
That was abundantly clear on Friday night. In Boston's Game 4 victory over the Capitals, McAvoy registered a career postseason high with three points - all assists - while logging roughly 26 minutes of ice time, nearly nine of which came shorthanded and another four-plus on the power play.
"Charlie McAvoy thrives with big minutes," said Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy. "The thing about Charlie that goes unnoticed is he plays a lot of heavy minutes but he recovers well. He's got a real good ability to sort of reset and get back out there. I don't know if he's got extra large lungs. But he's able to recover and get back to a high level very quickly."
It is also evident that McAvoy has taken over the reins of Boston's defense corps. After four years of playing alongside - and learning from - Zdeno Chara, it is McAvoy that is now setting the tone for the B's back end.
"He's had more on his plate," said Cassidy. "The leader of his pair, where in the past he was gravitating towards that. But obviously with Zee's experience, it was a different animal. Now it's more of, 'Hey, take the initiative in terms of play on the ice, in terms of communicating with your partner.' Certainly Grizz has played enough games in the league. But I still think whoever he plays with, he's that guy.
"We're trying to build more and more into his game without overloading him...now he's doing more penalty killing at times…more and more is being put on his plate because he's able to handle it…everything we give him he seems to excel at. A young guy in this league that's only going to get better. Has a tremendous ceiling, seems to get highly motivated for the bright lights."
McAvoy's three assists in the B's 4-1 win, which opened up a 3-1 series lead for the Black & Gold, all came on the power play as Boston's man advantage snapped out of its funk and struck three times in five opportunities. The 23-year-old is just the fifth defenseman in team history to record three power-play assists in a playoff game and just the second in the last 32 years (Torey Krug in Game 3 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final), according to NHL Stats.
"I think we were making plays for the first couple of games, but they've been pressuring well and we try and do the same and try and get you out of your rhythm a little bit," McAvoy, who moved up to the top unit for Game 4, said of the B's power play. "But I think [Game 4] was kind of just great efforts by everybody when you got the puck to kind of know what you're doing with it next.
"And then [David Pastrnak] does what he does. He can shoot the puck as good as anyone and he has two shots that directly result in goals - [Brad Marchand] with the tip and then him picking his spot there, and then Grizzy's shot. We were just shooting the puck.
"It seems very simple, right? Just shoot it. But it was good to get pucks in the net and see guys get rewarded."
