Bruins notebook: Charlie McAvoy working his way back to 100 percent

Charlie McAvoy was set to play his third challenge back and first battle at the Garden on Tuesday as the Bruins faced the Utah Mammoth While he s looked no worse for the wear after suffering a broken jaw on November an injury that required surgery to fix and has him still on a limited diet he noted he s still adjusting to the bubble that he s wearing on his head which consists of a full shield and football-like jaw protector I still feel like I m getting used to it with specific of the peripherals like when look down and you ve got the holes there sometimes you get a little lost when you re looking down like that But I m trying to just get settled with that But it s it hasn t hindered me much stated McAvoy after the B s morning skate He noted dealing with it was much worse when he was out of the lineup and had started skating to get his conditioning back It s something that you just have to deal with with the bubble McAvoy mentioned of the fog and heat that comes with the apparatus When I was coming back it was hard doing the conditioning That was brutal You re getting bag skated and you re trying to get that back and you don t really have that much Everything just gets trapped in there you re hunched over and you can t breathe and it s fogging up Those weren t the most of fun skates McAvoy had lost about pounds while on a liquid diet He stated he s about halfway back to his former weight of about pounds while he s battling the diet he s still on Softer stuff mushy stuff declared McAvoy It still hurts if I try to chew anything that s kind of rough It s not fun But every day we re getting closer to having this thing be percent The B s entered Tuesday s matchup just inside the playoff bracket but only a point out of first place Countless players have explained that the vibe around the crew is much better than it was last year when the organization was dogged by contract issues to start the season with Jeremy Swayman and then during the season with captain Brad Marchand It would eventually spin out of control and B s management after firing coach Jim Montgomery held a fire sale at the contract deadline that included Marchand Brandon Carlo and Charlie Coyle Despite the offloading of so numerous pieces the B s have surprised countless with their season so far McAvoy was questioned what had to do change beyond winning games I want to tread lightly on this because I don t want to take a shot at last year or anything because there are a lot of guys that aren t here anymore that I love deeply commented McAvoy But I think the chemistry of this year it feels a little different We were able to sort of water that seed a little more Last year we were right on the road We didn t get to do specific of the bonding stuff to get to know each other Then before we knew it Monty was fired This year was a little different We were able to learn from the mistakes maybe of last year and find a way to get this group cohesive and as close as we can and I think that it s helped us in this first half a lot There s also the feeling of of everyone starting on the same page that comes naturally with installing a new coach as the unit did in bringing in Marco Sturm who also brought a new system that was a departure from the zone defensive system the B s had played for decades Everybody s starting together It feels like we re all taking the first step together And it s really good revealed McAvoy I think we ve seen it this year how it s progressed when we ve started to understand how Sturmie s system better and as the gang s building and growing together It s been cool really We ve called a lot of guys up We ve got a lot of guys walking around here now Obviously it s never good for people to be injured but we pulled a lot of guys in here that we ve gotten a lot out of and have been part of a winning effort The group is big right now but everyone brings something special to it Victor Soderstrom who has played well since finding his way into the lineup with all the injuries on the back end was the th overall pick of the Arizona Coyotes who are now the Mammoth He had yo-yoed between Arizona and their AHL affiliate in Tucson getting NHL over the class of four seasons He eventually went back home to Sweden to both find his meeting and the elation of playing it he announced He has no ill feelings toward his former club During that time his rights were traded to Chicago which in turn flipped him to Boston last offseason I think I got the chance with Arizona I just don t think I ever played up to my capability when I was up there I kind of lost the bliss of hockey for a little bit there in the last year stated Soderstrom who has an assist and is plus- in four games I didn t re-sign there because I felt like I had to find my meeting back and I had to do it somewhere else Then at the end of that summer I explored the thought of maybe going somewhere else and thought of going back to Sweden for a year The SHL is a good league I did that and had a very fun and basically checked all the tings I needed to do I got what I longed to get out of it I had a goal of constantly to come back I did and I m happy to be a part of this organization Jordan Harris Jonathan Aspirot Henri Jokiharju Michael Callahan and Matej Blumel all rehabbing various injuries skated before the B s group session in the morning Sturm announced that none of the injured players returns are imminent Sturm also explained that Viktor Arvidsson who left last Thursday s challenge in Winnipeg with a lower body injury skated on Monday but did not skate on Tuesday with the other injured players He commented the Arvidsson was somewhat related to the injury he suffered on November in Montreal when he pulled up lame on a long puck chase It s a tricky one stated Sturm Arvidsson missed seven games with the original injury