Charlie McAvoy has given Marco Sturm’s Bruins a standard this season, and Boston’s 2026 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy nomination makes that impossible to miss.

The Bruins announced Wednesday that McAvoy is Boston’s nominee for the 2026 Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, the award tied to perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey.

That lands exactly where McAvoy’s season has lived. He didn’t just come back from pain. He kept playing through it, kept producing, and kept carrying major minutes on the blue line.

McAvoy, 28, had already gone through a brutal stretch before this season even settled in. He returned from a season-ending shoulder injury suffered in February 2025 at the 4 Nations Face-Off, then took another major hit on Nov. 15 against the Montreal Canadiens.

A slapshot caught him in the face, leaving him with a fractured jaw and multiple mouth injuries. Boston still got him back in the lineup 26 days later, which says plenty about how hard he pushed through rehab.

He was also hit in the face on two more occasions in the season.

The Bruins’ post makes the message plain: this wasn’t about sympathy, it was about endurance shown in full view all year.

A season that backed up the nomination

McAvoy has appeared in 67 games for Boston this season, scoring 11 goals while setting career highs with 49 assists and 60 points. Those numbers matter because they came with visible wear and tear.

He also helped Team USA win gold at the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. That piece pushes this beyond a local honor and turns it into a season-long statement about his resolve.

"As Charlie himself would admit, it has been a challenging calendar year for him with painful injuries and intense discomfort after repeatedly getting hit in the mouth area with blasted pucks, sharp elbows and the glass over the boards in one case,” said Joe Haggerty, Chair of the Boston chapter of the PHWA. “It all started with a slapped puck to the face in November that left him with a fractured jaw and numerous lost teeth. Through it all he has endured the pain at times when he couldn’t even chew solid food and did all of this while posting the best season of his NHL career and winning a gold medal for Team USA in Milan Cortina. His season of pushing through it all showed everybody what words like ‘perseverance’ and ‘dedication to hockey’ really mean, and it helped catapult Boston back into the playoff hunt this year."

There’s another layer here, too. McAvoy stayed active in the Bruins’ community work, including Holiday Toy Shopping, Toy Delivery, and a World Down Syndrome Day sock collaboration with For Bare Feet.

Over 571 NHL games, all with Boston, McAvoy has built one of the strongest resumes by a Bruins defenseman in recent memory. He sits at 71 goals, 289 assists, 360 points, and a plus-157 rating.

That’s why this nomination fits. McAvoy didn’t just survive a rough year. He turned it into the best offensive season of his career and gave the Bruins a pillar to lean on.