Young Bruins finding their way during World Championships

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Given the surgeries following the season and that many of Boston’s best players had already participated in the World Cup of Hockey at the beginning of the hockey season, the Bruins only sent three young players over to Europe for the World Championships this month. But all are acquitting themselves well with both David Pastrnak and Charlie McAvoy getting regular action for their respective home countries, and flashing the skills that are expected to have both players lead into the next generation for the Black and Gold.

Pastrnak has been a point-per-game player with a goal and six points in six games for the Czech Republic and the 20-year-old posted 24 shots on goal in those six games. Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy has one assist and a plus-6 rating in six games for Team USA and has been solid while not playing a particularly dominant role on an American team that’s got established guys like Connor Murphy, Jacob Trouba, Noah Hanifin and Danny DeKeyser on the back end.

Bruins prospect Anders Bjork has played in five of the six games for Team USA in the tournament, but hasn’t enjoyed much of an impact playing a bottom-6 role with three shots on net and zero points thus far in the tournament.

It looks like both teams will qualify once preliminary pool play is over in the next couple of days, and both McAvoy and Bjork should be in action on Tuesday morning when Team USA takes on Team Russia, broadcast live on NBCSN. It should be a good test for the Americans with Russian forwards Artemi Panarin and Nikita Kucherov leading the entire IIHF World Championships field in scoring during the first handful of games in the two-week tourney.   

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