McCarthy\u2019s physicality<\/p>\n
Defenseman Gavin McCarthy is no stranger to LECOM Harborcenter, but this was his first game on the rink since the 2020-21 season with the 16U Junior Sabres.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally cool to put the logo back on and represent the Buffalo Sabres out there,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was something super special, for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 21-year-old, a third-round pick in 2023, showed some great physicality Sunday. He delivered a huge open-ice hit in the defensive zone, broke up a James Hagens chance in the slot, won some wall battles and, in the third, ran over Bruins goalie Max Lundgren.<\/p>\n
McCarthy will join the Amerks full time after a five-game pro debut this spring. The AHL is a much tougher, more physical environment than this weekend\u2019s exhibitions, but the 6-foot-2, 194-pound blueliner looks to have the tools to hold up in Rochester.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought Gav\u00a0had a great summer, we saw it in practice,\u201d Leone said. \u201cI think he got quicker, I think he got stronger. Played really physical today. I thought he had a solid night.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McCarthy\u2019s physicality Defenseman Gavin McCarthy is no stranger to LECOM Harborcenter, but this was his first game on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":894878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-894877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=894877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/894878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}