Boston Bruins: Zdeno Chara’s last chance for another Stanley Cup?
Zdeno Chara is entering his 22nd NHL season; After his first few seasons started rocky in New York and a few more developing well in Ottawa, he made his move to become a bonafide Boston Bruins legend.
The 6’9″ Czech very quickly became the face of the Boston Bruins and the big, bad brand of hockey they played. Posting seven, almost eight, 40-point seasons in a row and in only 2 seasons he did not have a positive plus/minus score. That was in his first season with Boston and in the 14-15 season, which is understandable because only two of the eight defenseman at the time had a positive plus/minus. Zdeno Chara was third with 0; not even a negative!
He’s had decent seasons since then, but has definitely regressed since his prime and until last year still looked like a NHL defenseman. Then the 2018-19 season came. His blocks, hits, and takeaways all cut in half, same with his offensive stats. Even his ice time took a hit, but something didn’t change.
The Boston Bruins were a very good team and more than good enough to make the playoffs. A hard-fought first round in Toronto saw what I can only describe as the start of a Renaissance for Zdeno Chara.
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He looked faster, more aware and his stick and skating were always in the right spot and it didn’t stop there. His leadership kept showing into the second round with wear-and-tear starting to affect a lot of the group.
Big Z’s tough influence helped a lot of the younger guys keep themselves together and power through another tough team in Columbus, coming off of a sweep of one of the best teams we’ve seen in a while.
The Boston Bruins seemed to have all the pieces of the puzzle put together after sweeping Carolina to go to the final. That’s when a war began; a war of grit, toughness and pain. With St. Louis playing a very (sometimes overly) physical brand of hockey, the Final turned into how long could the Boston Bruins keep their scoring up while getting battered by the Blues; it became clear by the second game that the Bruins would need to end the series quick.
With the entire team ailing and Chara posting a playoff plus/minus of +16 going into Game 4, Zdeno Chara took a puck to the jaw off a weird bounce off his stick and was taken to the locker room. He wouldn’t return to play but it didn’t take him long to get back to the bench to cheer his team to a hopeful win.
Zdeno Chara’s jaw was broken and got it wired shut. He then played Game 5 with a cage! Certainly a motivating factor and the team played hard, but it wasn’t meant to be as the Blues won 2-1 off what I will only say is a controversial no-call.
The Bruins would fall in seven and began the off-season process with one piece of business already taken care of. Chara is signed for next year at only $2 million, instead of $5 million and one has to wonder, are we getting the Chara that’s steadily regressing or are we getting Big Z from these playoffs one more time?
Personally I think he’s here to push the young talent as far as they can go and I think he will probably play a more limited role until playoffs.
Next. Ignore any suggestion of trading David Krejci. dark
Assuming we make it, I then see Chara stepping up for one more shot at another Cup. He is an outstanding leader and legend of this franchise and more than deserves a farewell year.