The Boston Bruins know that life without Zdeno Chara is going to be difficult. No matter the organizational depth, you simply can’t just replace a 6-foot-9 defenseman with a ridiculous wingspan, booming slapshot, and perhaps the greatest net-front power-play presence in the league with a phone call to Providence. The Bruins are going to struggle without their captain, and that’s an undeniable truth.

But if everyone else can do their part and ‘chip in’, the Black and Gold know they can stay afloat.

“We’ve had a stretch before around the same amount of time, it might not have been four to six weeks but it was more like three weeks, where Zee was out,” B’s general manager Peter Chiarelli said, presumably noting a five-game stretch in March 2008 where Chara was out with a shoulder ailment. “They don’t happen too often but you hope everyone picks up the slack and plays a solid defensive game.

“You want to play a tighter defensive game,” Chiarelli continued. “We’re not going to have Zee who’s a bit of a stopper in that— he plays that shut down. Were gonna need guys to play a better defensive game, forwards and D. So what is success Matt? We have to play a tighter defensive game.”

Playing a defensive game has been an issue for the Bruins this year, too, a real first during Claude Julien’s eight-year tenure behind the Boston bench. For Boston, there’s just a troublesome lack of support, organization, and ability to clear pucks and bodies out of harm’s way in their own end.

In essence, now’s the time for the Bruins’ other defenders -- Dennis Seidenberg, Matt Bartkowski, Adam McQuaid, and third-year d-man Dougie Hamilton -- to contribute in the ways that made them the defensive grouping that Chiarelli put his faith in.

“We’ve historically been good defensively and we’ve had some good defensive games, we’ve had some not-so-good defensive games so these guys have to, as I said, they have to pick up the slack,” Chiarelli, who traded Johnny Boychuk because of these players’ progression, said yesterday. “They have more responsibility now. Whether that is a wakeup call for them or not that’s incumbent on them to do it.”

This is where and when the Bruins will need the 33-year-old Seidenberg to step up his game.

After missing the second half of last year with a torn ACL, it’s been a slow, uphill climb for the German-born defender in terms of getting back up to speed with his patented own-zone prowess.

Logging a season-high 24:12 in Thursday’s loss to the New York Islanders, Seidenberg can and should expect a similar workload for tonight’s game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, but whether or not he can adequately serve as the B’s makeshift No. 1 defenseman remains to be seen. But while some (maybe even most) have been critical of Seidenberg’s game this year, Boston’s brass feel that he’s easing back into form.

“He’s slowly finding his game,” Chiarelli noted of Seidenberg’s ‘struggles’. “If you look closely at his game, he’s slowly getting his legs, he’s slowly getting his timing back, slowly getting his passing back. I think you see more offensive chances from him. He’s skating the puck more. He will get better.”

In addition to additional contributions across the board, the Bruins have called defensemen Zach Trotman and Joe Morrow up from the American Hockey League.

At least one of these players will draw into the lineup against a Toronto club that won their last game, a 5-2 contest against the Islanders at the Nassau Coliseum, behind a three-point night from Phil Kessel.

The Kessel against the Bruins story is long and painful for the former Bruins sniper, but almost all of that has come Chara shadowing No. 81 for 60 minutes a night. In 26 career games against Boston, Kessel’s recorded just three goals, but again.. Chara. Tonight? Well, honestly, given the way this team is playing it wouldn’t shock me to see Kessel match that 26-game production in just three periods. Whether that speaks to Kessel’s talent as a superstar in this league or the Bruins’ recent nightmarish defensive efforts, you can be the judge.

The Maple Leafs are 1-3-0 at home this season.

The Masked Men: Tuukka Rask vs. Jonathan Bernier

Boston will give the start to Tuukka Rask. The 21st overall selection by the Maple Leafs in the 2005 NHL Draft, Rask has been a thorn in the Leafs’ side since coming to Boston in one of the most lopsided deals in recent memory (the Bruins sent Andrew Raycroft to Toronto in exchange for Rask’s rights). In just 11 starts against the Leafs, Rask has nine wins and a lethal .943 save percentage. But 2014-15 hasn’t come with the start the defending Vezina had hoped for, as Rask comes into tonight’s game with just three wins, an ugly .880 save percentage and 2.91 goals against average in six games this year.

Making his third straight start, Jonathan Bernier will look to build off a strong showing on Long Island where he finished the night with an impressive 34 saves on 36 shots against. That served as Bernier’s first victory of the season, and boosted his save percentage on up to .915 for the year. Though Bernier did win one of his two starts against the Bruins last year, he’ll enter tonight’s game with 16 goals against and a mediocre-at-best .882 save percentage in four career contests against the Black and Gold.

Stats of Note

- Reilly Smith has zero points and just one shot on goal in his last four games.

- B’s center David Krejci has 11 goals and 36 points in 38 career games against Toronto.

- Third-liner Chris Kelly is currently riding a five-game point streak.

- Maple Leaf defenseman Jake Gardiner has seven points in 12 games against the B’s.

- All of Joffrey Lupul’s three points in 2014-15 have come at home.

News and Notes

Barring a last-minute change, Matt Fraser will likely be the Bruins’ healthy scratch up front.

It should be a nice welcome home for Wallaceburg, Ont.’s Seth Griffith, as he’ll likely take to the ice tonight in front of home province for the first time in his NHL career. The 5-foot-11 winger also spent four years with the local London Knights of the Ontario Hockey League, and has skated on the Bruins’ top line with Milan Lucic and David Krejci for a little more than a week now.

The Bruins and Leafs split the season series last year with two wins each.

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