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The 2014-15 season was a year in which many skaters on the Boston Bruins looked, well, human. They were regular day people in an anything-but-regular job, capable of flaws, mistakes, and injuries.
That was especially true for Zdeno Chara, the once seemingly indestructible captain of the Black and Gold, and a towering 6-foot-9 fixture on the Boston blue line. Chara, who suffered a torn ligament in a collision with New York Islanders superstar John Tavares in an Oct. game at TD Garden, missed a staggering 19 contests for the Bruins. Before that momentum-crushing moment, Chara had never missed more than five contests in any 82-game year in his nine-year tenure in Boston.
And even when Chara returned, it was clear that he was far less than 100 percent healthy.
The fall of Chara the premier defender was upon us, the Hub thought. But the 38-year-old defenseman and veteran of 1,195 NHL games isn’t ready to begin the talk of his career coming to a close just yet.
“My contract goes for another three years and I’d like to play until then,… Chara said in a phone interview via the Toronto Sun. “I think we still have a competitive team with some good young players.
“Being out of the playoffs just makes you want to get back there even more.…
Chara finished this season with eight goals and 20 points in 63 games played, and finished with the second-best Corsi-For% among Boston defenders at five-on-five play (54.2%), second to only Dougie Hamilton (55.0%), but has still found himself among those floated out as a potential goner for a Boston club in need of shedding some age and salary off their books moving forward.
But that’s not going to happen. As noted by the man himself, Big Z has another three years left on his contract with a $6.917 million cap-hit, and has a full no-movement clause in that deal. He loves Boston, he wants to retire with the Bruins, and from everything I’ve been told, the only way that his career doesn’t end that way is if Chara himself approaches the Bruins and asks for a trade out of the Hub.
And that’s not the worst thing for the Bruins, either. While I think that Chara’s skating game has taken a hit of late (I suppose that’ll happen when you’re skating on one leg for most of the year), the reported ‘fall of Chara’ has become an overblown narrative. He’s still an effective shutdown defender in today’s league, and the Bruins like what they have working in terms of a natural changing of the guard between No. 33 and Hamilton. At some point, and it may be sooner than most anticipated if Hamilton continues down the road he appears to be on, the natural trajectory of their careers will intersect and pit Hamilton as the Bruins’ best defenseman while Chara becomes a simply fantastic No. 2 option.
Again, that’s not the worst thing that could happen to your club.
In the interview, Chara also admitted that the lack of a postseason in Boston has given him ‘important’ time to heal. Along with the knee injury that slowed Chara down upon his return in Dec., the Slovak defender was also diagnosed with a fractured ankle at the end of the season.
Chara enters this season 19th on Boston’s all-time games played list, and ninth among d-men.
Ty Anderson has been covering the Boston Bruins for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, is a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com