This is really a strange thing, isn’t it? Zdeno Chara, suitable for another Team.
The nitpickers among you (and there are many of them) will emphasize “well, in fact, he’s already played for other Teams”, but you get the point.
Chara ran a wildly successful race for the Bruins as a franchise, arguably the most successful since the invention of the internet.
And how does it end?
To avoid this, Chara’s departure is unlikely to break or break the Bruins ‘ 2021 season. Their fate, as is usually the case, will be decided by the goalkeeper, and the secondary point number.
But the idea put forward by many that Chara had no value on this Team or that the Bruins somehow deserve the credit for cutting off the bait is crazy.
Zdeno Chara is no longer the Elite. He is no longer a prominent defender, nor a man who can play 20 + minutes per evening.
This is very good. As Adam mentioned in his review of Chara season, it is important to look at Chara in the present, not in the past.
And in the present day, Chara is still better than John Moore. It is better that Urho Vaakanainen, better than Jakub Zboril, better than Jack Ahcan.
Too many people are caught up in the whole idea of the “youth movement”, as if a player who is younger would automatically make him better.
“Well, you’re just caught up in nostalgia,” you type in the comments. “It was bad in the Playoffs.”
It was! You are absolutely right. Do you know who else was bad? Patrice Bergeron. And Charlie Coyle. And Torey Krug.
Strangely enough, these guys were injured, or in a sagging, or simply had difficulty starting after the bubble.
But for Chara, it was age that caught up with him. “Father, the hour”, they say. “He just didn’t have any more. He was poorly in the bladder, so he clearly was not able to manage a compressed season.”
What this virtually ignores is that during the regular season before closing, Chara played some of his best hockey of recent seasons. Again, not at an Elite level-but at an effective level, even against the best talents of the opposition.
Many of you will now deny this, and that is fine. But they let a poor Playoff series obscure their memory of what preceded it.
“It’s slow! The game went through!”
I do not know how to break that, but speed was never one of the forces of Chara, even in the time of Norris.
He is a player who was effective due to his positioning, intelligence and reach…Things that don’t really get worse with age.
What makes this decision particularly confusing is the fact that the Bruins have decided to go with a youth movement on defense, which, by most accounts, is probably their last serious Kick to the can.
Your goaltender # 1 is probably gone after this season. Your center # 2 is probably gone too. If these secondary notation problems were bad before, wait!
For me, this step would have made much more sense after this coming season. It would be a tacit admission of ” Look, we need to start looking to the future, even if it means a lean year.”
But why now, when everyone agrees that the Bruins ‘ Stanley Cup window is closing fast(if not already slammed)?
There are ways to escape Don Sweeney, and I think it’s important to hear what he has to say tomorrow morning.
For example, if the Bruins told Chara that he had to accept the minutes of the third pairing and the actual possibility of sometimes being on the 9th floor and that he refused, then fine-Sweeney did what he had to do.