Chara’s future with team is on the line
BOSTON — Less than a week after the Bruins closed up shop for 2019-20, all we know for sure is that free agent Zdeno Chara, their 43-year-old captain, would like another kick at the can.
“I want to be a Boston Bruin,” Big Z proclaimed to one and all on Thursday, placing the negotiating puck squarely on GM Don Sweeney’s desk.
What we don’t know is whether Sweeney cares to extend Chara that opportunity, particularly if he wants to make a bold play and offer, say, St. Louis free agent Alex Pietrangelo huge dough to be the next franchise defenseman hitched to the Bobby Orr-Brad Park-Ray Bourque-Chara legacy train.
We get lost in a lot of discussions around here, but that has been one incredible, unparalleled string of backline dominance.
Orr, Park, and Bourque all have been inducted in the Hall of Fame. Chara’s plaque is at the Yonge Street pickup window. The continuum, dating to Orr’s arrival in Boston in 1966, was interrupted only by the six years between Bourque leaving in the spring of 2000 until Chara was hired on in the summer of ‘06.
For those just now emerging from concussion protocol during that era: The Bruins failed to qualify for the postseason in three of the six springs between Bourque bolting and Chara arriving. Otherwise, they were KO’d three times in Round 1, and were an aggregate 6-12 in postseason play. Oh, and the futility spanned yet one more season when they DNQ’d again in 2006-07 with Chara aboard and Dave Lewis behind the bench.
All in all, the Bruins appeared in only 18 playoff games across eight seasons (2000-07). Fast-forward to 2020, the fan base reaches for tiki torches if the season ends without at least an appearance in the Cup Final. Welcome to the Hub of Hockey.
Pietrangelo, 13 years Z’s junior, is headed to the October open market with an expired deal that carried a $6.5 million cap hit. Even in a post-COVID, cap-impinged world, the 6-foot3, 210-pound Pietrangelo realistically can expect a long-term deal at upward of $9 million a year.
Chara ($3.75 million) and free agent-to -be Torey Krug ($5.25 million) combined for a $9 million cap hit. So if Pietrangelo is in — and, granted, it’s a big if — then the math becomes pretty obvious, doesn’t it? Chara and Krug would be gone, unless Chara wanted to stay for very short money, perhaps one-third of last season’s take.
One potential complication would be that Pietrangelo is a righthander, the same as emerging No. 1 Charlie McAvoy. Riding together could be an awkward, if not futile, fit. Bruce Cassidy would have to find them both ice time and role fitting of their talent and paycheck. Every coach should be so challenged.