Will Chara return to ice for Bruins?
Cam Neely says team is hashing it out with Bruins’ captain
We now know what the NHL season will look like. We know that it’s a 56-game schedule. We know who’s in what division. We know the playoff structure.
But as of Monday afternoon, Bruins fans did not know whether Zdeno Chara would be wearing the “C” for a 15th season with the B’s.
In his Zoom meeting with reporters, team president Cam Neely was both very careful and decidedly noncommittal when it came to the prospect of a Chara return, saying that issue was still being “flushed out.” Chara, 43, is an unrestricted free agent.
On the left side of the B’s blue line is Matt Grzelcyk and veteran John Moore (bumped out of the lineup for much of last season) and then some question marks. There are a couple of first-round draft picks Jakub Zboril (2015) and Urho Vaakanainen (2017), who have yet to get a real shot in the NHL. There is also Jeremy Lauzon, who grabbed his opportunity to play on the right side last season and ran with it. On the right side, there’s Charlie McAvoy, Brandon Carlo, Connor Clifton and Kevan Miller, who has not been able to play since the spring of 2019 due to knee injuries. That’s a lot of bodies. Neely was asked what role he envisioned Chara taking should he did return.
“For me, it’s tough to say,” said Neely. “We do want to take a look at some of these young, left-shot Ds that we have in our system to see if they can step up or if it’s the time for them to step up, and to see where they’re at in their development. We certainly respect Zdeno and everything he’s done for the organization and what he’s accomplished as a player and what he’s done both on and off the ice here in Boston. It’s really just a matter of what his desire is and how the coaching staff and we feel what our lineup should look like and could look like depending on the development of some of these young guys.”
He was later asked if there was even a roster spot available for Chara.
“Well I think it really depends on what he feels he can do and help us, and we have to feel the same way, how that looks,” said Neely. “Is that something that he would be comfortable with, how we maybe envision it looking compared to maybe how he feels it may look? This is a really difficult time for anybody that is going to come off a long break and have a short training camp and jump right into a compressed schedule with a number of back to backs and I think 116 days I believe to play 56 games, so there’s a lot of factors in play about what makes sense for us and what makes sense for Zdeno.”
Chara’s agent, Matt Keator, wrote in a text that he hadn’t had any further discussions with the B’s or any other team yet. Perhaps retirement is on the table. It’s hard to imagine a 43year-old player choosing to pick up sticks and move to another team in the midst of a pandemic if things can’t be worked out with the Bruins. But this is Chara we’re talking about,
not your average 43-yearold. In his end-of-season call with reporters, he certainly sounded like he still wanted to play.
Meanwhile, there is no question that Chara’s role with the B’s has diminished, and time marches on for every player and every team. They also need to know if the kids are alright, or not.
Still, Chara not being on the Bruins’ back-end would represent a sea change for the organization. Despite his age, it remains highly debatable as to whether this is the right time to move on from the future Hall of Famer. Chara is still one of the top penalty killers in the league and — with Patrice Bergeron, David Krejci and Tuukka Rask hitting their mid-30s — the B’s are still very much in a win-now mode.
Interestingly, when Neely was later asked if he was satisfied with his overall lineup or whether GM Don Sweeney was still looking to add, veteran help on defense was one possibility the president threw out.
“I think we’d still like to explore our back end a little bit, even though we feel we’ve got some guys who can step in, it’s just a matter of the experience that everybody likes. But you don’t get experience until you
play,” said Neely. “But you’re never really satisfied with your lineup. I’m sure Don is still looking at potentially tweaking or adding, but we’ll see what happens in the next couple of weeks here.”
The B’s won’t find any more experience than what Chara can offer.
Here are a few other topics Neely touched on:
• Neely is hoping to have fans inside the Garden at some point this season.
“That’s going to be dependent upon the state and city regulations and guidelines,” said Neely. “I know the staff here at the Garden has done a lot of work behind the scenes to make it as fan-friendly as possible, as safe as possible for when we are allowed to have fans in here to make sure they’ve gone through all the protocols. Safety is obviously of the utmost importance for us.”
He said that new protocols such as fans being required to be six-feet apart entering the building and on escalators, ordering concessions online, etc. will be in place when the Garden opens its doors again.
“We’re certainly hoping for a full house at some point this year. When that is? I don’t know,” Neely said. “Is it going to be in May, June, July? It’s hard to say. Are we going to get fans in the building at some point in January, February? It’s really out of our control. But we have made plans for no fans, a third fans, half fans, three-quarter fans and then a full house.”
• Though they explored the idea of outdoor games, that appears to be a no-go at this point.
“We looked at that. Unless you can get a certain number of fans in the building, it didn’t really seem to make sense financially,” said Neely. “It’s a big undertaking, with the equipment and getting the system in place to play outdoors. So we looked at it hard, but it looked like the best course for us was to stick to playing at the TD Garden for now.”
• With the divisional realignment, the B’s will not be seeing ancient rivals Montreal or Toronto, or new ones like the Lightning, in the 56-game regular season. But with eight games against their temporary divisional opponents as well as geographical proximity to some of them, it won’t be hard to get some hatred going.
“Yeah, I don’t think it will not take long to get those rivalries built up,” said Neely. “Obviously there’s history between Boston and the Rangers for years. When they play here, we play there, there’s a lot of fans of both teams. I think the recent history we’ve had with Philly in the playoffs, that will spark some rivalry. Playing these teams that many times, guys will be sick of each other in a hurry.”
• While he didn’t have hard dates for returns of his two injured stars, Neely said that Brad Marchand (hernia surgery) has been on the ice a few times and David Pastrnak (hip surgery) has returned to Boston to continue his rehab.
• Neely said no player yet has expressed a desire to opt out.