Chara almost arrived earlier
And now, the rest of the story. Buckle up, Bruins fans, this one is sure to leave a mark on the Black-andGold psyche.
Chara, who came to the Bruins in the summer of 2006, ultimately to be perhaps the best free agent acquisition in the game’s history, was traded here five years earlier, during the June 2001 draft, in a deal that had the Bruins shipping Jason Allison to the Islanders.
Mike Milbury, fed up with the contract demands of Rich Winter, then Chara’s agent, struck a deal with Bruins GM Mike O’Connell that had Allison headed to Uniondale for Chara and center Dave Scatchard.
“I went to tell the owner,” recalled Milbury, referring to Charles Wang,
“and he said, ‘You can’t make that deal.’ I said, ‘Why, Charles?’ And he said, ‘Because Dave Scatchard’s in the deal, and Dave Scatchard is the kind of guy we want.’ ”
Scatchard, 25 at the time, already had four years in the league. He was a reliable, albeit unspectacular, center.
“What do you mean?” an incredulous Milbury asked Wang.
The Islanders were desperate for a No. 1 pivot and Allison had just posted career highs for goals (36) and points (95) with the 2000-01 Bruins.
“‘Well, he visits sick kids in hospitals, and that’s the kind of guy I want on my team,’ ” said Milbury, recalling Wang’s response.
With eyes and Stanley Cup aspirations spinning, Milbury then turned around and flipped Chara, 24, to Ottawa, along with a first-round pick (Jason Spezza) and Bill Muckalt.
O’Connell followed up in October 2001 by sending the disgruntled Allison, along with Finnish winger Mikko Eloranta, to the Kings for refried B’s Glen Murray and Jozef Stumpel.
Allison was out of the NHL at 31 in the spring of 2006. Eloranta played two years in LA and headed back to finish his career in Europe. Murray logged six more years in Boston before retiring in 2008, on the same roster for two years with Chara as captain. Two years after his return to Boston, Stumpel was dished back to the Kings, and he finished his NHL career with the Panthers in 2008.
Chara, of course, played another 20plus years before calling it quits at age 44 after a one-year twilight tour with the Islanders in 2021-22. Next up: a call from the Hall of Fame.
Milbury’s first glimpse of Chara was via videotape, brought to him by European scout Anders Kallur. The tape showed the towering defensemen going through agility drills with his coach in Prague. Months later, the Islanders picked Chara No. 56 in the 1996 draft.
“Took him some time to get where he was,” recalled Milbury. “He had a progression through his time in New York, and certainly in Ottawa, where he was relied on even more than New York. Because of his work ethic, and his intelligence and his sheer will, he made himself the player he was. He’s as selfmade a player as I can remember.”
Had that deal gone through, Chara would have arrived in Boston at the same time Robbie Ftorek took over as the Bruins’ coach. Sergei Samsonov, Joe Thornton, and Bill Guerin were the top forwards. Sean O’Donnell, Hal Gill, Don Sweeney, and Nick Boynton were the mainstays on a backline still reeling from the trade that sent Ray Bourque to the Avalanche.
It was the money made available from Thornton’s departure that played a large part in Chara eventually signing in Boston in 2006. Imagine how the arc of history might have played out with Big Z and Jumbo Joe the twin towers here for a protracted run.