Zdeno Chara: Why a Saturday Return Would Be Just Right for Boston Bruins

Zdeno Chara’s morning twirl in Ottawa on Wednesday was the first course in a daylong buffet of new hope for Boston Bruins’ fans.

While the towering captain expectedly sat out the subsequent evening’s game, his teammates mustered their second win in as many nights in his absence. In essence, the Bruins have now won three straight games without Chara, having also broken a 3-3 tie in the third period of last Saturday’s bout with Columbus, a game Chara departed with 5:37 left in the second period.

And now, with a full two-day gap before Boston’s next extramural engagement, Chara’s willingness to test his leg points to the possibility that he will suit up for this Saturday’s matinee in Philadelphia. That possibility should come as a present surprise through the eyes of the New England faithful, and could be a most timely development at that.

The prognosis will develop in the interim, but Bruins buffs now have the realistically sanctioned privilege, if not the outright obligation, to cross their front and back bear claws.

While they have escaped unscathed from the likes of the Blue Jackets, Kings and Senators, the Bruins naturally ought to expect more of a heavyweight offense from the Flyers. And it should be noted that in the two full games without their primal minute-muncher, they have already been overwhelmingly outshot, particularly in the third period.

On Tuesday, the visiting Kings ran up 41-22 advantage in that category, including a 20-3 romp in the third period. The next night, the Senators owned the shooting gallery, 49-29, testing Tim Thomas 22 times in the closing frame.

The Bruins have also been tested by an imbalance in penalty calls as their last two games have worn on. After the halfway mark of Tuesday’s contest, they incurred four unanswered minors, including two by defensive stand-in Steven Kampfer.

All of Wednesday’s power plays, one for Boston and four for Ottawa, were doled out in the latter 40 minutes. The Bruins had to deal with a five-minute major to Adam McQuaid in the second period and went on the penalty kill in two unanswered occurrences late in the third period.

It must have been a confidence-boosting revelation to get those results under those circumstances. Nonetheless, if welterweights like that can pester a Chara-less Bruins team, imagine, if you dare, what the Flyers could do if the visiting captain is not ready come Saturday.

And never mind the fact that the NHL’s most prolific strike force will be missing top gun Claude Giroux. Even if one were to discount Giroux’s team-leading 16 goals, Philadelphia would still be averaging a better nightly output than 25 other NHL clubs.

With three other wingers already boasting double-digits in the goal column (Scott Hartnell, Jaromir Jagr, Matt Read) and four more on the double-digit threshold (Danny Briere, Wayne Simmonds, Max Talbot, James van Riemsdyk), a first-rate defenseman is a must for this matchup.

And all of this is to say nothing of the Bruins’ perpetual desire to match the Flyers’ physicality. Recall that, last spring, one of the reasons the Flyers could not at least make Boston’s second-round sweep more competitive was the conspicuous absence of Chris Pronger.

Were Pronger available for that series, the two 5-1 Boston victories that ended that series might have, at the very least, been 3-1 or 3-2 finals. And the odds of Game 1 ending in a 7-3 blowout would have been nearly nonexistent.

True, Philadelphia will also be missing its own towering captain for Saturday’s game, but the difference in their results without Pronger has been negligible. Losing Pronger does not preclude a continuously forceful offense any more than losing Giroux should.

However, when facing the Bruins, not having to hurdle through Chara could invite the Flyers to scoring chances of greater frequency and greater quality. That fact will become apparent all the more if they can fluster Boston’s blue line enough to draw an imbalance of penalties similar to the Los Angeles and Ottawa games.

One of only six NHL teams to have converted at least one out of every five power plays, Philadelphia has a combined 14 man-up strikes from Hartnell, Jagr and Simmonds alone. The rest of the active Flyers have logged seven, meaning that even without Giroux or Pronger, their team still has two more conversions on the year than Boston’s entire roster (21-19).

There is only so much of that Boston can withstand, whether it be on even strength or a special teams’ segment, without their Norris-caliber captain.

They could conceivably fall back on the tireless Thomas, as they have against Philadelphia in the past and as they did without Chara on Wednesday. But why gamble like that when you don’t have to?

They will not have to if, within another 36 hours or so, Chara is deemed healthy enough for action. And depending on that ruling, the Bruins’ chances of either keeping pace with the Flyers or outright supplanting them for tops in the Eastern Conference could grow or dwindle by nearly seven feet.