Kalman: Healthy, Dominant Chara Should Aid Bruins' Search For Consistency
WILMINGTON (CBS) -- We'll never know if Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara was ever 100 percent last season after missing 19 games because of a tear in his left knee and then suffering a broken foot in the final weeks of the campaign.
Gag rules around the Bruins prevent much reflection on how much injuries have hindered certain players, and only looser lips around the Slovakian national team allowed the release of specifics about Chara's foot injury prior to the World Championships last spring.
Although he was sure not to violate any Boston-based code of silence Monday at Ristuccia Arena, the Bruins captain at least allowed for the notion that he's heading into the upcoming season as healthy as a 38-year-old that has averaged at least 22 minutes per game for 15 straight NHL seasons can be.
"Again, it's something that we are not allowed to talk about, the injuries or things that do happen," Chara said after the first captains' practice of the new season. "But we all battle through different things throughout the season, and injuries are part of it. Just glad that I'm feeling better and that's the most important thing."
Chara was joined by a handful of projected members of the 2015-16 Bruins, including Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, Dennis Seidenberg and Matt Beleskey. More players should trickle into the skates as the week goes on and time moves close to the Sept. 17 opening of main training camp.
Coming off their first playoff-less season in eight years, the Bruins are going to face a lot of questions this fall about what went wrong last season and how they're going to fix things in the upcoming campaign. Without dissecting the various aspects of the Bruins' game that went awry last season, Chara said Monday the Bruins' problems stemmed from one buzzword that we certainly heard consistently last season.
"Yeah, I don't want to go back too much to last year. You know it was what it was," said Chara, whose even plus/minus was his worst mark since his minus-21 in his first season with the Bruins. "I think that the most frequent word that came out of the last season was inconsistency and that's what we have to work on. Make sure that we play with consistency and don't have those ups and downs like we did last year."
Part of that inconsistency had to do with uncertainty about the roster. General manager Peter Chiarelli didn't complete contracts for Torey Krug and Reilly Smith until late in training camp. He then traded Johnny Boychuk to the New York Islanders days before the regular season started. Because of injuries, and sometimes just on a whim, players were shuffled between Boston and Providence all season.
A major contributor to the Bruins' inability to stay on a level plane was the absence of Chara as his usual intimidating self. First he missed the 19 games and then needed several weeks to find his game. By the time he was at least close to his best, other players were leaving the lineup with injuries and too much was being asked of Chara on a nightly basis.
Four months away from rigors of the NHL season should have done all the Bruins, but especially Chara, a world of good in terms of recovery and revitalization. Chara, who had 20 points in 63 games last season, said he even learned how to pull back a bit on his typically rigorous offseason regimen. He traded in his typical extreme travelling for more downtime with his family. The less wear and tear should pay off when the season starts.
"Well you make adjustments, but I wouldn't say that you make major changes. You always try to go back to what's working for you and what's been kind of your bread and butter," Chara said about his offseason workouts. "You make some small changes but the biggest thing I think was just being smarter as far as taking some time off, recovering and doing more quality stuff instead of quantity."
Chara was close with Chiarelli, who signed Chara to his first Boston contract back in 2006. But Chara said new general manager Don Sweeney was in touch as soon as the regime change was completed. When asked about the Bruins' personnel changes, notably the trade of defenseman Dougie Hamilton and Milan Lucic, Chara sounded more accepting than gung-ho that the Boston roster has such a different look.
"Those are part of sports or the jobs we have. It's something we're all used to and they come with the territory," he said. "It's tough to see guys being gone but at the same time, we all knew that the management announced that they're going to make changes and they're going to try to improve the team and anytime they make changes, you have to go with it. That's the way it goes."
Changes are part of the business of sports, but they're less likely to occur when a team has success. A healthy and more consistently dominant Chara could go a long way to making sure Sweeney won't have to overhaul the roster again next summer.
Matt Kalman covers the Bruins for CBSBoston.com and also contributes to NHL.com and several other media outlets. Follow him on Twitter @TheBruinsBlog.