Zdeno Chara Can Still Make Great Plays: Watch This Perfect Pass To Brad Marchand
By Matt Dolloff, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- The postmortem evaluation of the Patriots' disappointing loss in the AFC Championship has added further distraction from the rest of the Boston sports teams. These things tend to make you avoid sports for a while, so it's understandable if you didn't catch the Bruins' 3-2 win over the Philadelphia Flyers Monday night.
However, this saucer pass by captain Zdeno Chara to Brad Marchand is worth a viewing or six. On a Bruins power play, Chara threaded the puck perfectly through three defenders right to the stick of Marchand, who fired the puck past Michael Neuvirth for his 20th goal of the season.
As slow as Chara has become at this stage of his career, it has been painful to watch him handle the puck at times this season. It's been a natural decline for the 38-year-old defenseman with over 30,000 minutes of ice time recorded in his Hall-of-Fame career.
It's an encouraging sign for the Bruins' hopes of contending in the playoffs this season that Chara is still capable of pulling pretty plays like this out of nowhere. It helps that the Flyers left the Bruins' most dangerous goal scorer uncovered, but Chara still launched a perfect saucer pass through a forest of Flyers, regardless of how they played defense.
For a 38-year-old who has made some uncharacteristically poor mistakes handling the puck this season, this play by Chara was a refreshing treat.
Matt Dolloff is a writer for CBSBostonSports.com. His opinions do not necessarily reflect that of CBS or 98.5 The Sports Hub. Follow him on Twitter @mattdolloff and email him at mdolloff@985thesportshub.com.