BOSTON — Bruins captain and No. 1 defenseman Zdeno Chara returned to Boston’s lineup for Thursday night’s 3-2 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks.
He had missed the team’s previous 19 games because of a PCL tear in his left knee that he suffered on Oct. 23.
“It was exciting to be playing a game, that’s for sure,” Chara said. “There’s no secret that I felt the absence of missing a good chunk of time. But again, I’m not going to make excuses. You have those games that you have to break in, and I’m looking forward to the next game to be better.”
Chara received 24:11 of ice time (second-highest on the team), which included 1:50 of power play and 0:56 of penalty kill ice time. He was credited with one shot on goal, two hits, a blocked shot and four penalty minutes. The veteran defenseman played spent 20:37 of his ice time alongside Dougie Hamilton.
Chara also helped the B’s drive puck possession. He was on the ice for 22 Bruins shot attempts for and 12 against at even strength for a plus-10 Corsi, the best of any Bruins defenseman.
“You can practice as much as you want to, but you will never replace the game situations or the way you’re going to be reading plays and so on,” Chara said. “So yeah, I mean early on it was just one of those things that I was trying to really focus to make simple plays. Overall I was just really trying to compete every shift, work hard every shift, and that was my goal.”
It might take a few games for Chara to be fully accustomed to the speed of the game again, but his performance Thursday was encouraging. Very few players keep themselves in better physical shape than the B’s captain.
“It was very important for us I think,” Bruins defenseman Torey Krug said. “Obviously, he does what he does on the ice, but in the locker room, on the bench he speaks a lot and he communicates very well. So it was a big emotional lift for our team.”
Thumbnail photo via Winslow Townson/USA TODAY Sports Images
