He hasn't escaped its glare since his hit on Max Pacioretty sent the Montreal forward headfirst into the stanchion between the benches, then to the hospital. Pacioretty was diagnosed with a severe concussion and fractured vertebra but is recovering ahead of schedule.
Chara has had a more difficult time rehabilitating his reputation as the hit, even though ruled a legitimate hockey play not worthy of a suspension by the league, has left him Public Enemy No. 1 in Montreal and around much of the hockey world.
Facing the Habs for the first time on Thursday as Montreal returned to the Garden, Chara answered his critics by playing one of his best all-around games of the season. He picked up assists on each of the Bruins' first two goals, helping set the tone for a 7-0 rout of the Canadiens.
"That's the perfect answer to all of those questions," fellow defenseman Tomas Kaberle said. "He was one of the best players on the ice. We're going to need him playing the same way all the time, and he's been showing it for the last few years."
Chara finished with three assists on the night and was a plus-3 in 20:49. Since that last game against the Canadiens in Montreal, Chara has 2-8-10 totals and is a plus-7. That's after managing just 1-7-8 totals and a plus-1 in the previous 21 games.
Obviously, the increased pressure and scrutiny hasn't bothered the Bruins' captain. Instead, it may have awoken the sleeping giant who's been playing more like his Norris form of two years ago after slumping a bit this season.
"It's always nice to see your leader step up, especially with so much pressure on him," defenseman Dennis Seidenberg said. "That's why he's our captain. He's a guy that steps up in important games. We look up to him in tough situations and he always steps up."
Leading up to the highly-anticipated grudge match, Chara insisted he wouldn't lose focus on the task at hand, and he lived up to his word with his performance on Thursday.
"It's always talk, but I was really focusing on the game on the ice, and that was my first priority," Chara said. "And obviously we all knew that this was a huge game, not just from what happened the past few weeks, but in the standings as well. So guys played really hard and showed a lot of character in this room."
Chara also hasn't abandoned his physical game despite the controversy surrounding his hit on Pacioretty. On Thursday, Montreal forward Mathieu Darche took a run at Chara behind the Bruins net, only to bounce off the big defenseman and end up on the ice having taken the worse of the collision. While Darche got back to his feet, Chara went to the front of the net, where he quickly dumped Andrei Kostitsyn with a check in the left faceoff circle.
"Like I said, I'm not going to change," Chara said. "I'm going to still play a physical game. That's my game. And it's part of the game to be hitting each other."
But the incident in Montreal and ensuing controversy has changed Chara. He's been obviously troubled by the injury his hit inflicted on Pacioretty and the widespread criticism he's received ever since.
Mark Recchi went to great lengths to try to relieve some of that pressure, drawing heat onto himself with comments that the Canadiens may have embellished the extent of Pacioretty's injuries to try to get Chara suspended.
Other Bruins also empathized with what Chara has been dealing with the last couple weeks.
"It's been hard for us to sit here and see Zee," forward Greg Campbell said. "Zee takes things personally and he's a good person. He doesn't like to see anybody get injured. Behind the scenes it's a hard thing to handle, but he's handled it extremely well."
He handled it perfectly on Thursday, playing a clean game and helping the Bruins dominate their fiercest rivals in their final meeting of the regular season.
