Chara was hurt last Saturday in Columbus, and his absence was certainly felt even though the Bruins managed to win both games they played without him.
They allowed a season-high 49 shots in Wednesday's win in Ottawa, which followed 41 shots against Tuukka Rask on Tuesday. With Chara back on the blue line Saturday in Philadelphia, the Bruins held the Flyers to a more reasonable 31 shots. Tim Thomas stopped every one of them, and the Bruins rolled to a 6-0 victory with Chara leading the way.
"I was very happy to be playing again," Chara said. "Nobody likes to be on the sidelines. Nobody likes to be watching the games from up top [in the press box], so I was pretty happy to be back."
The Bruins were happy to have him back, and Chara wasted no time in showing that there were no lingering effects or limitations from his injury. Just 2:13 into play and the Bruins already up 1-0, Chara dropped the gloves with Flyers heavyweight Jody Shelley.
After having words before a faceoff in the Boston end, Chara and Shelley squared off and traded punches, with Chara appearing to control the bout despite Shelley's superior experience in that aspect of the game.
"It's a big team on the other side, a very physical team," Chara said of the Flyers. "And so are we. Sometimes those things happen. It's part of the game. I thought we handled it right."
Bruins coach Claude Julien felt Chara handled the situation perfectly, and the Bruins responded to their captain's display of leadership.
"I think No. 1 if somebody gave us a boost it was him," Julien said. "He got challenged by Shelley there. Obviously he could have just walked away and nobody would have thought anything about it because obviously it's not a great trade-off on paper. But I think what he did was bigger than that. He stood tall for his team and we just turned around took control of the game. They kind of did us a favor by waking us up and we took advantage of it."
The Bruins scored just 37 seconds later when Daniel Paille potted a rebound to make it 2-0. That was just the start of the offensive fireworks, and Chara would soon get into the act himself.
Chara extended the lead to 3-0 at 8:08 of the first with a power-play goal, then picked up an assist on Nathan Horton's power-play tally at 7:06 of the second period. That completed the rare Gordie Howe hat trick, with Chara collecting a goal, an assist and a fighting major in the same game.
"It's always nice to score a goal," Chara said. "It's always nice to contribute offensively. But I think my main job is to play solid defensively and I'm just happy that we won."
The Bruins got contributions from throughout their lineup to earn that win, but Chara's efforts in his return stood above most. He finished with a team-high ice time of 23:39, chipping in four shots and three hits to go along with his points.
