Zdeno Chara Injury: Bruce Cassidy Offers Little In Update Of Bruins Captain

Even at 41 years of age, there are few players more valuable to the Boston Bruins than Zdeno Chara.

Now, already with a growing list of injuries, the Black and Gold could be without its captain for the foreseeable future after he suffered an awkward-looking lower body injury in Wednesday night’s loss to the Colorado Avalanche.

Chara suffered the injury in the first period when he his knee buckled as he went to the boards for a puck battle alongside Avalanche forward Carl Soderberg. Chara gingerly finished the shift, but eventually left and didn’t return for the final two periods of the game.

Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy offered little in the way of a postgame update about the big defenseman.

“It’s a lower body, I don’t have much (information),” Cassidy told reporters. “I don’t know, I assume — I didn’t really get a report. All they told me was he was out for the rest of the night. Usually that takes a day to get looked at, whether that’s in Dallas or he has to go home, I have no idea. I’m sure we’ll have more news on it (Thursday).”

The Bruins couldn’t afford to lose Chara — or really any other member of their defense corps right now. They’re still without D-men Charlie McAvoy, Kevan Miller, Brandon Carlo and Urho Vaakanainen, while fellow blue-liner Torey Krug still tries to find his way after returning from his own ankle injury two weeks ago.

Boston got an alarming potential look at life without Chara after he went down Wednesday night. The B’s led 2-1 after the first period, and Jake DeBrusk’s power-play goal at 3:05 of the second pushed the lead to 3-1. However, Colorado stormed back with five unanswered goals to win 6-3 going away in the first of a four-game road trip for the Bruins.

Things are unlikely to get any easier Friday against the Dallas Stars, who are scoring 3.6 goals per game at home