It didn’t take long for Mike Milbury to learn what Zdeno Chara was all about.
Milbury, a former player and head coach of the Boston Bruins, was the Islanders’ general manager when New York drafted Chara in the third round (56th overall) of the 1996 NHL Draft. The NHL was much different back then, with fighting and physicality a hallmark of the game, and a pre-draft exchange with Chara showed Milbury the young defenseman from Slovakia was cut out for life at the next level.
Here’s a great anecdote written this week by The Athletic’s Fluto Shinzawa:
“Can you fight?” asked Milbury, then the New York Islanders GM.
“Better not to f— with me,” Zdeno Chara answered.
The league was a different place when Milbury and the Islanders selected Chara in the third round of the 1996 draft. Hard men like Eric Lindros (115 points), Mark Messier (99) and Keith Tkachuk (98) were laying waste to defensemen. Matthew Barnaby (335 penalty minutes), Enrico Ciccone (306) and Tie Domi (297) struck fear into opponents with a waggle of their gloves. Chara had the potential to grow into a deterrent.
“So we knew toughness wasn’t an issue,” Milbury said with a laugh.
Chara’s game has evolved over the years, but the 6-foot-9 blue liner always has been a beast who’s not afraid to tangle with opponents, especially when it comes to defending his teammates. That made him a great fit for the old NHL, when, in many instances, only the strong survived.
“It was a different game,” Chara told Shinzawa. “It was a different game, different style of play. As a young player, you were trying to fit in and play the way the game was played — very physical, very simple.”
Chara spent four seasons with the Islanders before Milbury traded him to the Ottawa Senators, with whom he spent the next four seasons and became one of the NHL’s premier defensemen. The Bruins then signed Chara and immediately named him captain in 2006.
The rest, as they say, is history.
