The Bruins will be without their captain and number one defenseman, Zdeno Chara, for the next four to six weeks. Chara tore the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL) in his left knee while delivering a hit to Islanders centre John Tavares with 8:44 left in the first period last Thursday. The four to six weeks that Chara is supposed to miss means that he may not be available until November 28, and could miss 15 games. Since joining the Bruins in 2006, Chara has missed just 20 games and the Bruins are 8-7-5 without him. Chara leads the Bruins with an average ice time of 21:41 per game this season and has led Boston in ice time in each of his nine seasons with the team. So far this season, Chara has tallied two goals, one assist, 28 shots on goal, and has a minus 2 rating.
The impact of this injury is amplified by the trade of Johnny Boychuck, the injury of Kevan Miller, previous injuries to Dennis Seidenberg and Tyler McQuaid, and Chara’s fantasy value.
The Bruins traded 30 year old top-four defenseman Johnny Boychuk to the New York Islanders on October fourth in exchange for two second round draft picks as well as a conditional draft pick. General Manager Peter Chiarelli cited reasons such as salary cap and proactive team planning as justification while announcing the trade. Boychuk has flourished this season with the Islanders and is on pace to shatter his previous career-high points total.
Kevan Miller, who the Bruins expected to absorb some of the minutes left following the Johnny Boychuk trade to the Islanders, dislocated his shoulder on October 18 while fighting Buffalo’s Nicolas Deslauriers; Miller is out indefinitely.
Dennis Seidenberg is coming off of his own knee injury. Seidenberg tore the MCL and ACL in his right knee on December 23, 2013. The 33 year old has missed roughly half of the past two seasons due to injuries. Tyler McQuaid was limited to 30 games last year because of a quad injury and an ankle issue that led to surgery. McQuaid has been playing with Seidenberg on the second defense pairing and has increased his minutes per game from 16:03 to 21:15 this season.
Stepping away from the real world and into the realm of fantasy hockey; as of last Friday Chara was owned in 96% of Yahoo fantasy leagues and NHL.com has Chara ranked as the 15th best fantasy defenseman in the league. Chara plays the point on the power play, averages just under two hits per game and one penalty every other game. When productive defensemen are at such a premium in fantasy leagues, team managers may struggle to replace Big Z.
The Bruins are now going to be forced to rely heavily on Chara’s partner on the first defense pairing, 21 year old Dougie Hamilton, to soak up even more minutes against opposing teams’ top lines. So it appears that the Bruins defense may not be as overwhelmingly dominant as it has been the past few seasons. Over the past years the Bruins have been a fixture at the top of the Eastern Conference, but after a lackluster 4-5 start to the season, top spot in the East may be up for grabs. All of this is especially good news for the rest of the Atlantic Division because seven of the 15 games that Chara is anticipated to miss, are divisional matchups. It will be interesting to see if the remaining Bruins defensemen can handle the increased workload during Chara’s injury, or at least recover once he returns to the lineup.
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