BRIGHTON – Zdeno Chara is a powerful tower of leadership, work ethic and intimidation that built a Hall of Fame career in the NHL while outworking everybody with a zeal that could sometimes border on the fanatical for his own personal fitness. The 6-foot-9 defenseman was renowned for putting on a show during fitness testing at the start of NHL training camp each fall, and for demanding the very best effort from his teammates every day at practice.
It's all part of what made him a Stanley Cup champion, a Norris Trophy-winning defenseman, and will see him inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto this November. But there was also another part of Chara’s legacy in Boston, a leadership style that saw him treat everybody in his dressing room as equals, regardless of experience, age or perceived status around the league. It could have been a byproduct of the way a young Chara was treated when he was first breaking into the league, or more likely, it was simply the flexing of his considerable instincts to be a leader, but the word “rookie” was never encouraged or allowed in the Black and Gold dressing room when he was leading the Bruins.
David Pastrnak described that ethos perfectly when he recounted first meeting Chara as an 18-year-old and being a little intimidated by the legendary, all-time bruising defenseman. Pastrnak called him “Mr. Chara” as is Eastern European custom to address your elders, and the Bruins captain immediately let him know that formalities weren’t necessary while making the teenager feel fully comfortable in the B’s dressing room.
“It's so simple with Zdeno. He has so much to offer, obviously both personally and with all the experience he has as a player," said Pastrnak. "We are very happy as players. I think every single young player in the locker room should recognize what kind of person we have in this room and use him. He's here for us."
That leadership style is what all NHL teams should be aspiring to, and it’s part of the reason that it’s a massive coup that Chara was officially named Hockey Operators Advisor and Mentor earlier this week. Big Zee will advise the NHL players and act as a liaison between the players and the coaching staff while helping to guide young veterans like Charlie McAvoy and Pastrnak in their first go-round as the primary leaders in the B’s room.
"I'm honored to be back with the team and working with the coaching staff, management and players. It's definitely something new, something that I know I can bring a lot, but at the same time I'll be learning a lot too,” said Chara, who joined the Bruins in an undefined role last season that was formalized this week. "I'm just another asset they can use, to pick the brain, to help, to give them the advice on certain situations. First and foremost, I think they are just really good people. They care. Everybody knows they're amazing players.
“I think they have good intentions and it just takes a little bit of time to grow into that role, to feel comfortable, and we all went through it. Just if I can be a help, maybe guidance, or a little bit of mentorship in that department to help them grow as people and as [men] and as leaders, that's what I'm going to do."
And he will also aid in the development of the Bruins' defensemen in their talent pipeline, whether they are in Boston or Providence, while being a regular presence at practices and home games. All of it amounts to the Bruins adding another significant piece from their recent history to their collaborative management group, as Chara joins Adam McQuaid, Chris Kelly and Marco Sturm as significant players from Boston’s glory years looking to help right the ship with the kind of mindset and influence that made the Bruins dominant for such a long under the leadership of Chara and Patrice Bergeron.
“He set the tone pretty much, starting in practice," said Sturm of Chara's presence and leadership during their playing days. "You still want to have fun, whatever, but when it's time to go and time to work, you've got to get the job done and he was a big leader on that. And the [Patrice] Bergeron's and the Sturm's, you name it, all those guys, we followed him pretty much.
"I think that is the message he wants to send to [Charlie] McAvoy and 'Pasta' and all these guys. So sometimes they get sick of me and sick of whoever, but I think he will be just another voice I think in our room that maybe will push these guys forward."
What will be interesting is to see how things develop with Chara as a part of the Boston management group, knowing him as an individual who gives 110 percent effort to everything he is doing, whether it’s training for marathons or now serving as a youth hockey coach for his children in the Boston area. It may be that this is the beginning of the 48-year-old Chara learning the business of running an NHL hockey operations staff, and there may be a much bigger picture to his involvement down the line as he accumulates experience, knowledge and confidence in the other side of the hockey business.
One thing is certain, however. There can’t ever be enough of those 2011 Stanley Cup champions coming back to help guide these new editions of the Black and Gold and continue offering a link to the past greatness that this current group of Bruins players is attempting to emulate.
ONE TIMERS
• Count Marco Sturm among the Bruins' talent evaluators who have been impressed with Fraser Minten after the opening weeks of training camp. The B’s bench boss said that Minten effectively used the momentum of Bruins' rookie camp as a springboard into NHL camp and is doing a good job of showing exactly how he would perform as a third-line center being relied on for a detailed two-way game at the NHL level.
“He’s a kid that has been pretty good and pretty solid,” said Sturm. “What I liked about him is that he started really good with his rookie camp and translated that over into our camp, and in those [preseason] games he did his job.
“He was able to do his job. He’s not going to be a [really] high-end guy that’s going to score a lot of goals. I’m not asking him to do that. He’s been very rock solid so far.”
Minten hasn’t been on the scoresheet yet in the preseason as Sturm alluded to, but he was all over the game sheet with three shots on net, six shot attempts, two hits, three blocked shots and 13 faceoffs in 16 plus minutes of ice time.
• Marco Sturm on how he views trust with his own players as he gets to know them during NHL training camp: “At the end of the day, I wanna put all of those players on the ice in the last five minutes of the game. And if I don't do that, then we are still off and that's something that we have to work on." That’s just good coaching with accountability and a willingness to teach that every good coach has to have in their toolbox.
• Interesting to note that the Bruins seem to have already made their decisions on a number of roster situations with players like Matej Blumel, Alex Steeves, Fraser Minten and Matt Poitras sticking around with the NHL training camp group while players like Fabian Lysell and Johnny Beecher already look ticketed to P-Bruins training camp in the near future. Blumel scored a goal in Tuesday night’s win over the Rangers at MSG and looked good during a 4-on-3 power play to start OT where Blumel, Casey Mittelstadt, Matt Poitras and Victor Soderstrom created a number of scoring chances before Nikita Zadorov eventually scored the overtime winner.