As hockey events go, they don’t get much more letter-perfect than “Zee’s Final Shift” put on in Slovakia as the closing chapter to Hall of Famer Zdeno Chara’s legendary hockey career.
The game was held at a sold-out Pavol Demitra Ice Stadium in Chara’s hometown of Trencin, Slovakia, and featured so many nice touches that turned it into an appropriate bookend to his NHL career.
The 49-year-old Chara invited teammates, friends and luminaries from around the hockey world to come play a final hockey game with the longtime Bruins captain as he symbolically hung up his skates on an NHL career that spanned an amazing 1,680 NHL games over 24 seasons. The game itself included an amazing collection of Chara’s 2011 Stanley Cup-winning teammates, including Patrice Bergeron, Mark Recchi, Andrew Ference, Johnny Boychuk, Tim Thomas, Adam McQuaid, Daniel Paille, Milan Lucic, Dennis Seidenberg, Tomas Kaberle, Michael Ryder and Chris Kelly, and other Bruins notables like David Pastrnak, Ray Bourque and Josef Stumpel among others.
That was just the Bruins representation, though, as other NHL star players like Duncan Keith, Marian Hossa, Jaromir Jagr, Anze Kopitar and Tomas Vanek also showed up in a really impressive show of respect for the B’s captain.
"Most of his former teammates came here today from different parts of the world, which is a thing they would not do for just anybody," said Hockey Hall of Famer Marian Hossa to NHL.com about the event, which mirrored his own goodbye event at the Slovakian rink back in 2023. "The goodbye evening was a beautiful event, and I am glad that we could meet here at Trenčín again after three years. I believe someone will make a movie about Zdeno one day because there would definitely be a lot to talk and film about."
One of the highlights was Chara cranking it up for a 108.8-mph slap shot to show that he’s still got it after all those years, and almost five years since he was regularly taking those shots in practice or games at the elite level.
Zdeno Chara recreated his iconic 108.8 mph shot that set the NHL record for hardest shot in league history at his farewell event in Slovakia 👀
— BarDown (@BarDown) August 21, 2026
🎥: IG/zeesfinalshift pic.twitter.com/wbyn4acy8s
The other was the way Chara exited the ice, taking off his skates and leaving them at center ice while he walked off the ice holding the hands of his twin sons, Zack and Ben, with his fellow players forming an archway with their sticks as the 6-foot-9 defenseman exited the arena for the last time as a player. It was poetic in its beauty and symbolism for a player who always skated and led with first-class instincts and has made a career out of doing everything the right way.
Zdeno Chara leaves his skates on the ice as he walks off with his twin boys one last time pic.twitter.com/TyE6uJpNQE
— Hannah (@babybergy37) August 21, 2026
The transformation is now complete for Chara, who will undoubtedly continue to coach his boys in youth hockey in the Boston area as he’s done for years now with the Junior Eagles program, and in his role as a front office advisor and mentor for current players at all levels of the Boston Bruins organization.
ONE TIMERS
*The Bruins ranked 20th overall in The Athletic’s NHL Pipeline rankings for this season, which is a nice jump from the back-to-back offseasons a few years ago when they were ranked dead last among NHL organizations.
The B’s were lauded for their overall center depth among their prospects, but prospect guru Corey Pronman did have some concerning things to say while breaking down Boston’s prospects. While James Hagens got the clear nod as Boston’s best prospect given his skating speed and overall offensive skill level, Pronman projected him to be more of a “3C” type of player if he remains at the center spot while looking at him as more of a top 6 impact player on the wing:
“He makes a ton of difficult plays on the move and is a high-end playmaker. Hagens isn’t that big or physical and can stay too far outside, but he gives a decent effort, and coaches tend to lean on him. He has the potential to be a top six forward, although that’s likely trending more toward being on the wing. He’s a center; it would be more of a 3C.”
That’s not really what the Bruins are projecting for the 19-year-old even as he will likely kick off his NHL career on the wing this coming season.
Similarly, Dean Letourneau earned raves for his strong work making a big jump in his sophomore season at Boston College, but he ranked only fifth on Boston’s prospect list that also included Fraser Minten and Matt Poitras as they are under 23 years old in the organization:
“He has good offense in his game, but whether he’s a major scorer or more of a bottom-6 type will come down to exactly how many plays he makes, and I’m on the fence regarding his IQ. I could see him being a legit scorer, but at the moment I lean to him being more of a third or fourth line center.”
This sounds to me like a prospect guru that doesn’t have a sound grasp on what Letourneau is going to be at the NHL level, and that’s a fair enough assessment given that the 6-foot-7 forward could have a size, strength and skill package that translates really well to pro hockey when he’s done at Boston College, likely after his upcoming junior season at the Heights.
*One unfortunate absence from Zee’s Final Shift was Florida Panthers winger Brad Marchand, who announced he was going to miss the event after undergoing a surprise surgery to address a lower body issue that wasn’t improving through attempts to rehab the issue.
Here is the video of Marchand revealing that he had to have a last minute surgery. pic.twitter.com/cuyQkxopg7 https://t.co/ADDKDe4Yvn
— Locked On Tkachuk Era (@LO_FLAPanthers) August 14, 2026
Marchand is expected to miss the opening few weeks of the NHL regular season, so a loaded Panthers team won’t be at full strength to start the season while they wait for their 38-year-old forward to rehab from the procedure.
Good luck to Marchand as it doesn’t get easier coming back from injuries the closer an NHL body gets to 40 years old after logging 1,152 games in the league.
*That’s it for this week. Enjoy those last few weeks of summer as the ice starts opening up. We’ll see everybody at the rink.