By Ty Anderson, 985TheSportsHub.com
Just when you thought 2020 couldn’t get any worse: After 14 years together, the Boston Bruins and Zdeno Chara are calling it quits. And it’s not by way of retirement, as the 43-year-old is off to Washington, where he will sign with the Capitals on a one-year, $795,000 deal.
Ken Campbell was the first to report the news, while Chara took to Instagram to confirm his departure.
Signed by the Bruins in 2006, Chara’s accomplishments in Boston include a Norris Trophy as the league’s top defenseman during the 2008-09 season, as well as a Stanley Cup championship in 2011. The Bruins went to the Stanley Cup Final in both 2013 and 2019 under Chara’s leadership, with Chara playing the final three games of the 2019 Cup Final with a broken jaw.
He is also one of just six skaters in franchise history to suit up for at least 1,000 games with the Bruins.
Chara recorded five goals and 14 points for the second straight season in 2019-20, his plus-28 was the eighth-best in hockey, and he was the most-deployed penalty killer for a Boston kill that ranked third in the NHL (84.3 percent).
With Chara gone, and barring a signing or trade, the Bruins will enter the 2021 season with a left-side defense corps featuring Matt Grzelcyk, John Moore, Jeremy Lauzon, Jakub Zboril, and Urho Vaakanainen.
