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The morning after his early departure with an apparent upper-body injury, there’s still little left to disclose when it comes to the status of Boston Bruins defenseman and captain,
Zdeno Chara.
On a Friday practice at Ristuccia Arena in Wilmington, Mass., B’s coach
Claude Julien reiterated what he said after last night’s win over New York, and dubbed Chara ‘day-to-day’, but added that it was ‘good news’ for the Black and Gold. In essence, feel free to exhale any time now, you’re turning blue.
The fragility of the Boston point -- at least when it comes to defenders with legitimate NHL experience -- cannot be stated enough, really. With
Dennis Seidenberg (back surgery) already on the shelf for the next eight weeks, losing Chara for any stretch of time would leave the Bruins with a blue line of NHL experience headlined by
Adam McQuaid’s 283 games at the NHL level.
Torey Krug is behind him at 160, while offseason addition
Matt Irwin has skated in 153 games. Bringing up the rear in terms of guys with a year’s worth of NHL experience is the bruising style of California-born
Kevan Miller, too, who has skated in 88 games over the last two seasons.
But once you get past those guys, the B’s would have to make do with a youthful grouping headlined by
Colin Miller,
Joe Morrow, and top-pairing hopeful
Zach Trotman.
It’s not the worst situation, but far from the best, too. But with Morrow absorbing a larger role in last night’s comeback win over the Rangers -- including a near two-minute kill in a 4-on-3 shorthanded situation in overtime -- Julien can’t help but feel a bit more comfortable when it comes his situation.
“I thought [Morrow] was really, really good, and carried the puck, moved the puck well. There’s always things that we can critique behind closed doors, some of the little things that we want him to improve on,” Julien said. “But if you ask me for a rating, he got a real good rating tonight. Especially when you’re down to five D’s, and the amount of ice time those guys had to get tonight. That includes a young guy in [Brandon] Carlo, trying to get his feet wet in the league, and right from the get-go, you’re down to five. So I thought those guys handled themselves well, but Joe was really good in my mind.”
Finishing the night with an assist and plus-1 rating in 26:53 of time on ice, it was Morrow’s dependability in all three zones, including an impressive four blocked shots (one of which prevented a sure goal for the Blueshirts) in an unfamiliar position, that’s earned him praise from the B’s bench boss.
“What a great opportunity for us to put him in that position and see how he handles it,” Julien said of Morrow’s insertion in the penalty-killing game in lieu of a Chara, Miller, and Seidenberg. “It could happen during the year that you don’t have a choice and you’ve got to put guys like that, so they’ve got to be ready for everything. So we did, and he did a decent job. I thought they killed it well.”
For Morrow, it’s making the jump from playing his game in the American Hockey League towards playing anything but ‘safe’ in the National Hockey League that’s proving to be the next challenge.
The 22-year-old wasn’t necessarily
bad in 15-game stint with the Big B’s last season, but there was little of substance when it came to his game at the organization’s highest level. He was -- like most first-year talents when they came up -- playing like he didn’t want to make a mistake versus playing the style that earned him a call-up in the first place. But with the club two proven defensemen, it’s time for Morrow to join the NHL ranks and contribute to the Black and Gold on a full-time basis.
“They showed a lot of character tonight and stepped it up and, you know, a lot of people take these preseason games lightly, but I think it’s a really good opportunity for us to show what we have and how excited we are to get back and to have a really good year,” B’s winger
Brad Marchand said of the team’s younger guns. “It’s also a really good opportunity for guys to show that they’re ready to play and earn different spots and there’s a lot of different positions that are open right now on different lines and, you know, with the power play and penalty kill and stuff like that. So right now I think it’s a good opportunity for guys to compete for different things and it’ll help our team get better.”
Morrow -- or anybody else in the organization for that matter -- will not replace Chara. That much is obvious, and expecting them to do such is actual nonsense. But if they can come in and play with the confidence that Julien and the B’s front office have seen throughout camp, they’ll undoubtedly be in better chance and lessen the 6-foot-9 shadow currently cast without Chara on the ice.
Ty Anderson has been covering the Boston Bruins for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, is a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com
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