Zdeno Chara is back with the Bruins as a consultant. Can Big Z help them from becoming a playoff DNQ? - The Boston Globe
Chara should have the eye to identify players capable of displaying the work ethic and commitment that he displayed here for 14 seasons.
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Vital to reestablishing a committed, disciplined, and competitive culture with the Bruins upon arriving here in July 2006, former franchise defenseman Zdeno Chara recently rejoined club in a front office consultant’s role, amid a disappointing season in which it has become increasingly obvious the roster needs a rework.
Among the game’s most dedicated and fiercest competitors — coined a “killing machine” by his agent, Matt Keator, upon Big Z’s arrival as a free agent — Chara’s greatest value to the franchise today would be to help general manager Don Sweeney and club president Cam Neely better identify player talent and shape a more competitive and Cup-fit roster.
Two sources, each with knowledge of the machinations of the front office, confirmed Chara’s new role in separate discussions with the Globe. Both sources, who are not team employees, requested to remain anonymous.
A team spokesperson, apprised of the Globe report at approximately 3:40 p.m. Wednesday, said Sweeney would issue an update later in the afternoon or early evening about a potential role for Chara in the organization.
Now back in a consultant’s role, Chara will be in position to provide vital input with the league’s March 7 trade deadline approaching. They’ll have to decide in the days ahead if they will be buyers or sellers.
It appears they will be the latter — a position few foresaw when Sweeney and Neely last July reached into the Jacobs family purse and handed free agents Elias Lindholm and Zadorov a combined $77.275 million in hopes of bolstering and reshaping the roster as a Cup contender. To date, they’ve added little.
The season is getting late. It appears both were vast overpays.
Chara is a guy who likes work, welcomes it, thrives on it, in fact lives for it. He is fluent in a handful of languages, a learning task he approached with the zeal of the gangly teenage kid in Trencin, Slovakia, who put himself through monastic workouts in the family’s backyard, using makeshift exercise apparatus that he and his father designed and, in some cases, hung from tree branches and planted in the garden.
It’s clear now, with a season on the line and a franchise worn thin on production and compete, there’s a big task for Big Z to help tackle.
