BOSTON – Zdeno Chara now admits his left knee didn’t feel very good when he first returned for the Bruins, and his labored play on the ice sometimes betrayed that discomfort. But the 6-foot-9 defenseman felt better as he recovered from the torn left PCL, and confirmed on Monday’s breakup day that he won’t need any postseason knee surgery.
Instead Chara will wear a brace on his left knee for the rest of his career, and play on a partially torn PCL ligament that still remains about 10 percent attached, according to the defenseman. Chara said he, Steve Yzerman and Tomas Hertl are the only three players that he knew of that had suffered the rare PCL tear to a knee, and Hertl required surgery because he tore both the PCL and the MCL at the same time.
As the season moved along Chara began to feel better, and he’ll completely avoid surgery based on everything he’s discussed with team doctors.
“I didn’t have any issues later in the season. When I came back, it was still not completely a hundred percent, but obviously at that point you want to play; you want to be with the team and do whatever you can to help. But towards the end there were no issues,” said Chara. “The only way to get the strength back in that knee was by playing, and by going through it. I was skating back to normal at the end.
“Coming back from a knee [injury] is always the most difficult to come back from. Now it’s 100 percent. One ligament is completely torn, but the rest of them are unaffected. So that saved me. If one of those [other ligaments] were torn, then I would have needed surgery. ACL, MCL…any of those and I would have needed surgery. You can be without [the PCL], and then it stabilizes after a few months.”
Chara finished with eight goals and 20 points in 63 games this season with an even plus/minus rating, and finished with 23:21 of ice time per night as a 38-year-old hanging onto his No. 1 defenseman status. It was Chara’s worst season in a Bruins uniform as age and injuries seem to have caught up to him a bit, and it certainly seems like the B’ and their captain are a long way from when he finished last season as a Norris Trophy finalist.
“Coming to camp, I really felt I was in the best shape I was in in a long time and felt extremely well. Then something like [the left knee injury] happens, it’s obviously, you don’t want to deal with it. But again, it happened and it took me a while to be back at my game,” said Chara. “Believe it or not, it’s something that slows you down.
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“You have to make adjustments, you have to deal with different things that you’re not used to and again, at the end of the season I felt much better and back to myself, and performing like I’m more known for.”
Chara finished the season with three points in his final 20 games played along with a minus-3 rating in March and April, so the numbers don’t exactly back up the big D-man performing exactly like he’s known for. But the burden on Chara will continue to lessen as Dougie Hamilton emerges as the heir to the No. 1 defenseman throne in Boston, and he continues making gains as age and miles logged continue to catch up to Chara’s giant hockey body.