Standing 6'9" in addition to 255 pounds, Chara could be the biggest player in the league and in addition has the hardest slap shot in the league.
Nicklas Lidstrom retired afre the wedding of last season, and Erik Karlsson spent a lot of the 2013 season on the sidelines with an Achilles injury.
Those two events opened the door for Chara to win his second Norris Trophy along with regain the title with the NHL's best defenseman.
However, it didn't play out in that position on the ice. When finalists for any Norris Trophy were announced last week, you did not see Chara's name.
The finalists are Kris Letang of the Pittsburgh Penguins, Ryan Suter within the Minnesota Wild and L. K. Subban of that Montreal Canadiens.
There were no noisy moans and complaints straight from the Boston front office when Chara was not included among the finalists. General manager Peter Chiarelli along with head coach Claude Julien weren't outraged when Chara has been ignored.
There's a motive for that. Chara remains an intimidating presence nevertheless does many things at the ice. However, there's a simple vulnerability to his sport that surfaced in 2013 and has not been seen in previous years.
When Chara has to deal with a puck close so that you can his body or he gets hit hard when he or she is searching for the puck, he is not always going to manufacture a play that favors this Bruins.
In the former, if a player tried to check Chara or get physical with him in any way, the player would typically bounce off Chara and fall to the ice in some inglorious manner.
Now it seems that after Chara gets hit hard using a smaller man, he absorbs that hit and the most useful loses possession.
Smaller players employ a leverage advantage over Chara whenever they are moving at a healthy rate of speed. Should they hit him at pec level, they can move him or her backward—and take the puck faraway from him.
Chara's statistics indicate some drop-off for the 2013 season progressed. He finished the regular season with seven objectives, but he scored one among them in the previous 24 games.
Chara finished at plus-14 through the regular season. That may be respectable, but he was plus-33 in each one of the last two regular seasons.
Chara was minus-two over the last 12 regular-season games. That's when the Bruins slumped in addition to missed out on a chance to win the Northeast Scale and take the Virtually no. 2 seed in the Eastern Conference faraway from the Montreal Canadiens.
He is still the Bruins' best defenseman. Nonetheless, when opposing teams used to avoid Chara at all of times and send their full capacity lines out against lesser defensemen, there doesn't are as much fear involving Big Z when they are on the ice and the Bruins making the effort protect a lead.
Chara tied for 73rd in blocked shots regarding who the winner with 64, he ranked 21st within hits with 101 together with he was also billed with 34 giveaways whereas taking the puck away from opponents just 12 instances.
But based on this play this year—particularly above the second half of the season—he is simply not the dominant player he was in advance of 2013.
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