The Bruins are stuffing a square peg in a round hole having Chara in front of the net on power plays
VANCOUVER -- What the Bruins are doing is disrespectful, when it comes right down to it, to those players who have spent a lifetime perfecting the art.
Take a big defenceman like Zdeno Chara, station in the low slot on the power play, and expect him to be as effective as guys like Tomas Holmstrom, Ryan Smyth and Dustin Byfuglien.
The Bruins' sad power play numbers will tell you that there just might be more to the gig than standing in front of the goalie.
"You don't just stand there," began Smyth over the phone, who plans to watch Chara work the top of Roberto Luongo's crease Saturday night in Game 2 of this Stanley Cup final. "You try to get in the line of sight of the goalies' eyes.
"It's the timing. When the 'D' is going to shoot it, getting your stick right in front of his eyes. He loses it for a split second. And then you get that rebound."
It has become the sore point of the Boston Bruins post-season, a power play so pungent, you wonder how this team got so far on five power play goals all spring long. It has produced one lonely goal on the road in these playoffs, and thus, a pathetic success rate of 7.5 per cent after going 0-for-6 in a 1-0 Game 1 loss.
And you'll recall that the Bruins became the first team in the history of the game to win a seven-game series without a power play goal, in Round 1 versus Montreal.
Mark Recchi continues to hold down a spot on the No. 1 unit, despite the fact he has not counted a single point on the PP all post-season, and begging the question as to when Tyler Seguin will replace the aging warrior.
And at practice Friday, Chara continued to be deployed in the low slot. The problem is, he's just not very good at the gig, like, say, a big power forward like Milan Lucic might be.
Chara did spend some time tipping pucks after practice, but where Holmstrom has about an 85 per cent success rate in getting a stick on hard slap shots in one of those sessions, Chara redirected the puck about 40 per cent of the time -- and his defencemen were floating in weak wristers.
"It's not that I'm learning it. I was in that role before (in Ottawa as well)," said Chara, by way of defending his ability to be an effective low-post on the power play. "Obviously it's a little bit different from being on the point, but I think the main purpose of the whole thing is the same: you have to be willing to do whatever it takes.
"You know, whatever position I'm on or in, I just try to do my best."
No one is questioning Chara's will to win. What is at question is the deployment of a guy with a 105-mph bomb from the point, and the assertion that he can become an effective crease player while learning on the job in a Stanley Cup final.
In Game 1 he did not show the ability to re-direct a point blast, nor was he quick to find a loose puck and jam it home. And, as Byfuglien perfected in those Vancouver-Chicago series, Chara never once found a way to crash into Luongo, or fall on the sprawled goalie as hard as possible at the end of the play.
Smyth doesn't want to come across as criticizing Chara, who is doing his best to learn an element of the game that a guy like Detroit's Holmstrom has worked years and years to perfect. But Smyth knows he wouldn't have any more success trying to learn how to play defence at such a crucial point in the season.
"The old cliché is, practice makes perfect. It takes time," Smyth said. "I (tip pucks) every game day, every morning skate. Like Holmstrom does. It takes time, and it takes practice."
The Canucks, meanwhile, would be happy to see Boston coach Claude Julien continue to stuff this square peg in a round hole for a few more games.
"The toughest guys are the guys with good sticks in front of the net. Like Holmstrom," said Vancouver defenceman Kevin Bieksa. "The guys who want to be there, in front. There are some guys who are just standing there because they're told to, and there are other guys who want to be there.
"A guy like Holmstrom wants to be there. You've got to respect him, and you've got to be close to him."
Read between those lines, for a minute. This is what Roberto Luongo said after Game 1, when asked to compare Chara's work down low to that of former Blackhawk Byfuglien:
"It's not the same," Luongo said of Chara's work. "I think he's a big body, but at the same time we decided that it's best if we just leave him alone and let me take care of him."
Leave him alone? I don't recall them saying that about Holmstrom and Smyth over the years.
