It’s a luxury fewer and fewer franchises in any sport seem to have. The constant presence of one, single reliable athletic presence season after season, always there, leaving the person in charge of filling out the lineup with one question he doesn’t have to even think about every night.
Derek Jeter. Tom Brady. Tim Duncan.
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In hockey, Nicklas Lidstrom was like that for the Detroit Red Wings from 1991 to 2012. GM Kenny Holland was the first to admit what an advantage it was to begin his planning for all those seasons knowing he could start with arguably the best defenceman of his generation.
Four Stanley Cups followed.
Martin Brodeur, from the time he became New Jersey’s starter in 1993 until Cory Schneider arrived as his heir apparent last season, filled a similar role for the Devils. Almost never hurt. Impervious to slumps and prolonged disruptions in performance. Never on the police blotter, or in the papers asking for a trade.
For 20 years, Lou Lamoriello never had to go into an off-season thinking of ways to upgrade his goaltending.
Since Zdeno Chara arrived in Boston back in 2006, the Bruins knew they would never have the same luxury as Detroit with Lidstrom and the Devils with Brodeur. Chara was already in his prime when he arrived, which meant the Bruins weren’t going to get anything like the extended period of excellence the Wings or New Jersey received from their foundation players.
Still, nine years is forever, it seems, these days. And for forever, it seems, every time the Bruins readied themselves to play, they had a 6-foot-9 monster on the back end who would play close to half of every game and in every important situation.
Before he arrived in Boston, Chara was regarded as a gentle giant. But as a Bruin, he found his mean streak along with an elevated level of commitment to personal fitness, and that turned him into a terror.
Getting hit by Chara was one thing, and Montreal fans will never forgive what he did to Max Pacioretty. But hitting him was like running into a bag of anvils. All elbows and knees. His wingspan, including an extra-long stick attached to those extra-long arms, allowed him to protect an entire quadrant of his team’s defensive zone without even moving his feet.
Anytime there was a scrum or a disagreement on the ice when Chara was out there, it generally quieted down quickly. He rarely fought, but was rarely challenged. He was law and order in Boston, but when it served his purpose, he could also play the outlaw and create chaos. There are big, strapping defencemen in the NHL, but nobody quite like Chara, a unique presence in the modern game.
So now the B’s have to contemplate life without the 37-year-old Slovak, at least for a month.
During his nine seasons in Boston, Chara has never missed more than five games in a regular season, and has been there for 96 playoff games as well. Considering the minutes he has logged in combination with his style of play, that’s remarkable.
Teams get through these situations. Tampa did pretty darn well without Steven Stamkos for most of last season. The Bruins will have to try and find a team answer to this individual problem, and they have lots of experience and talent to deal with the problem.
That said, Boston is 4-5-0 to start the season while surrendering more goals than Claude Julien is comfortable with, and the blueline corps is already down a man, having lost Johnny Boychuk to the Islanders in a cap-shaving trade on the eve of the season.
Dennis Seidenberg has yet to bounce back to his previous level after knee surgery. Kevan Miller is out with a dislocated shoulder after one of those hockey fights in which players never get injured.
Detroit at least had Niklas Kronwall. Jersey could turn to Schneider.
The Bruins, meanwhile, do have Chara’s possible successor in place, but wouldn’t have wanted to turn to him this early.
That would be Dougie Hamilton, of course, the ninth player selected in the 2011 draft, the second major component acquired from the Maple Leafs in the Phil Kessel deal.
Hamilton is 6-foot-5 with all kinds of talent. He had 106 NHL games under his belt going into this season, mostly in a protected role with Chara, Seidenberg and others carrying a larger responsibility. He isn’t a physical menace like Chara, and likely never will be. But the pedigree is there from the Hockey Canada program of excellence, and already this season, the 21-year-old has been playing almost as much as Chara.
A week ago he surpassed 25 minutes of ice time in a game, something he did only once last season when he was generally counted on for 19-20 minutes of ice time per game.
It’s been a very good apprenticeship in a very good organization, and now it’s time for the apprentice to step forward in his own right.
When Chara first arrived in a Boston uniform, the team was very ordinary, a non-playoff outfit, and he helped transform the club into an Eastern Conference powerhouse.
Hamilton doesn’t have to transform the Bruins. He has to help them maintain the high standard they’ve established at least for a month, and possibly longer. He’s been able to learn the league and become a professional in a more stable, competitive situation than, say, Jake Gardiner or Travis Hamonic or Justin Schultz.
Boston can’t replace Chara. But Hamilton can assert himself in the role for which he has been trained, and as a team, the Bruins can find different ways to get the job done.
The big Slovak and his big scowl will likely be back by next month.
And when he returns, the condition in which he finds his team will be to a significant degree a measure of Hamilton’s readiness to become the next long-term lineup luxury in Boston.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Hamilton took a puck off the hand in practice Friday morning:
