Friday marks two weeks since NHL free agency opened, and longtime Bruins captain Zdeno Chara remains unsigned.
Chara's agent, Matt Keator, told TSN's Pierre LeBrun last week that Chara was "looking at all options" and was in no hurry to make a decision.
Bruins general manager Don Sweeney has said he has been in communication with Chara and Keator, but hasn't publicly tipped his hand in terms of whether he is actively trying to sign Chara or not.
For his part, Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy seems to be taking a business-like approach to the possibility of Chara leaving.
"If Zee ends up in another uniform, then we have to rely on these young guys," Cassidy recently told NBC10’s Raul Martinez. "I guess that’s how I look at it as a coach. You try to separate the personal side of it. You go to bat with these guys every day. It’s a privilege to coach them. But then people change, there’s trades, there’s people that move on.
"And then, you’ve got to worry about the next guy. So, I don’t want to sound impersonal, but that’s they way a coach sometimes has to look at it: ‘Well, we’ve got to get the best out of the next guy that’s going in the lineup.’ So, we’ll see how it plays out. No matter what, he’s been a legend in a Bruins uniform, and that's a tough one. We’ll see how it goes."
Cassidy also weighed in on the departure of Torey Krug during the interview, saying he'll "miss him a lot."
"Gonna miss him a lot," Cassidy said. "Personally I’ve had Torey since he was a first-year pro down in Providence. So I built a relationship with him not only as a player but as a person. He gave a lot of good years to the Bruins’ crest, can’t thank him enough for that. I think this is just one of those business decisions that happens in sports where players move on. … At the end of the day we have to get ready for the sort of next man up mentality."