Before Monday, only one current Bruin had ever been to a Boston training camp that didn’t include Zdeno Chara.
Patrice Bergeron was a 20-year-old second-year player the last time it happened in 2005, and he acknowledged that beginning training camp on Monday with no Chara, who signed a one-year deal with the Washington Capitals last week, felt different.
“Yeah, it is different,” Bergeron said. “It’s the unfortunate side of the business, you know. It’s not always easy to see guys like that go. Obviously I’ve had a tremendous relationship with him over 14 years, and I’ve learned tremendously from him. So yeah, it’s definitely different.”
While the Bruins have not yet announced their next captain, it’s a foregone conclusion that it will be Bergeron. The 35-year-old center was an alternate captain for the entirety of Chara’s 14-year captaincy, learning first under Chara (no height pun intended) before eventually working more alongside him in what has often been viewed as a co-captaincy.
Replacing Chara as captain could be a daunting task, but it would be hard to imagine anyone being better equipped to handle it than Bergeron is. Without commenting directly on whether he’ll be the next captain (again, nothing’s officially official yet), Bergeron said he doesn’t plan to change much in terms of how he leads.
“No, I think you have to be yourself,” Bergeron said. “Right now it’s really go back to leading by example and everyone just being themselves. There’s a lot of leaders on this team. It’s great to see everyone. It’s Day 1. We’re trying to get accustomed to new faces coming in and all that stuff. It just goes back to the same thing and making sure we feel comfortable as a team and we can create something special.”
Of course, Chara’s absence is different for everyone, not just Bergeron. On the ice, the player who may be affected most is the one who played with him the most in recent years.
Charlie McAvoy played with Chara on the Bruins’ top defense pairing every year since he came into the league in 2017. While the 23-year-old had already taken over the No. 1 defenseman role from Chara, being the top D without Chara to lean on will be different.
“Obviously not having him around is going to be different,” McAvoy said. “It’s something that I haven’t had any experience with since I’ve been here. I’ve played with Zee every shift of every game since we’ve been at it, and that’s something that I feel incredibly fortunate to have done and very lucky to have shared those experiences and played with him and gotten to know him as a person.”
McAvoy is trying not to put too much pressure on himself to do too much, but said he does want to keep getting better on the ice while also helping out the team’s younger, less experienced defenders who are now going to get more of an opportunity in the wake of not just Chara’s departure, but also Torey Krug’s.
“Without him, I think, kind of without putting a crazy expectation on myself or some crazy goals, kind of just keeping it very small and just realizing that what I’ve been doing for the team for a while, I don’t think that really changes very much,” McAvoy said. “I think I just need to show up every day and work as hard as I can and improve every day and get better. That’s my goal, and that’s what I’m going to try to do.
“Around the room, I think it’s something by committee, kind of picking up that leadership role. And I’ll do as much as I can to try and be a positive presence in the room and someone people can rely on. But we have so many guys who have been here for such a long time, who have such good leadership qualities, so many guys that we all look up to and I personally look up to, and they’ll make sure that we’re going in the right direction.”
Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy echoed McAvoy’s comments -- both in terms of not wanting McAvoy to put too much pressure on himself and in terms of looking for leadership by committee on defense, with McAvoy being part of that group that also includes fellow core members Brandon Carlo and Matt Grzelcyk and veterans Kevan Miller and John Moore.
It remains to be seen what the Bruins’ defense pairings will ultimately look like on opening night. While there had been some thought that Grzelcyk -- who has played with McAvoy at times the last couple seasons, not to mention at Boston University -- would play alongside McAvoy, he actually slotted in next to Carlo at Monday’s practice.
McAvoy took reps with Jeremy Lauzon and Jakub Zboril. Lauzon emerged as a solid third-pairing defender for the Bruins last season and could get a shot at a bigger role, especially since he brings some of the stay-at-home and physical characteristics that McAvoy is used to having next to him in Chara.
Zboril has a little more offense to his game and Providence Bruins coach Jay Leach said he was the team’s best defenseman down the stretch last season. It’s been a slower development process for the 2015 first-round pick than anyone expected, but it’s clear the Bruins believe he’s reached a point where he at least deserves a real look.
Cassidy has paired young D with more experienced veterans in the past -- McAvoy with Chara, Carlo with Chara before that, and Grzelcyk with Miller. This may seem similar if it is indeed Lauzon or Zboril with McAvoy, but Cassidy is being careful not to frame it quite the same way.
“We just need him to play good, solid hockey every night,” Cassidy said of McAvoy. “And if he can pull his partner along some nights if it’s a younger guy, that would be great. That’s a big ask. We did that a couple years ago with Miller, when he partnered with Grizz, and Zee obviously with Carlo and then McAvoy. Those guys have been around a little longer, a little older. So that’s a big ask right now for Charlie, to go and mentor, let’s say it’s Lauzon. Just play and play well so that your partner can just sort of take care of his own business. And maybe there’s a few nights where he can pull him along.
“And the vocal part on the bench, yes he can be a little more vocal now that some of the guys that were older than him are gone. And that part of it, yeah, keep the bench up, keep your partner engaged in the game. That’s a bit of an ask out of him and Grizz and Carlo now that some other guys are gone and they’ve become more of the middle group now, so to speak, of experienced guys.”
While Cassidy acknowledged that evaluations of his defensemen and pairings will have to continue into the season so he can actually see them in game action (there are no preseason games this year), he seems to think the transition off the ice in terms of leadership will be a little more seamless.
“I do believe we have a lot of leadership in here,” Cassidy said. “Obviously Zee was great in that area as a captain for 14 years, so we never needed as a coaching staff to worry about that. But we have Patrice, we have David Krejci, we have Tuukka [Rask], we have Millsy [Kevan Miller], who’s back and looks great. Back in the locker room, obviously you feel more like a leader when you’re with the group. So hopefully he takes care of his game first, but also recognizes he did a good job of that for us.
“We have Brad [Marchand]. We have some younger guys who can grow into that role in Carlo and Pasta [David Pastrnak] when he’s back and Charlie Coyle. Craig Smith’s coming from an organization that knows how to win and work. So we have good guys in the locker room that I think can continue the tradition that Zee kind of laid down here.”