FROM THE ARCHIVES: Inside Zdeno Chara's Tenure With The Capitals

This article originally appeared in The Hockey News Feb 1, 2021/vol. 74, issue 02

BY BEN RABY

THE TEXT MESSAGE was a simple inquiry. For the recipient, it meant so much more.

“Is Garrett still with Washington?” read the message sent to Rich Pilon.

Pilon retired from the NHL in 2002, having spent the bulk of his career with the New York Islanders. Among his teammates in New York in the late 1990s was a 6-foot-9 prospect named Zdeno Chara. Back then, Pilon often hosted Chara and the Islanders’ other young singles during the holidays. “We’d all be eating,” Pilon said, “and you’d look over and he’d be carrying my kids, Megan and Garrett, on his shoulders.”

Chara has done plenty of heavier lifting in the more than 20 years since, captaining the Boston Bruins to the 2011 Stanley Cup and emerging as a bona fide Hall of Famer. Along the way, Chara reconnected with one of his early NHL mentors. Years ago, Rich Pilon told him that Garrett had been drafted by Washington.

That’s why, with the ink still drying on his contract with the Capitals in late December, Chara’s mind wandered not to Alex Ovechkin or Nicklas Backstrom, but to Garrett Pilon. “That tells you everything,” Rich said. “It’s not like we talk every day, and that’s the first thing he thought about, ‘Is Garrett still there?’ That’s ‘Z.’”

Indeed, from the You’ve-Been-Here-A-While department, Chara is now skating with his former teammates’ kids, having practically lapped a generation of hockey players. “I still remember when ‘the junior’ was born,” said Chara of Garrett. “It’s pretty ne at, actually. I just look at it, like, ‘Where does the time go?’”

Sure, time has passed, but Chara has remained one of the game’s most genuine, dedicated and respected figures. Those traits have helped facilitate what could have otherwise been a difficult transition to Washington after 14 years and more than 1,000 games captaining the Bruins.

Now in his 23rd NHL season, Chara reluctantly left Boston after the Bruins could only offer the longtime minute-muncher a “reserve role,” with few guarantees. Despite all the miles on the hockey odometer – nobody has logged more ice time in the 21st century – a significantly lighter workload didn’t appeal.

Chara realized as much when he got back on the ice last fall. With an uncertain future, Chara told himself that if there was any hesitation whatsoever, any questioning whether he could handle the grind of off-season training, he had to be honest. The potential doubts, though, “never appeared,” Chara said. “I love working hard and getting ready and getting up in the morning and doing all that routine. To me, that was the indication that I still have lots of gas left and I still want to go out and do my thing.”

Around the same time Chara resumed skating, the Capitals were preparing their shopping list for a revamped blueline. From last year’s all-star break through the season’s pause March 12, Washington ranked 31st in team defense. The Capitals identified Chara as a potential target early in free agency, though internally they figured he would ultimately stay in Black and Gold.

When it became apparent in December that he wouldn’t, Washington pounced, signing Chara to a one-year, $795,000 deal. “His presence, his leadership and the type of person he is, we wanted to add all that to our organization,” said GM Brian MacLellan. “He’s an attractive guy to have on your team. He has all the intangibles. He has a big presence. It just elevates your whole organization by having him in it.”

It didn’t take long for Chara to emerge as a key cog for a Capitals team ravaged by early-season injuries and COVID-related absences. As Washington jumped out to the best start in franchise history, Chara was skating more than 20 minutes a night, protecting late-game leads and often being deployed against the opposition’s top players. When he faced the Bruins for the first time in late January, he partnered with John Carlson on the Caps’ top pairing. “He’s lived up to his billing,” said coach Peter Laviolette.

Chara turns 44 in March, but the NHL’s oldest active player is at ease in his new surroundings. Publicly, Chara defers, suggesting, “This is Alex’s team, this is Peter’s team.”

Behind the scenes, teammates say, Chara has taken charge. “When he talks, you listen,” said Capitals defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk.

For the first time since 2002, Chara doesn’t have a letter stitched on his sweater. As the Capitals quickly discovered, he doesn’t need one. “When you see him walk around, when you see him in the gym, there’s just that feeling, that vibe that he puts off,” said power forward Tom Wilson. “It just makes everyone around him want to get better.”

Chara has fit in seamlessly on a veteran-laden Capitals team in transition itself with a new coach, several fresh faces and a relatively inexperienced goaltending tandem. Coming off back-to-back first-round exits, MacLellan expressed concern last summer over a slipping culture and a lack of accountability in Washington. Laviolette was trusted to restore both, though the addition of Chara doesn’t hurt. “He’s a massive presence on the ice,” Laviolette said. “Not just by the size of him but by the way he plays and the success he’s had. But there is more to it than that. There’s a person inside as well, that is as big on culture and character and leadership. He brings it all to the table.”

Chara comes by it honestly. The 2011 recipient of the Mark Messier Leadership Award doesn’t cheat the game. Never has. Tales of his off-ice workouts and his dedication to the craft are legendary. As a rookie with the Islanders, coaches never had to push him. If anything, they had to reign him in. “He’d work so hard, he’d make himself sick,” recalled Chara’s first NHL coach, Rick Bowness. “We’d literally have to kick him out of the gym and tell him to go home.”

Pilon remembers pre-season physicals on Long Island morphing into one-man freak shows. For a standard 185-pound bench-press test one year, players earned fist bumps and high fives after 25 reps. Chara easily hit 60. “He could have kept going, but they just said, ‘‘Z,’ stop. We know,’” Pilon said. “And then we did pull-ups. And he’s 250 pounds. And he got to 50 of those. It was ridiculous. And again, they just said ‘‘Z,’ we get it. Stop.’ That is unheard of. But that was ‘Z.’”

Chara points to the discipline and work ethic that were instilled in him at a young age by his father, Zdenek, an Olympic Greco-Roman wrestler and coach. “My dad planted the seed and said if you want to accomplish something, you have to do extra,” Chara said. “You have to spend time and invest in training. You might not see the benefits or improvements right away, but eventually, if you stick with it and if you’re patient enough and dedicated enough and disciplined enough, you’ll start to see that all these hours and days and months of hard training will eventually pay off.”

As a teenager, Chara began logging all of his workouts in handwritten journals, providing details on every exercise and each set of reps. He has continued to do so every off-season as a pro. All of these lists and charts, some of which are tucked away in his native Slovakia, others which are stowed in folders at his home in Boston, tell a story.

Like calculating accrued interest on three decades’ worth of hardcopy bank statements, the numbers and measurements are all there for Chara to peruse. “When I look back on it, I’m still benefiting from all those hard training days and sessions,” Chara said. “The body and the muscles have certain memories that you can benefit from. So now, you don’t have to pound the heavy weights every time you go to the gym or spend too much time on conditioning because you know your body has certain potential and you know what you can squeeze out of it.”

As Chara has continued to play heavy minutes for Stanley Cup contenders into his 40s – only he and Chris Chelios have averaged north of 21 minutes a night in their “age 42” season – the decades-long, everyday investment into personal maintenance is arguably the biggest factor.

I STILL HAVE LOTS OF GAS LEFT AND I STILL WANT TO GO OUT AND DO MY THING– Zdeno Chara

Chara has also used past off-seasons to both challenge and build his endurance. Consider his 2008 trip to Africa, where he climbed 18,650 feet across six days on Mount Kilimanjaro. Years later, he spent summer days studying various stages from the Tour de France before cycling the same routes in the French Alps himself. There was also a seven-hour, 200-mile bike ride one summer day in the Czech Republic. “He’s like a machine. You just can’t kill him when it comes to that kind of stuff,” said Claude Julien, who spent 10 seasons as Chara’s coach with the Bruins.

Julien’s post-game responsibilities in Boston typically kept him at TD Garden long after most of his players had gone home. Chara was an exception, even on the frequent nights he’d play 25-or-more demanding minutes. “When I would leave,” Julien said, “I would go by to see the trainers in the medical room. That was right next to the workout room, and you’d look in and there was Zdeno still working out, doing weights, and you just shook your head and said, ‘When can you ever burn this guy out?’”

Chara admits he never set out to play this long. Dust off the old VHS tape from Wayne Gretzky’s last NHL goal with the Rangers in March 1999, and there’s Chara trying to clear the net front before No. 99 tucks in his own rebound.

By season’s end, Chara could become the 13th player in league history to play 1,600 games. He is also within 100 games of Chelios’ all-time record for games played by a defenseman. “Your heart can be in it, but your body has to let you,” said Peter Bondra, who played with Chara in Ottawa and on several Slovakian national teams.

The two remain close friends. “Because he took care of his body,” Bondra said, “his body is now taking care of him.”

According to Bondra, having passion for the game is one thing. Having passion for the work is different. Chara is still here because he has both. “It’s a joy,” said Chara of all the preparation. “When I’m in the gym or training, it’s a place where I find myself very much at home. I can feel really good about myself. It allows me to get away from the hectic life we’re all living in. It’s my anchor. In a way, it’s above any church for me. It’s a place where I find myself very joyful.”

WHEN I’M IN THE GYM OR TRAINING…IT’S A PLACE WHERE I FIND MYSELF VERY JOYFUL– Zdeno Chara

As Chara creeps closer to his mid-40s, he also finds tremendous satisfaction on the ice containing some the game’s best and brightest young stars. While no defenseman scored more often than Chara from 2003 through 2014, it’s the blue-collar elements to his game that keep him going. “We all have to embrace what we want to bring to the team,” he said. “I realize I’m not going to be a high-scoring defenseman in the league anymore. But I get a huge amount of satisfaction and enjoyment when I can give my defensive abilities to the team’s success. I really feed off that, knowing that based on doing my job well defensively, I’m giving the team a chance to win.”

Chara has remained true to himself throughout his career, though he has also evolved. In recent years, Chara has invested more time in improving his speed, explosiveness and quickness. In 2017, he adopted a plant-based diet and eliminated most meat and dairy products. That same year, he began working with skating and skills coach Adam Nicholas, with an emphasis on hip mobility to ease transitions and pivots from offense to defense.

Chara broke into the league during the Dead Puck Era when a 250-pound defenseman like himself could clutch and grab and hold with little repercussion. He has solidified his Hall of Fame credentials while the game has shifted to more speed and skill. “He found a way to adapt,” Pilon said. “That’s the sign of greatness.”

Chara suggested years ago that he’d like to still be playing at 45. Recently, he took a more conservative approach. In an abbreviated, condensed season unlike any before, and with his wife and three children, daughter Elliz, 11, and twin boys Ben and Zack, four, still in Boston, Chara isn’t ready to look beyond this year just yet. “Right now, I’m where my feet are,” he said. “My focus is just on playing for the Washington Capitals this season.”

Of course, winning can help ease any transition, and the Capitals made it a habit early in the shortened campaign. Along the way, one of the images of the season came when Chara scored his first goal in a Capitals uniform.

Soon after Chara fired a slapshot past Islanders goalie Semyon Varlamov in a Washington win Jan. 28, he turned to his teammates on the nearby home bench. They instinctively all gathered around him and collectively mobbed the oldest player to score a goal in franchise history. “It was awesome,” Laviolette said. “Everybody is pulling for ‘Z’ to be the great player that he is. So when that moment (arrived), his teammates, they let him know. It was one the coolest things I’ve seen in a while with regard to a teammate.”

The 206th goal of Chara’s career was also one he won’t soon forget as he continues to appreciate every day in the NHL and all the work it has taken to get there. Officially, Justin Schultz and Michael Sgarbossa assisted on Chara’s first goal in Washington. Unofficially, Chara, said, the entire team played a role. “I wanted to share that celebration with my entire bench and my entire team,” he said. “Since Day 1, they’ve really helped me make this transition as easy as possible and they’ve welcomed me with open arms. So, I just wanted to share that joy with them. It was a great moment and a great connection. That’s something that I’ll always cherish.”