A hard shot, stiff stick and no TV: Tales of Hall of Famer Zdeno Chara’s time with Senators

Chris Phillips was a teenager when he first heard of him.

Zdeno Chara was once a teenage “giant” who moved from Slovakia to British Columbia as a 19-year-old to play for the Western Hockey League’s Prince George Cougars after being selected in the Import Draft. The stories from his junior days are legendary, ranging from his team struggling to find a jersey and a stick his size to him practically eating his billet family out of house and home.

“When he first got to Prince George,” Phillips, Chara’s former teammate, said. “They made a nice, big roast. I think they cut up half the roast into slices for the family. I think they had a couple of young kids that lived with them. So, they cut the roast into six, seven, eight pieces, I don’t know. But the family members, they all grabbed their slice of the roast. And the big fella, he stuck his fork in the other half of the roast and took the whole half and mouthed that down.

“I think that was day one, probably I’m sure, of the billets phoning the Prince George Cougars, saying we’re going to need a little bit more money here to feed this guy.”

Phillips first played against Chara as a member of the Prince Albert Raiders — a nearly 13-hour drive east of Prince George — during the 1996-97 WHL season and had never come across a player as big as he was. Unbeknownst to Phillips at the time, the two would become teammates — and partners — by the turn of the millennium, and a significant chapter of a long and storied NHL career.

“As closely as we were together, to see him move to Boston and win a Cup, and now (be in) the Hall of Fame, it’s pretty cool to say, ‘Hey, I played with that guy,’” Phillips said.

On Saturday, the 6-foot-9 Chara will enter the Hockey Hall of Fame alongside fellow NHLers Duncan Keith, Alexander Mogilny and Joe Thornton. Women’s hockey greats Jennifer Botterill, Brianna Decker and Danièle Sauvageau will also be inducted, along with college hockey coaching legend Jack Parker. The mountainous, imposing rearguard played 1,680 NHL games across a 24-year career, entering the league during the 1997-98 campaign and exiting following the 2021-22 season. Chara spent 14 seasons with the Boston Bruins, where he captained his team to a Stanley Cup championship in 2011 and also won his sole Norris Trophy in 2009.

“When I became a captain, I knew the history of what this team had many years before I arrived,” Chara said. “You try to embrace it. And also (know) that I’m not going to be Bobby Orr. I’m not going to be Ray Bourque. But at the same time, I want to be myself and lead my way. And do it in maybe different ways (than) they did before, but still in a form of that identity and structure that this team had for a long time.”

But before becoming a Bruins legend, Chara tapped into his potential as a member of the Ottawa Senators. Ottawa acquired Chara, Bill Muckalt and a first-round pick that became Jason Spezza at the 2001 NHL Draft as part of a trade that sent disgruntled forward Alexei Yashin to the New York Islanders. The Slovakian defenseman spent four seasons with the Senators, but left an indelible mark on the franchise and his teammates.

“I think it was a foregone conclusion,” former teammate Daniel Alfredsson said. “Hell of a career. Worked extremely hard to achieve what he did. Became a role model for teammates. Captain, Cup winner, represented his country numerous times. He dedicated everything to becoming the best he could be. Obviously, he created a few legendary stories around him as well while doing that.”

Chara was thought to be more of a defensive defenseman with the Islanders, but that didn’t make him any less threatening. During Chara’s fourth season with the Islanders in 2000-01, he amassed 157 penalty minutes. It’s the most he’s recorded in a single season. Future teammate and partner Wade Redden remembered staring at Chara in the midst of a five-person scrum in an Islanders-Senators game. Redden looked up at the towering defender and told him to “f— off.”

“Big Z,” as his teammates called him, laughed it off.

“I wasn’t about to go and square off with him. But he liked that,” Redden said. “He loved it.”

Chara, as a member of the Senators, in an April 2006 game alongside fellow teammate Ray Emery and Maple Leafs forward Darcy Tucker. (John Sokolowski / USA Today)

All animosity went away once the lumbering Chara joined the Senators ahead of the 2001-02 season, where his raw talent was on display while needing some guidance. Goaltender Patrick Lalime remembers numerous times having to tap the back of Chara’s leg with his stick because he wouldn’t get out of his line of sight. Alfredsson credits former coach Jacques Martin and the coaching staff for turning Chara into a positionally sound defenseman while remaining a physical presence.

“We prided ourselves in defensive play, and I think he turned himself into one of the best defensive defensemen,” Alfredsson said. “And (he) loved the challenge of facing the other team’s best player every night.”

And when he wasn’t working on the ice to be a better player, Chara worked hard off the ice and regularly kept himself in shape. That included his bike rides along the Tour de France’s various stages as part of his summer training regimen. Alfredsson says the defenseman didn’t even own a television at home, so he’d make use of the gym’s own.

“If he wanted to watch something, he would go to the rink and do it in the gym and work out at the same time. He’s one of those guys,” Alfredsson said.

That hard work off the ice paid off, as Chara morphed into a crucial, all-situations defender for a Senators group that consistently reached the playoffs in the 2000s. Phillips remembers the days when he and Chara were used in a shutdown pairing role whenever the Sens trotted out their best offensive players, notably with their “Pizza Line” of Alfredsson, Spezza and Dany Heatley.

“We joke that they give up their fair share of three-on-twos and odd-man rushes that we needed to save their ass,” Phillips said. “But we didn’t need to be necessarily jumping up in the play and being (the) offense, because we had all we needed up there. We had the mindset of shutting down guys and being strong defensively, and both being on the same page that way. (We) really cherished that role and took that responsibility very seriously.”

But when necessary, the Senators put him on a pairing with Redden and benefited from the duo’s offense and defense. Lalime called the pairing a “treat for a goalie.”

“(Redden) could pass the puck, get the puck out,” Lalime said. “Big Z could defend very well. He had a great shot, great to clear the net, the rebound. He was a presence in itself in front of the net and (opponents) respected that.”

And of course, Chara’s size and strength proved useful in fights. That includes the infamous battle of March 2004, where the Senators and Philadelphia Flyers combined for 419 penalty minutes and dozens of fights. Some of Chara’s most enduring memories as a Senator involve him humbling fellow tough guys around the league. Like when he rag-dolled Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Bryan McCabe, literally swinging the 6-foot-2 defenseman around in a circle.

Former teammate Todd White was a few feet from the fight, calling it “the best seat in the house.”

“When people show that video, there I am,” White said. “Five feet away from it, watching him do whatever he wanted. It was unbelievable how strong Zdeno was. And it’s kind of funny how close I was to that.”

Alfredsson’s most fond fighting memory of Chara was when he went toe-to-toe with another proven enforcer, Chris Simon, when he was a member of the New York Rangers. The two also tussled when Simon was a member of the Washington Capitals.

“I think that’s when he really realized (he) can go up against anybody. I think he grew a ton of confidence in that moment,” Alfredsson said.

There is also the time Chara rocked Eric Cairns of the Pittsburgh Penguins in front of both teams’ benches just before an intermission.

“You could literally hear the punches landing,” Phillips said. “I felt like I was a boy playing in a man’s league when I saw those two guys go at it.”

But it wasn’t just all defense and dust-ups as a Senator. In Chara’s first full season in the Canadian nation’s capital, he scored 10 goals and 23 points. For comparison’s sake, Chara scored 29 points across his first four seasons with the Islanders. But of course, the penalty minutes remained up; he recorded 156 PIMs that year. Chara scored 51 goals and 146 points in 299 career games with the Sens, including 24 power-play goals.

One big reason why the behemoth produced as much as he did in Ottawa? A howitzer of a slap shot that put fear into opposing goaltenders, thanks to its power and velocity, despite using the stiffest of sticks.

“I forget what the flex was on it,” White said. “But to me, at my weight and my strength, it was basically like there was no flex for me to flex it. Whereas that was what he used.”

“It was just like a two-by-four, for most of us to use,” Redden said.

Years later, with the Bruins, Chara set a record for the NHL’s hardest shot at 108.8 miles per hour during the 2012 NHL All-Star Game with that fearsome shot.

It even made his own goaltenders afraid. Lalime said he wore special “thicker” gloves in practice because he kept getting bruised from all of Chara’s blasts. Lalime knew Chara shot hard and high, and he didn’t bother saving his practice shots, joking that he probably gave him some confidence during games because of it.

“I would take six Zdeno Charas in front of me for defensemen,” Lalime said. “But I hate him in practice.”

One of Chara’s 51 goals as a Senator carries sentimental value to Redden. During the 2005-06 season, Redden missed time to be with his mother, Pat, as she battled cancer back home in Saskatchewan. After a seven-game absence, Redden returned in time for an April 11 matchup against the Bruins. The game required overtime, where Chara scored the winning goal 40 seconds in. At the game’s end, Chara approached his fellow defenseman.

“That was for her,” Chara said.

Unfortunately for Redden and Chara, their names are intertwined through the end of the latter’s time in Ottawa.

The Senators tried to keep both Redden and Chara, as both men required contracts during the 2006 offseason. NHL teams were still in the early days of the new salary cap rules, implemented after the 2004-05 NHL lockout. Redden signed with Ottawa on a two-year, $13 million deal while Chara left as a free agent following failed negotiations between the team and his agent, Matt Keator. And so, Chara signed a five-year, $37.5 million deal with Boston, the beginning of a 14-year tenure with the B’s.

“The way the salary cap was and the way that money was doled out,” Redden said. “Yeah, it was unfortunate that (we) couldn’t keep all that group together. Looking back, I don’t know what his offer was to stay in Ottawa. I’m sure they would have tried to keep him.”

However, there have been few, if any, hard, lingering feelings from Chara’s former teammates after the fact. Just a ton of appreciation for the defender he was with Ottawa. The Senators got a Cup Final run in 2007 without Chara, albeit ending in defeat against the Anaheim Ducks. Four years later, Chara won his sole Cup with the Bruins in a seven-game series victory over the Vancouver Canucks.

It’s hard not to consider what would’ve happened if the hulking defender remained in Ottawa and carried on his Hall of Fame trajectory in Senators colors.

“Well, obviously, we’ll never know,” Phillips said. “But the possibilities if we were able to keep everyone together, it would have been pretty exciting, I could imagine.”