Boston Bruins
Chara served as captain of the Bruins for 14 seasons.
Bruins legend Zdeno Chara formally received his call to the Hockey Hall of Fame on Monday evening, earning his spot in hockey immortality as one of the most dominant blueliners of his era.
“I’m kind of nervous just standing here because there’s just so many legends and so many players, good people who have done so much,” Chara said Saturday. “I don’t know how to describe it. It is a little bit surreal.”
“It felt very special. To be honest, I got some shakes,” Chara added of seeing his plaque in Toronto for the first time. “It was so special, seeing all these legends and all these people who have done so much for the game … and now seeing my face, my name on it? I really have a hard time describing what it’s like.”
A stalwart on Boston’s D corps while anchoring the team’s locker room as captain for 14 seasons, the 48-year-old Chara accomplished plenty of his extended run with the Bruins.
In recognition of Chara’s entry into the Hall of Fame, here’s a look at 10 of his most memorable moments in Boston.
Joining the Bruins in July 2006
The Bruins’ extended window of contention that spanned nearly two decades and featured three trips to the Stanley Cup Final started to pry open on July 1, 2006 when Boston signed Chara — the top free agent on the market — to a five-year, $37.5 million contract.
A Bruins roster seemingly left rudderless after the trade of captain Joe Thornton (also a 2025 Hall-of-Fame entrant) had found its next franchise stalwart to pair alongside a younger crop of skaters headlined by Patrice Bergeron.
Chara’s impact on the ice was evident, even as Boston labored during the 2006-07 season. But, it was his role in cultivating a winning culture as the team’s captain that has endured — even years after he last donned a black-and-gold sweater.
“Without that you cannot win,” Chara said of building a strong culture during his retirement ceremony in 2022. “You need to have a culture. You need to have players that want to follow. It wasn’t just me. It was a team effort. I would never have done it without Patrice (Bergeron). I would never have done it without Brad (Marchand) coming in and following Patrice’s lead.
“We had guys willing to step in, coming from different teams and adjust to that culture. We pushed each other. … But without the culture and somebody planting the seed and basically putting the foot down like this is how it’s going to be — it was hard at the beginning. It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary. I felt it was necessary for this organization and for this team to make that change.”
Dropping the gloves
Even with his imposing 6-foot-9 frame, Chara wasn’t exactly the type of on-ice battering ram who seeked out scraps on every shift.
But, when the Bruins captain was provoked or objected to a hit delivered against a teammate, few players in league history doled out more damage with his fists than Chara.
Be it splitting 6-foot-6 scrapper David Koci’s forehead open like a watermelon in 2007, one-punching Cedric Paquette with a jab in 2015, or hammering Evander Kane with hooks in 2019, Chara often left a trail of destruction in his wake whenever he did drop the gloves.
“Tough [for Kane] when you go up against Thanos like that,” then-Bruins winger Jake DeBrusk said after Chara easily bested Kane during that scrap.
Scoring a hat trick against Hurricanes
The most goals Chara ever scored in a single season was 19 during the 2008-09 campaign.
But, the then-33-year-old defenseman became just the fourth Bruins D-man in team history to score a hat trick on Jan. 17, 2011 against the Hurricanes — joining a small grouping that includes Bobby Orr, Ray Bourque, and Glen Wesley.
After cashing in on an odd-man rush with Mark Recchi to open his scoring salvo, Chara achieved the individual milestone with his usual avenue of offensive production — blasting two power-play tallies past Cam Ward in an eventual 7-0 win over Carolina.
As soon as that final power-play blast sailed into twine, Chara pretended to take a cap off his head and fling it into the sky — with a cascade of hats promptly falling onto the Garden ice.
The Pacioretty incident
Chara was suddenly Public Enemy No. 1 up in Montreal after an unfortunate accident during a game at the Bell Centre in 2011.
While racing against Canadiens winger Max Pacioretty in the chase for a puck, Chara doled out a heavy check against the skilled Montreal forward. The force of Chara’s check drove Pacioretty into the stanchion of the glass separating Boston and Montreal’s benches, with Pacioretty crumpling to the ice after the freak play.
Pacioretty was diagnosed with a concussion, with boos raining down from Habs fans against Chara — who was not disciplined on the play.
That didn’t stop Montreal police from opening a criminal investigation into Chara’s hit — prompting Pacioretty to release a formal statement advocating for Chara to not be charged with any sort of crime.
“I sincerely appreciate all of the support that I have received since my injury,” Pacioretty said in a statement. “I was disappointed that the NHL did not suspend Zdeno Chara. However, I have no desire for him to be prosecuted legally. I feel that the incident, as ugly as it was, was part of a hockey game.
“I understand that this is not my decision. I have respect and admiration for the authorities in Quebec. I simply wanted to make my opinion clear.”
Pacioretty ultimately returned for the 2011-12 season without issue — scoring 335 goals and 681 points over his 17 years in the NHL ranks.
Setting a record for hardest shot in NHL history
Chara may not have lit the lamp with the same regularity as some current D-men like Cale Makar. But, the former Bruins captain stands alone when it comes uncorking howitzers from the blue line.
Returning to one of his former stomping grounds in Ottawa for the 2012 NHL All-Star Game, Chara once again showcased his booming shot during the league’s annual skills event — winning the hardest shot competition with a 108.8 miles per hour bullet that still stands as the fastest shot in league history.
Helping spur Boston’s Game 7 comeback against Toronto
Chara may not have lit the lamp during Boston’s four-goal surge that marked an improbable comeback against the Maple Leafs in Game 7 of the Bruins’ first-round series.
But, he left his fingerprints all over a Bruins postseason triumph for the ages, with the Bruins captain out on the ice for all three of Boston’s tallies over the final 10 minutes of regulation — as well as Patrice Bergeron’s game-winner in overtime.
Chara helped cut Toronto’s lead to one at 18:38 in the third period — with his blast from the blue line creating a rebound that was jammed home by Milan Lucic to make it a 4-3 game.
Just 31 seconds later, Chara — serving as an effective screen while planting himself down at the netfront — did enough to impede Toronto goalie James Reimer just as Bergeron’s long-range wrister sailed home for the equalizing goal.
The rest, as they say, was history.
Taking home the Norris Trophy in 2009
Despite his standing as one of the top blueliners in the NHL for nearly two decades, Chara only won the Norris Trophy — given annually to the league’s top D-man — once across his 24 years in the NHL.
Chara — who was a top-five finalist for the Norris a whopping eight times in his career — finally broke through during the 2008-09 season.
A key cog on a Bruins team that posted 116 points during the regular season, Chara scored 19 goals and 50 points across 80 games that season — averaging 26:04 ice time per contest.
While Chara’s imposing frame painted the picture of a stout, stay-at-home pillar in the D-zone, Chara also averaged 3:46 of ice time per game on the power play that year — with Boston also outscoring teams, 63-49, over his 1,424 minutes of 5-on-5 reps.
Every time Chara skated for a shift during his prime, the fortunes seemed to tilt in Boston’s favor.
Playing in 2019 Stanley Cup Final with broken jaw
The most enduring image from Boston’s run all the way to Game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final was the sight of Chara — his shattered jaw held together by wiring — taking in an ovation from the TD Garden crowd in Game 5 against the Blues.
After taking a puck to the mouth in Game 4 in St. Louis, it remained to be seen if Boston’s captain was going to be cleared for game action in the following game. In two days between Games 4 and 5, Chara underwent surgery to fix his broken jaw — with doctors ruling him as a game-time decision for the Bruins’ next bout against St. Louis.
Sure enough, Chara took to the ice on Causeway Street while donning a full face shield — appearing in all three of Boston’s final three games against St. Louis.
Hoisting the Stanley Cup
The tallest player in NHL history, Chara lifted the Stanley Cup higher than the storied trophy had ever been before on June 15, 2011.
Beyond his steadying presence amid a grueling playoff run that featured three seven-game series against Montreal, Tampa Bay, and Vancouver, Chara dominated out on the ice en route to Boston’s first Stanley Cup in 39 years.
Chara was second behind only Dennis Seidenberg in total ice time (663:43) during the 2011 Stanley Cup Playoffs — posting nine points (two goals, seven assists) over 24 games.
Throughout that run, Chara was regularly tasked by Claude Julien to shut down the opposing team’s top playmakers. Even with a heavy dose of D-zone reps and daunting matchups, the Bruins still outscored opponents, 26-12, in Chara’s 475:13 of 5-on-5 reps during the postseason.
Getting his number retired
Chara might have last played with the Bruins in August 2020. But the former captain is now back with Boston in another capacity, serving as a hockey operations advisor and mentor for a new-look Bruins roster moving forward.
And while Chara is looking to help Boston’s next wave of talent flourish moving forward, the Hall-of-Fame skater will once again have a chance to reflect on his standout career on Jan. 15, 2026 when his No. 33 jersey is officially retired by Boston.
“I mean, that’s something — that’s not what you’re playing for,” Chara said in October about the individual recognition. “You’re playing to win, playing to get championships. The focus is strictly on winning and championships, you are not really focusing on yourself and being identified this way and being. … So I wasn’t really thinking about that.
“I was more focused on doing what I could do and help the team. And, like I said, winning — that’s all we care about.”
Sign up for the Today newsletter
Get everything you need to know to start your day, delivered right to your inbox every morning.
