The One Thing You Need to Know About the Bruins’ Loss to the Islanders

Zdeno Chara sends the Islanders John Tavares to the ice with a first period hit. (Globe Staff Photo/Jim Davis)

By Jeremy Gottlieb

October 23, 2014

1 minute to read

It may be fitting that on the night Johnny Boychuk made his return to Boston as a member of the New York Islanders, the Bruins’ corps of defensemen took another hit in a 3-2 loss.

Indeed, the already shorthanded unit wound up losing another piece, this one the biggest of them all. Captain Zdeno Chara blasted his counterpart from the Islanders, John Tavares, with a massive, open-ice hit. He finished his shift following the hit, which included a TV timeout, then left the bench area and didn’t return to the game. The Bruins announced he wouldn’t be back during the first intermission and didn’t offer much further info after the game.

The Bruins looked a bit flat and more than a bit lackluster even before Chara left but after he was gone, things got worse in that regard. The Islanders scored twice in the second period against the Bruins’ further thinned out D, and even though they picked up the pace in a big wayy in the third, cutting the Islanders’ lead to one on a juicy rebound finish by Chris Kelly, they couldn’t complete the comeback against their former teammate, goaltender Chad Johnson.

Chara’s injury not only overshadowed Boychuk’s return, which earned a multiple standing ovation’s from the TD Garden crowd, but also the first goal of the season scored by Milan Lucic, who took a perfect pass from rookie Seth Griffith and redirecyed it past Johnson while flying past to give the Bruins their first strike of the game in the opening period.

Despite the positives that can be taken from this game (Lucic’s continued good offensive pace, the third period energy, the fan response to Boychuk’s return), none of it outweighs Chara’s exit.