Playing on the same line as Capitals star left wing Alex Ovechkin comes with some obvious benefits. During the playoffs it also has one monster drawback: You get the opposing team’s top defenseman one shift after another, all night long, almost no exceptions. The games are too important otherwise. When that guy happens to be Zdeno Chara, a 6-foot-9 giant and one of the NHL’s best, the cost-benefit analysis of playing top-line minutes may not add up.
That’s life for winger Troy Brouwer and center Brooks Laich, who have been on the ice at even strength with Ovechkin in this first-round Stanley Cup playoff series with the Boston Bruins. Chara and defensive partner Dennis Seidenberg have earned the bulk of the ice time against Washington’s No. 1 unit. One of the few times they weren’t during the first two games at TD Garden in Boston, the Caps managed to score when Brouwer poked home a pass from Ovechkin in the second period of Game 2. With the final line change awarded to the home team, coach Dale Hunter can try to get Laich’s line some time and space away from Chara. But, more often than not, they will have to deal with him.
“[Chara is] going to play a lot because when you’re on the road, any time you think the other team’s top line is going to be out, they’re going to have Chara out,” Brouwer said. “So he’s probably going to play a lot of minutes tonight, which means we need to get pucks in on him, wear him down. It’s a big body to move up and down the ice and if you’ve got to make him turn and work, hopefully he’ll wear down a little bit.”
Sounds like a reasonable plan – though even Brouwer would concede that Chara is among the best-conditioned athletes in the entire NHL. Maybe age is starting to slow the 35-year-old Czech native, but he’s unlikely to be affected by a warm rink this evening at Verizon Center. A slowed Chara is still better than most NHL defensemen on most nights. Brouwer is speaking about a matter of degrees. Hunter will make the final call on line matching. In the end, no one will cut Ovechkin and his mates any slack just because they had to beat Chara every game.
“It doesn’t matter who we’re playing against. We got to do our job and we got to find ways to get offensive chances and be good in the defensive zone as well,” Brouwer said. “It’s playoff-type hockey and that means there’s matchups, that means there’s grittiness, that means there’s battles. And they’re usually against the same guys…and you establish those grudges. That’s why playoff hockey there’s always scrums, there’s always pushing and shoving. That’s why it’s so exciting.”
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