Toronto Maple Leafs Biggest Advantage: Zedeno Chara

The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins in game one of their opening round playoff series.

Going into the series, many were concerned that the Toronto Maple Leafs would be destroyed psychically by the supposedly tough Bruins, who play “the right way.”

For one night at least, the speed of the Leafs was far superior to the “heaviness” of the Bruins.

One big factor in this happening is the seeming decline of Zdeno Chara.  Not only does he imbue the Bruins with a massive amount of their perceived physical superiority, but he was nothing short of awful last night.

At best, he resembled a very large pylon. (stats naturalstattrick.com).

At worst, he was roughed up by the psychically inferior Trevor Moore.

The Toronto Maple Leafs and Chara

Last night, the Boston Bruins played Chara for just under 20 minutes.

In those 20 minutes, he played to a 43% Corsi, was -1 and had an expected goals-for of .4 with an expected goals-against of 1.22.

What that says is that in 20 minutes, the Leafs got roughly what they deserved, which is a plus-one goal differential.

If they can keep that up, and if Chara continues to falter, this is something that can really turn the tide of the series in the Leafs favor.

The best line on the night for Chara, as far as the Toronto Maple Leafs are concerned, is that they got 13 scoring chances against him while allowing only six.

And you don’t really need a stats report to know how Chara played.  He was looking his age, skating slowly, and constantly getting burned by the Leafs faster players.

And all this doesn’t take into effect how lucky Chara was that he wasn’t given three or four minor penalties.  The guy is a dirty player at the best of times, but he was downright reckless with his stick Thursday, and only the absolutely embarrassing job by the refs to call the game according to the rules prevented the Leafs from further taking advantage of Chara with a bunch of power-plays.

In the end, it’s just a single game.  Chara put up a 54% Corsi and played the second most total minutes on the Bruins this season.  He is by no means a player who is finished.  Chara is 42 and he plays like someone ten years younger.  Chara had a strong year by any standards, not just those of a 42 year old playing out his career.

The reason to care about this, even if it’s just a single bad game in an otherwise solid season, is because Chara is slow and the Leafs are probably the fastest team in the NHL. Thursday might not have just been an off night for Chara, it’s possible that he was his usual reliable self and that he just can’t handle this level of speed.

If so, advantage Leafs.