BOSTON – Zdeno Chara continues to make gradual progress in his recovery from an upper body injury suffered last week, but Big Zee wasn’t on the TD Garden practice ice Monday morning with the rest of his team for training camp sessions.
Instead the 38-year-old defenseman skated by himself Monday morning prior to the two camp sessions. Chara has been suffering from the injury (a rib injury or back injury might be the best guesses) since lasting just three shifts in last Thursday night’s win over the Rangers.
“He’s doing better. He skated on his own early, and things are going better as expected. It’s all encouraging,” said Claude Julien. “We’ve kept it day-to-day because he’s progressing, so he’s obviously [not playing] tonight, but we’ll see how the rest of the week goes. Like anything else, we’ll be more cautious than anything.”
With only two preseason games remaining after Monday night’s home tilt against the Detroit Red Wings, the clock is ticking on whether Chara will see any more preseason action prior to the season opening. For a veteran of 17 NHL seasons like Chara, the preseason game action probably isn’t the most important thing in the world anyway. Getting the B’s captain onto the ice for the Oct. 8 season opener and keeping him healthy for as much as possible is the clear mandate when it comes to the 6-foot-9 D-man coming off an injury-plagued campaign.