Visualizing Zdeno Chara’s stats: A closer look at 24 seasons of defensive dominance

By John Hancock, Globe Staff

Published Sept. 21, 2022

After 24 seasons in the National Hockey League, Zdeno Chara has announced his retirement. The towering defenseman was known for his imposing presence on the ice and his influence off of it, especially as team captain of the Bruins.

He won a Stanley Cup, a Norris Trophy as the best defenseman in the NHL, and was a fan favorite throughout his time in Boston.

Check out the graphics below that visualize his performance over the course of his NHL career.

Chara scored 227 goals in 1,880 regular season and playoff games, finishing in the top 10 in goals scored by defensemen seven times in his 24-year career.

Eighteen of those goals came against goalies Marc-Andre Fleury and Ryan Miller. Chara lit the lamp against both nine times, more than any other netminders. Chara also scored nine empty-net goals.

While Chara won’t be mistaken as an offensive force like Boston greats and NHL Hall of Fame defensemen Ray Bourque (395 goals) or Bobby Orr (251), his 148 regular-season goals is third all-time by a Bruins defenseman.

Chara finished in the top 10 in the NHL in defensive point shares eight times since 2008, including leading the league in the 2009-2010 season with 7.2.

Point shares is hockey’s equivalent of Bill James’ win shares metric created for baseball. Developed by Justin Kubatko for the website Hockey Reference, it uses advanced metrics to calculate a player’s contribution offensively and defensively to a team’s points total.

Chara led all Bruins in defensive point shares in all but five of his seasons with the team. His contributions on defense were so great that he led the team in total point shares six times, with point share totals over 10 for five straight seasons from 2007 through 2012.

At the time of his retirement, Chara led all active players in career defensive point shares with 105.13, nearly 25 more than Dallas Star Ryan Suter’s 80.39.

Another way to measure Chara’s career is to compare him to defensemen who had similar careers. Hockey Reference does this through a metric called a similarity score.

The three players most similar to Chara are Sergei Gonchar, Scott Niedermayer, and Chris Chelios. Niedermayer and Chelios are both Hall of Famers, and there’s a valid argument to be made that Gonchar should be.

So how does Chara stack up to these three? He’s scored more goals than both Chelios and Niedermayer, but lags behind the pair in career points and assists. He trails Gonchar in both goals and assists.

The one accomplishment that Chara shares with Neidermayer and Chelios that Gonchar can’t claim is a Norris Trophy. Of all the players who have won a Norris trophy, only Randy Carlyle and Doug Wilson are not in the Hall of Fame. Neither won a Stanley Cup.