When the Islanders signed Zdeno Chara prior to the 2021-2022 season, they expected him to provide value both on and off the ice. While few questioned Chara’s leadership skills after his 14-year captaincy of the successful Boston Bruins, the 44-year-old defenseman’s on-ice impact had taken an undeniable hit.

Acquiring Chara to foster the growth of the young defensemen on a rebuilding team seemed logical, but the Islanders had Stanley Cup aspirations after falling just short of their ultimate goal in consecutive seasons. Would the Islanders be willing to risk poor on-ice production to ensure additional leadership in their clubhouse? Evidently, they took a gamble on Chara, and it has yet to pay off.

As of Wednesday, Dec. 15, Chara’s Expected Goals Above Replacement (xGAR), a metric that tries to assign a numerical value to each player, lies at -5.6 this season, dead last among Islanders. For perspective, no other Islander has posted an xGAR below -2.1 this season. To make matters worse, no other player in the NHL has posted a xGAR below -5 this season.

Per xGAR, Chara is the only NHL player this season to cost his team an entire win. You can argue he has been the worst player in hockey this year — and is having one of the worst seasons in team history thus far.

Most of Chara’s negative impact has come at even strength. Hockey always will be a game of speed in some capacity, and Chara’s significantly better production on the penalty-kill than at even strength illustrates his struggles to keep up with five-on-five play. This is shown by teams dumping the puck to his side, like the Red Wings did on Tuesday.

Specifically, per JFresh Hockey, Chara’s 2020-22 Even-Strength Defense has dropped from 81 percent in 2020-21 to 41 percent, whereas his value on the penalty-kill has increased slightly.

Another indication that Chara no longer possesses the speed to keep up with NHL play is his decreasing value in Penalties, per JFresh Hockey, dropping from the 24th percentile to the fourth percentile. Chara’s increasing reliance on taking penalties sheds light on his potentially decreasing ability to defend legally. These issues are directly correlated with his age, and they likely will not repair themselves in the midst of a physically grueling season.

Islanders’ fans can take comfort in knowing that the defenseman Chara replaced, Nick Leddy, has posted an xGAR of -3.5 this season, so Chara’s ice time has not been the sole cause of the Islanders’ struggles this season. Additionally, the in-house options have struggled mightily this season, as Robin Salo and Sebastian Aho, in addition to Chara, rank in the bottom three among Islanders in Expected Goals For Percentage (xGF%), a statistic that uses shot quality to determine which team is expected to score more goals when one player in on the ice. Clearly, the Islanders do not have an abundance of options to become their sixth defenseman.

However, the Islanders had the opportunity to add defensive depth this off-season, and they failed in miserable fashion. The Islanders’ prime opportunities to improve their defense core are either to place an emphasis on facilitating the development of Salo or to acquire a defenseman before the NHL Trade Deadline. Either way, the Islanders have dug themselves into a hole, and they need to find their way out before it is too late.

All statistics are as of Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021 and are from Evolving-Hockey unless otherwise indicated.

Aidan Resnick

Aidan is a freshman at the University of Chicago, studying data science and business economics, and an aspiring sports analyst. In 2019, he attended the Wharton Moneyball Academy, the Carnegie Mellon Sports Analytics Conference, and the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, experiences that inspired him to pursue sports analytics. Aidan’s passion for sports analytics is best represented in his newest sports analytics book, “The Stats Game,” where he illuminates statistical tools and debunks myths in sports analytics, as well as in his victorious Diamond Dollars Case Competition project and in Resnick Player Profiles. A lifelong New York Islanders fan, Aidan always approaches his work with Drive4Five with an analytical mindset, focusing on the newest advancements in hockey analytics to maximize the precision of his content. Aside from sports analytics, Aidan is a dedicated violinist and chess player.