Chara: 'We have to create battles in front'

PHILADELPHIA -- Boston Bruins captain Zdeno Chara was the team's third-leading scorer during the regular season with 7 goals and 44 points. He ranks seventh in the playoffs with 2 goals and 6 points in 12 games. But he's gone cold, failing to score in his last 10 games -- although he's had three assists, including the helper on Milan Lucic's goal Wednesday with a minute remaining in regulation that drew the Bruins within a goal in their 2-1 Game 6 defeat.

Chara was held without a shot in his previous two games but came out firing Wednesday, putting three shots on net in the first period and having two others blocked while shooting wide once.

Chara seemed frustrated by the Bruins' inability to solve the Flyers' effective defensive tactics in the past three games, but he knows his team has a chance to salvage the series with a victory at home Friday in Game 7 (7 p.m., Versus, TSN, RDS, CSN-Philadelphia).
 
Q: How desperate is the Bruins' situation now?

Chara: We've got to get ready for the next one. We still have a chance to move on. We just have to win the last one.

Q: After getting only two shots from the defense in Game 5, you and Dennis Wideman combined for five first-period shots on net and had five blocked. That was something you wanted to do better and did, but to no avail. What now?

Chara: We did a better job of finding ways to get shots through from the blue line. We have to keep going, keep trying, putting shots through and it might make it difficult for [Michael Leighton] to see the puck. We have to create more traffic in front.

Q: How do you create more traffic? There were very few second chances tonight.

Chara: We have to battle for spots, for position, and not get moved away. We really have to create battles in front.

Q: Did you see that as one of the biggest problems that you had tonight, the inability to set up in front of Michael Leighton?

Chara: You can always get better. We had some traffic and we had some shots that he easily saw. There's always room to improve and get better.

Q: How much does your team have to focus on staying out of the penalty box?

Chara: That's one of the things that we certainly have to stay away from. We find the momentum of the game and then we take penalties and all of a sudden, that momentum shifts to their side. We have to be more disciplined and stay out of the penalty box.

Q: That was one of the problems: For the second-straight game, the Bruins took a penalty at the end of the second period, putting the Flyers on the power play at the start of the third. It makes it that much harder to get the rally going that you needed, didn't it?

Chara: It's hard when you're starting a period with them on the power play when they had good ice. They had that jump in momentum. I thought we jumped pretty hard in the second. We had quality chances. A lot of times we closed them in their zone, but it doesn't mean anything if you don't score goals. We were close but it didn't happen.

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