personally, I think losing Chara could work out in the bruins favor and here's why:
In most hockey games, you're either the hammer, or you're the nail.
The bruins were NEVER going to be the hammer in this series. When you're a generic home depot hammer, and your opponent is Mjolnir...you're not winning that battle.
So losing chara means you lose three things: Leadership, physical presence,and pk ability
Leadership: If this bruins team cant get it done with the guys they have minus chara, that's on them
PK: The blues powerplay is trash, and the bruins looked great on the PK even after chara left
Physical presence: Chara can only do so much,and to this point, he hasn't balanced out this gameplay. The bruins need to win another way. They aren't going to out hammer Mjolnir
The bruins play better when they lose a guy like chara. The rest of the line up steps up, and this is what we need right now
chara or no chara, pastrnak and marchand need to play like they can. And I believe chara's absence will be what finally motivates them to do so.
Last, if they play with 7 d and subtract backes. You just added a ton of speed to your line up, and you're more covered if another D goes down. We've lost both games when having to play 5 d and won both games we had 6 d in.
NOW...here's the question. Say the bruins win game 5 without chara or gryzz....do you put Chara back in if he wants to go in game 6? I say no. I say try to win game 6 and then put him in game 7 if you really feel like it's needed. At that point you're leaving it all out there. If chara wants to lay up all summer with a sore face for a chance for the cup, that's his decision. But we still have some room to work with here