Zdeno Chara out for Bruins' opener with upper-body injury

It’s been nearly two weeks since Zdeno Chara was listed as “day-to-day” with an upper-body injury by the Boston Bruins. That injury will now keep him out of Thursday night’s opener against the Winnipeg Jets.

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"I'm OK to be smart about it," Chara said , via Joe MacDonald of ESPN Boston. "Obviously I want to play as soon as I can, but at the same time it's Game 1 and know that it's [not] less important than any other game, but at this time, I want to continue to have progress and keep going forward with it instead of having setbacks.”

Chara suffered the injury on Sept. 24 and has been practicing with the Bruins. He was even a part of their morning skate on Thursday. There’s no timetable for his return, and head coach Claude Julien was hopeful the captain would be back for Saturday night’s game against the Montreal Canadiens.

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The 38-year old Chara missed 19 games last season with a knee injury. Missing the opener isn’t a big deal since there are 81 more games to go; but considering Dennis Seidenberg is gone for a while, the Bruins defense pairings looked like this on Thursday morning:

So, basically, get well soon, Zdeno.

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Sean Leahy is the associate editor for Puck Daddy on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at puckdaddyblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Sean_Leahy

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