When the Islanders chose Zdeno Chara, a 6-foot-9 defenseman from Slovakia, in the third round of the 1996 N.H.L. draft, their goal was to turn him into a tough, durable veteran.

But Mike Milbury, the team’s coach and general manager, remembered that Chara, the son of an Olympic wrestler, often worried about causing injury.

“It didn’t come naturally to him,” Milbury, now a television analyst, said Friday. “He’s a genuinely kind person who wants to play hard, but he doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”

Chara, now 33 and the captain of the Boston Bruins, has come under scrutiny for checking Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty into a stanchion Tuesday during a game in Montreal. Pacioretty sustained a concussion and a fractured vertebra.