With Zdeno Chara still sidelined with his knee injury, there needed to be a defenseman that emerged from that young group that picked up the slack. Dougie Hamilton has been that player for the Black and Gold.

Over the last week, Hamilton scored a game-winning goal against the Winnipeg Jets while also tallying an assist on Milan Lucic’s game-tying goal. The third year defenseman, who also tallied an assist last Monday against the Penguins, sports a plus-4 rating over the last two games.

Hamilton now has five goals and nine assists on the season which ranks him third on the team in points only trailing Patrice Bergeron and team-leader Carl Soderberg. The 21 year-old blue-liner is also logging some serious minutes for the injury-ridden B’s seeing north of 21 minutes per night.

In the B’s most recent win against the Jets in overtime, Hamilton logged 24:21 of ice time and sent the hometown crowd home happy with the game-winning goal by demanding the puck as he followed the play.

“Yeah, there was a play before that where I probably could of got the puck too and I didn’t call for it and I made sure to call for it on that one,” Hamilton said about his game-winner on Friday night. “I knew my man was changing and Carl (Soderberg) made a great pass and I think just a hard knuckle puck. So obviously it felt pretty good. And I think I don’t know if I ever scored an overtime goal before so, a pretty, pretty good feeling and a pretty good feeling to get the win after the start we had.”

We know Hamilton was the hero Friday night, but he is just happy the team notched two points before heading out on their tough west coast road trip.

“Yeah I think we talked a lot about it and for a while there it was pretty frustrating,” Hamilton said. “And coaches definitely weren’t too happy with us and we really didn’t show up. I think we really wanted a good start and didn’t have it and squeaked the two points like we have in the past. I don’t know how we do it, but two points is two points I guess.”

Soderberg had a feeling Hamilton was going to be in the right spot and praised his linemates for being in the right position as well creating space for their defenseman.

“I was waiting for him too, I knew he was coming,” Soderberg said of Hamilton. “So Lou (Loui Eriksson) and Luc (Milan Lucic) drove the net really good so that created that.”

Hamilton has been great on special teams all season long. He is a 21 year-old playing like a seasoned veteran during a year that the Black and Gold need him to be at his best until their captain and horse comes back on the blue line.

The B’s improved to 10-4-1 without Chara, and Hamilton is a big reason why the team is staying afloat at least from the blue line perspective.