Brad Marchand never passes up an opportunity to throw a jab or two, whether it be with his words or with his firsts. And David Pastrnak learned that yet again Saturday.
Pastrnak, as you may have heard, hasn’t practiced with the Boston Bruins recently as he was determined “unfit to participate.” Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy on Saturday, however, confirmed it wasn’t due to Pastrnak testing positive for COVID-19.
And that apparently left Marchand wondering just what could be keeping Pasta from getting back on the ice.
“Yeah, you know, it’s kind of news to me there about Pasta. I thought he was just on a couple day hangover,” Marchand joked on a Zoom call with reporters Saturday. “But he’s got a pretty good bounce-back rate, so it makes sense that he’s not there.”
Marchand’s humor, of course, comes at a time where some NHL teams could find themselves without their best players when the league officially resumes its season. The Bruins winger noted that himself, explaining that while he thinks the NHL’s bubble environment will be a secure place for teams, players understand it could be the harsh reality.
“Yeah, you know, it’s unfortunate the times that we’re in, but I guess it’s the new reality for right now anyways and teams are just going to have to be resilient and battle through it,” Marchand said. “We’ve done that the last number of years where we’ve had a lot of guys out and gone through a lot of injures. But yeah, there’s definitely that chance that a team’s going to be in the conference finals or finals and lose one of their top guys.
“… So obviously there’s that chance, but I would expect they’re going to make sure they do everything possible to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
The Bruins wrapped up a solid week of practice at Warrior Ice Arena on Saturday and are off Sunday.
