The Bruins rookie has just finished a two-game suspension of his own for an elbow to the back of Columbus forward R.J. Umberger's head. Marchand plays on the edge, an agitator that knows he has to be abrasive and physical to be effective at this level. He also knows there are certain lines you just don't cross — lines that Pittsburgh's notorious cheap-shot artist Matt Cooke routinely ignores.
Cooke is scheduled for a hearing with the league on Monday after his latest incident, a brutal elbow to the face of Rangers defenseman Ryan McDonagh on Sunday. Will this be the incident that finally draws Cooke a serious suspension? Marchand certainly hopes so.
"He's got to be taught a lesson," Marchand said after the Bruins' practice Monday morning at Ristuccia Arena. "He's doing that stuff left, right and center. I expect that he'll probably get a bunch of games, but he's got to be taught a lesson. He can't be running around doing that stuff all the time. He's going to seriously hurt somebody again. You look at Savvy [Marc Savard] and now McDonough, he could have easily hurt him."
McDonagh appeared to avoid serious injury as he returned to finish Sunday's game. The Bruins weren't as fortunate last season, when Savard suffered a severe concussion from Cooke's blind-side head shot. Cooke wasn't punished by the league for that hit but isn't expected to escape justice this time.
"I expect them to say a little more about his incidents because he's a repeat offender," Marchand said. "They'll probably sit him down and advise him he can't be doing that stuff and hopefully give him a pretty good suspension."
Marchand was one of the few Bruins willing to talk about Cooke on Monday. Johnny Boychuk said he hadn't seen the hit on McDonagh yet and couldn't comment, while Shawn Thornton chose not to address the situation.
"I didn't like when people talked about things that happened with our team when they weren't involved," Thornton said, referring to criticism around the league for Zdeno Chara's hit on Montreal's Max Pacioretty. "So I'm not going to comment on things I wasn't involved in."
Bruins coach Claude Julien also opted not to weigh in on the subject … sort of.
"No comments because right now I have my hands full with trying to get my team back on track," Julien said. "This is an opportunity for me to let the league do their job."
But that was Julien's direct response to a follow-up question after he had already alluded to Cooke.
"You hope that your player learns from it," Julien said of Marchand coming back from his two-game ban. "Hopefully he learns from it and he's a little more careful in regards to those head hits. We don't think there's any need for it in the game, so we all have to be aware of that, and if we're going to clean it up as coaches we have to be supportive of it and help your players work through it.
"I think you have to trust your players to do the right thing," Julien added. "You have to trust your players that they've learned and that they don't let it happen again, although there's certain guys in the league that don't seem to be learning."
That appeared to be an obvious reference to Cooke. But will Cooke learn anything this time even if the NHL comes down hard on him?
"I don't know," Marchand said. "It just seems to be part of his game. He likes to throw cheap shots around. I don't know if he learns. Hopefully he does. Hopefully he doesn't hurt somebody to the point where their career's over. You want to get rid of that stuff from the game.
"It just seems like he doesn't want to learn and he doesn't have respect for his opponents," Marchand added. "You have to respect your opponent. You can't be out there trying to hurt guys. We're all professionals. We're all out there just trying to do a job, trying to make a living and play the game. You don't want guys out there trying to hurt each other. That's where you cross the line and that's what he's doing. He's out there trying to hurt guys."
