Andrew Shaw's 'Pest Factor Is as High if Not Higher' Than Brad Marchand's, Says Pierre McGuire

Andrew Shaw It’s Stanley Cup Final week which means everyone will be comparing everything leading up to the biggest, best and final hockey series of the season.

From the crease out, everyone on the Bruins will be matched up with everyone on the Blackhawks and the Andrew Shaw-Brad Marchand contrasts seem to be dominating early on. Shaw, like Marchand, is a little ball of hate in his own right as the 21-year-old is listed at 5-foot-10 and can be found in all corners of the stat sheet.

NBC’s Pierre McGuire was a guest on Mut & Merloni on Monday afternoon to preview the series and gave his take on the Shaw-Marchand angle.

“Like Marchand, Shaw has tremendous offensive skill. … He’s not a guy that’s just a super pest. He’s a player. He’s a real player,” McGuire said. “He’s very similar to Marchand. I don’t know if his top-end skill is as good as Marchand; in fact, I would say it’s not. But his pest factor is as high if not higher. He’s fearless, absolutely fearless. Tremendous player. There’s not a team in the league that wouldn’t want this player.”

McGuire also gave the B’s some scouting on how to defend Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews.

“Here’s the one deal. If I were being the advance scout for the Bruins. I would say, what we did to Sidney Crosby, a five-man gang on him, you’ve got to do that to Toews. It’s what Detroit did, it’s a big reason why it was a seven-game series. Jonathan Toews snapped in a game in Detroit, in Game 4 actually, he took three minor penalties in a row. He went cuckoo. Because Henrik Zetterberg, Niklas Kronwall and Jonathan Ericsson drove him nuts. They drove him crazy. So, you’ve got to basically give him the same treatment if you want to beat Chicago, because this guy is really good.”

Photo via Twitter/ShaunaNicholLee