With just two penalty minutes across nine playoff games in 2019, Brad Marchand isn’t the “little ball of hate” he used to be for the Boston Bruins.
But head coach Bruce Cassidy isn’t too pleased with the treatment Marchand has received from some game officials during the postseason. In particular, Cassidy took issue with the cross-checking penalty assessed to Marchand at the end of the first period of Game 2 between the Bruins and the Columbus Blue Jackets. (The Blue Jackets would end up scoring on the power play.)
“Marchy had no penalty minutes in the playoffs. None, until last night, zero,” he said, per WEEI.com’s Matt Kalman. “Leading scorer on our team. All of a sudden I’ve got NHL (news), like ‘keep an eye out.’ I’m kind of like, ‘What are you talking about? Why are you going down this road on a guy that’s kept his nose clean?'”
The B’s skipper didn’t deny that Marchand once built himself a bad boy reputation, but doesn’t think that’s reason enough to pick on him now.
“So I have a bit of a problem with the treatment of Marchy with certain officials,” he said. “And I think he’s earned some of his, obviously, his reputation. But not right now. He’s been clean all year, he’s been clean all playoffs. So I hoped that would go away and the talk would be about ‘hey he hasn’t scored in two games, what can we do to get him going there?’ ”
Saturday night’s loss to the Blue Jackets certainly felt self-inflicted, with Marchand’s penalty, as well as uncharacteristic penalty from Patrice Bergeron biting them back in the double overtime loss.
But for now, Bruins fans just have to hope Marchand’s past won’t impact the present, no matter how much he’s changed.
