BOSTON — Connor Clifton almost got himself into some trouble Thursday night, but it was Brad Marchand –yes, that Brad Marchand — that kept the young defenseman from leading himself astray.
Less than a minute into the third period with the Boston Bruins trailing 2-1 in Game 1 of their Eastern Conference Final, Carolina Hurricanes forward Jordan Staal boarded Chris Wagner. It was a big hit that resulted in a penalty, and Clifton took exception to the hit on his teammate.
If not careful, Clifton very easily could have gotten himself a roughing call, so Marchand grabbed the 24-year-old and pulled him out of the scrum. When the dust settled, only Staal was hit with a penalty, and it was during that man advantage that the Bruins tied the game. Just 28 seconds later, they added another goal to take the lead, ultimately winning 5-2.
It was borderline comical watching Marchand, a known agitator who likes to play on the edge, play peacemaker, but it couldn’t have happened at a better time. The wise move prompted a joke from Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy when asked about it postgame.
“He’s turning over a new leaf, eh? Marchy,” Cassidy said.
The Bruins head coach then delivered a more serious assessment of the play.
“Listen, he’s been in these big games. He’s a Stanley Cup champion, so he understands maybe a little more than meets the eye sometimes. There’s a time and a place where you really have to be disciplined. I mean, you have to be disciplined at all times, but there’s certainly other times where you really have to put yourself in check, so it was great for him to do that. It helped us, right? We had the early penalties, so he was starting to get frustrated. We saw that with (Sean) Kuraly’s penalty, and then we kind of settled in and realized that tough is winning pucks battles, toughness is going to the front of the net, toughness is blocking shots.
“It’s not how you react in a scrum, so we figured out eventually, and they took some,” Cassidy continued. “Good for Brad. We’ve put an “A” on his shirt at times this year for a reason, and I’m glad to see that he made that decision tonight with a younger guy.”
Clifton was quick to acknowledge that the veteran winger kept him out of a potentially tough situation.
“Yeah I would expect that, he’s a leader.” Clifton said. “Obviously we had a power play and it was a bad hit but he stopped me pretty fast.”
While Marchand has made a nice career for himself by being a bit of a pest, it must’ve been refreshing for Cassidy to see him keep a cool head in an volatile, yet important, moment.
