BOSTON — The frustration hadn’t boiled over yet for Boston Bruins star Brad Marchand with a scoreless drought that would make the Sahara Desert jealous, but make no mistake it was there.
Bruins coach Jim Montgomery sensed it, too.
“Just a little bit. He’s not very emotional or demonstrative,” Montgomery joked.
But Marchand, like Montgomery, tried to find the humor in not having scored a goal in 16 consecutive games, and not registering a single point in seven straight, too, entering Tuesday’s matchup with the Washington Capitals. It wasn’t always easy to have a more carefree approach but Boston’s abundant amount of wins made it easier on Marchand until he broke out of his slump in a big way against the Capitals.
Marchand netted a power-play goal in the second period off a feed from David Pastrnak to spark a three-point night for the Bruins star in a 5-2 win over Washington at TD Garden.
“You almost have to laugh about it,” Marchand said. “It’s one of those things, it gets frustrating, but then it gets to a point where it’s just laughable. You can’t take it too serious. I think that’s what it got to. It got to the point where it’s not the norm and I know that and I have much bigger expectations. But at the same time we’re winning a lot of games and we’re having a lot of fun and (not) let the frustrations get away of that and get in the way of what we’ve been going through the last little bit here.”
The goal from Marchand opened things up for him as after his silent offensive stretch, he made more noise. Marchand notched an assist on Tyler Bertuzzi’s power-play goal later in the second period and then made an unselfish play to set up Jake DeBrusk for an empty-net tally in the waning minutes of Boston’s 64th win.
This type of performance from Marchand might just be exactly what he needs to return to his usual form with the playoffs starting next week.
“I think any really talented offensive player in this league, getting one, putting one in the net when it’s been a while, it really gives you a little extra jump in your step,” Montgomery said. “And I think you could see that after that. He also simplified his offensive game. I don’t think he was hanging on the puck. He was moving it, give-and-go.”
