Boston Bruins forward Brad Marchand dodged a bullet today. Marchand could have found himself facing off against the Department of Player Safety for his most recent antics on the ice.
Brad Marchand clocks Blue Jackets blue liner Scott Harrington in the back of the head. Harrington was on his knees and was trying to get up when Marchand struck. The refs and the Blue Jackets let it pass and went on to win Game 3 over the Boston Bruins 2-1.
It’s hard to know what was going through the player’s head at the time. Some fans thought it was a ‘love tap’. Other fans saw it as the return of the weasel they love to hate. Some people praised his actions while others believed that he should have gotten a multi-game suspension.
It wouldn’t have been outside the bounds of reason to hit Brad Marchand with a suspension for the hit. Marchand has been suspended multiple times during his NHL career with the Boston Bruins.
Boston’s ‘Little Ball of Hate’ has surrendered nearly a million dollars to the league for his antics. (That’s right, nearly *puts pinky to his mouth* ONE MILLION dollars.)
bRad mArcHand gEts aWay WiTh eVeryThing pic.twitter.com/aQyNXta8Fx
— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) May 1, 2019
The league has shown that it usually doesn’t mind cracking down on players like him and Nazem Kadri for taking ill-advised actions against an opposing team. He’s lucky that he won’t be spending Game 4 in the press box area.
Pretty much every major NHL site has weighed in on what should happen to Brad Marchand. Some expressed disbelief or outrage over the lack of intervention on the hit. Even Wayne Gretzky weighed in, saying “We’ve all been punched.”
On some level though, he did the Boston Bruins a favor. The team has been struggling against a Blue Jackets team that has been playing extremely good hockey, and several key players have found themselves scoreless against them.
The Boston Bruins have seen more serious production from their bottom-six forwards and players like David Pastrnak have taken heat from the fans and the media for his inability to score this series; Marchand’s hit has certainly taken the focus off of them.
The Bruins will have Marchand back in the line up for game 4 when they face the Blue Jackets in Columbus. Hopefully, this lucky break will motivate him to find a way around Blue Jackets netminder Sergei Bobrovsky.