Boston Bruins: How is Brad Marchand not in the ‘Last Men In’ ballot?

Boston Bruins fans are right to question the NHL All-Star Game rosters with Brad Marchand somehow overlooked, even among the ‘Last Men In’ voting options.

While it’s nice to see David Pastrnak and Tuukka Rask recognised in the initial Boston Bruins selections for the Atlantic Division roster, and it’s also nice to see Patrice Bergeron out there as a ‘Last Men In’ candidate, you have to ask why he’s listed and not Brad Marchand?

We’re talking a player with the fifth highest point-total in the whole NHL. You have to drop down to 13th on the scoring list to find the next player (Nikita Kucherov) that has been snubbed in that regard. To compare the two players; Marchand has 61 points, whilst Kucherov is 14 back on 47 this year.

What’s even more disappointing is that the NHL All-Star Game is meant to be about selling the sport to fans. Brad Marchand is a polarising personality and the general disdain from fans in attendance that ensued last time he was at an All-Star Game is a talking point; something a bit different to your cookie-cutter NHL personalities.

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I’d love to argue that him being overlooked in favour of Patrice Bergeron is a positional thing only, but there’s no rhyme nor reason to the All-Star rosters at present; the Atlantic and Central list 6 forwards and 2 defensemen, the Pacific lists 7 forwards and one sole defenseman and the Metropolitan lists 4 of each.

Safe to say based on those roster configurations, it’s not a case of naming Bergeron over Brad Marchand as the Boston Bruins ‘Last Men In’ option purely on the basis of one being a center and the other a winger!

There is no doubt in my mind that Bergeron is elite. The statistics back it up; you only need look at his top ten in the league face-off win percentage of 57.6% to realise that. We’re also talking a player with the 22nd best points per game at 1.06, enough to have him listed above guys like John Tavares, Alex Ovechkin and Patrik Laine.

It’s not so much that we think that Patrice Bergeron is undeserving, it’s more that we think Brad Marchand deserves the honor more.

This season, Brad Marchand has put up a team-leading 41 assists, while his goals on the year thus far are only eclipsed by Atlantic Division All-Star team captain and his Boston Bruins line-mate, David Pastrnak.

He’s averaging 1.39 points per game; a pace only bettered by Edmonton Oilers duo, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisatil, Central Division team captain Nathan MacKinnon and Pastrnak.

To overlook such a performance is either a result of the NHL being massively short-sighted or perhaps having a bias against the Boston Bruins. While neither are able to be proven, you do have to wonder how it has happened. Maybe the only bright-side is that there’s no risk of Marchand getting injured in a meaningless contest.

If nothing else, that is a silver lining. Perhaps the league realised that the player may not be interested in attending and was saving it’s blushes, with the likes of Ovechkin and Marc-Andre Fleury already choosing not to attend.

In conclusion, it’s a disappointment that the Boston Bruins’ leading two scorers won’t both be suiting up at the NHL All-Star Game, but that shouldn’t stop us from getting our votes in for Patrice Bergeron instead.