November 15th, 2014
by Dakota Antelman
With about 13 seconds left in Game 3 of the 2013 Stanly Cup Finals, Bruins captain Zdeno Chara tackled Blackhawks’ Brian Bickall about 15 feet in front of the Bruins net. The referee blew the play dead with about 9 seconds left in the game allowing the entirety of the two teams to gather around the messy scuffle.
As everyone grabbed a dance partner, hard-nosed Bruin forward Brad Marchand spun out of the pile with a firm hold on the powerful Andrew Shaw.
Marchand threw two punches then wrestled Shaw to the ice. As referees quickly jumped in, Shaw dropped a hard right hand shot onto Marchand’s face as Marchand waved blindly in an attempt to tag Shaw from the ice.
As the referee wrestled the two combatants apart, they sent both them to the penalty box to serve the traditional five minute fighting major.
In over 100 games since then, such a scenario has not been repeated. Marchand has not fought anyone since that game.
The now 26 year old left winger is in his 5thseason in the NHL. He was drafted in the 3rd round of the 2006 NHL draft and has been starting games for the Bruins since 2009-2010 in which he bounced between the AHL and the NHL.
He played 20 games in that 2009-2010 season. He averaged just over 11 minutes of ice time per game and did manage an assist in his NHL debut. After the Bruins lost in the second round of that year’s playoffs, Marchand was bumped up to full time NHL’er. He played 77 games in the 2010-2011 season and slapped home 21 goals.
In those first few years in the NHL and even before that in the AHL, the Bruins front office did a marvelous job of identifying Marchand’s skills and even his personality. Thus they were able to put him in the hockey niche that fit him best. That niche, simply put, is that of the “pest”, the player designated to annoy players.
That was a role that Marchand was quite good at. He was always the player that could be seen chirping at an opponent from the bench, barking at referees or yelling across glass dividers at the other teams’ bench during his time off the ice.
He was assessed 144 penalty minutes in 129 games with the Providence Bruins and logged 22 penalty minutes in his first 20 games with the NHL Bruins. Those were not dirty player penalties either. No, Marchand ticked players and referees off so much that he was given unsportsmanlike conduct penalties for simple profanity and after the play pushes and shoves.
But as the Bruins rapidly morphed into an absolute powerhouse team following their 2011 Stanly Cup victory, so did Marchand.
After netting 21 goals in 2011, he scored 28 in 2012. One year later, in the lockout shortened 2012-2013 season, he led the team with 18 goals scored. He was becoming a skillful player as well as a pest. The evolution was noted and celebrated by fans.
After netting 21 goals in 2011, he scored 28 in 2012. One year later, in the lockout shortened 2012-2013 season, he led the team with 18 goals scored. He was becoming a skillful player as well as a pest. The evolution was noted and celebrated by fans.
As he scored, Marchand continued to rack up penalty minutes. His career high came in 2012 when he spent 87 minutes in the box.
But especially in the last two years though, the last aspect of the game that Marchand first showcased with the team has slowly died away. In Bruins hockey, dropping the gloves or fighting is commonplace and each and every good Bruins team has always had a wide array of guys who are always more than willing to trade roundhouse shots.
Marchand fought only twice in the AHL but seemed to perpetually get up in the faces of opponents around the net. He would take on guys who were twice his size, shoving helmets and facemasks up into opponents’ noses and knocking players to the ground with football like tackles.
In the NHL, where the players were only bigger and stronger, Marchand did not cower in fear. Instead he went even harder. Midway through the 2011 season, he got into a tussle with Edmonton Oilers’ forward Andrew Cogliano. He spent the first half of the fight getting clobbered with punches but kept his wits about him and came back strong to knock down Cogliano in the end. Later that season, Marchand actually initiated the now famous Bruins vs Canadians line brawl that spawned the even more famous Tim Thomas vs Carey Price goalie fight.
The man Marchand hit to start that fight would, one season later become his partner in one of the most iconic fights of the Claude Jullian era in Boston.
After chirping at Subban for the entirety of a 2013 Bruins vs Canadians game, the pair finally tried to square up but were given penalties. A similar situation happened mere minutes after getting out of the box when the two jumped each other at center ice but were separated again and given delay of game penalties. That time, when they were allowed out of the penalty box they skated about eight feet away from the boards and were throwing punches before referees noticed them.
The fight was iconic for Marchand and the team simply because it symbolized the grit that he brings to every game. Subban had four inches on Marchand and outweighed him by almost 40 pounds and yet Marchand went at him like a seasoned enforcer.
Marchand was annoying and almost unsportsmanlike in a totally legal way when he literally spit in Subban’s face during that fight.
And when they were separated, with Marchand’s face bruised and his knuckled bleeding, he arrogantly raised his arms in celebration drawing delirious cheers from the crowd.
He was a player people loved to watch make himself hated. He was a player that was so annoying and pesky that he started to define the Bruins relationship with the rest of the NHL. They were once again, big and bad, annoying and genuinely unpleasant to play.
In a bizarre way is that not what we associate with good hockey?
But one cannot keep up such a mantra of play for very long. Such is especially true when one has actual all-star talent.
After his 18 goal 2012-2013 season, Marchand seemed to ditch some of the after the play activity. He seemed to start leaving the demolition of stragglers in front of the net to the team’s defenders and fought only once that year.
His penalty minute totals went down as well as he was assessed only 27 minutes of time in the box in 45 games.
The trend continued into last season in which Marchand did not fight for the first time in his career and was given just 64 PIM in 82 total games. On the flip side though, he scored 25 goals and assisted on 28 for his second highest points total (55) of his career.
This season, he has already scored five goals and assisted on five others. Saturday in Carolina, he shot a pass over to Patrice Bergeron who eventually scored. The assist was Marchand’s 100th as an NHL player. Looking deeper into that statistic, one sees that 68 of those 100 assists have come since the PK Subban fight.
Very simply speaking, as Marchand has stopped fighting he has gotten better; or, as he has gotten better he has stopped fighting. That much depends on how one looks at it. What does not is the fact that lack of fights has occurred in direct correlation with goal scouring excellence.
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