Boston Bruins Marchand Tops NHLPA’s ‘Love/Hate’ List

Boston Bruins winger Brad Marchand appears to all the time be on the NHL’s most hated listing when the annual NHLPA Gamers’ Ballot comes out, and this season was no totally different.

Marchand received by a landslide this time round within the class of “which participant do you least get pleasure from taking part in in opposition to however want to have in your crew” with 26.4 p.c of the respondents voting for the Boston Bruins prime line left winger. Others behind him within the voting have been Connor McDavid (18.3 p.c), Tom Wilson (10.7 p.c), Victor Hedman (6.9 p.c) and Nathan MacKinnon (5.3 p.c), however actually solely Marchand and Wilson high quality as NHL opponents that gamers like to hate.

Actually, it’s an ideal assertion on the gifted, intensely aggressive Marchand that everybody hates to play in opposition to him, however on the similar time desires him on their hockey crew.

Marchand has talked usually about being hated across the league as a pest or an agitator, or as a competitor that may typically get misplaced within the warmth of the battle that he’s combating.

“I do know there’s lots of people who don’t like [the way I play], and I would be the first to let you know that it’s a fantastic line,” wrote Brad Marchand in an article for the Participant’s Tribune a few years in the past. “I’ve achieved issues which have stepped over that line, and I’ve paid the worth for it. However what? There’s lots of people on the market within the hockey world who like to say, ‘Successful is every part. It’s the one factor.’

However do they actually imply it? How far are they keen to go? Possibly it was my measurement, or simply the best way I used to be born, however I’ve all the time felt like you must be keen to do something — actually something — in an effort to win. Even when which means being hated. Even when it means carrying round some baggage. If I performed the sport some other approach, you completely wouldn’t know my identify. You wouldn’t care sufficient to hate me, as a result of I wouldn’t be within the NHL.”

Just some video games in the past in Pittsburgh, the NESN cameras caught Patrice Bergeron speaking Marchand down on the Boston Bruins bench after he’d simply gotten into it with a couple of Penguins gamers on the ice.

“I suppose this one was on TV however it’s not prefer it’s the primary time that we’re doing that,” mentioned Bergeron. “We’ve been round with one another lengthy sufficient to have a superb learn for one another. Clearly, he’s a kind of guys that performs on the sting and tries to get us within the struggle. Generally you bought to verify he doesn’t recover from that line. It’s one thing that’s occurred up to now. It’s one thing that you simply guys might need seen tonight, however it’s nothing new.”

All sides of Marchand’s sport have been on show for the Boston Bruins this season as he’s twice been suspended by the league together with 5 video games for punching and spearing Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Tristan Jarry. However he additionally scored his thirty second aim of the season in Tuesday evening’s 4-2 win over the Florida Panthers to snap an 11-game goal-scoring drought, marking the fifth time in his NHL profession that he’s topped 30 targets in a season.