WASHINGTON DC – Brad Marchand understood and accepted the punishment for last week’s “dangerous tripping” play with Niklas Kronwall when the NHL fined him $10,000. But the irascible Bruins left winger took issue with those that felt he should have faced supplemental discipline for Tuesday night’s tripping play with Anton Stralman which “was a completely separate event…it was a hockey play.”
Marchand collided with Stralman in the second period of Tuesday night’s Bruins win in Tampa, and his leg took out the Tampa Bay defenseman from behind in the neutral zone as he made a move toward the puck. There was no penalty call on the ice and Stralman was perfectly fine afterward, but there were plenty of fans and media types calling for No. 63’s head on a pike Tuesdaynight/Wednesday morning after the incident.
The NHL Department of Player Safety correctly deemed that it wasn’t the same kind of intentional, dangerous play as the Kronwall trip vs. Detroit, so Marchand will be in the lineup free and clear on Wednesday night against the Washington Capitals.
Marchand said he understood perhaps why people were in a punishment-seeking frenzy given that it comes just days after he was fined for a trip, but maintained his innocence while calling it a hockey play.
“I don’t know if you can see the whole play, but you can see the whole time that I’m watching the puck. I really didn’t even know that [Stralman] was there until we collided, so it was just kind of a hockey play,” said Marchand, who said he wasn’t contacted at all by NHL Player Safety about the Tampa incident. “I think last night the social media kind of blows things up more than it would normally be. At the same time with what happened with [Kronwall] it gets blown up a little bit too.
“With last week I completely respect how the league punished me. This is just a completely separate event. This is just a hockey play, and they are two completely different plays. So that’s just the way it is.”
Given that Marchand has been suspended four times and fined a handful of others for his moments when he goes over the edge, it likely won’t be the last time he’s addressing a hit that somebody didn’t like.
But it’s also telling with Marchand that the first three questions asked of him on Wednesday afternoon were about the tripping incident with Stralman rather than winning the NHL’s No. 2 Star for the month of January after going on an offensive tear.