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Remember the good ole days when you could count on Brad Marchand to trash talk his way down the opposition’s lineup, maybe do something really crazy like lick a guy or low bridge an oncoming opponent, and then provide some snappy soundbites after a Bruins victory?
Those days are long gone. Marchand, now 31, is a measured veteran when it comes to on-ice antics and postgame scrums. The stick snap of Cam Atkinson, the bop to the back of Scott Harrington’s head, the signing of the letter ‘C’ to mock Justin Williams? Coincidentally they would have all earned a ‘C’ grade form the younger Marchand if he’d been asked to assess his older self’s rambunctiousness.
Maybe the agitating really was in that t-shirt he gave Torey Krug.
There would have been no better time for the old boastful Marchand to make a return than after the Bruins romped on the St. Louis Blues 7-2 in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final on Saturday. Instead we got a Dan Fogelberg version of Marchand in the Bruins’ postgame media availability.
What did the Bruins do well, especially at the start?
“We had a good start, but we can improve on our game,” Marchand sleepily said. “We kind of backed off after we got up by a few goals. So we can be better than what we were. This game’s over, next one’s going to be a lot different. They’re going to come out hard, we can’t expect it to be the same way, so on to the next one.”
Was this a perfect road game?
“That wasn’t the perfect road game. We backed off, we didn’t play great the second and third, so we can be better.”
How much do you believe in yourselves as a line based on what you’ve done all year?
“We got lucky tonight. We’ll take that one, hopefully we’re good next game.”
The power play was 4-for-4 on four shots. Have you ever seen that before and how did you do it?
“Yeah, we’ve seen it before. We got lucky. You know again, sometimes it goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t. We knew we could be better but that’s just one of those nights where things start to bounce your way. You can’t expect that to happen every night. So we still have areas that we can clean up. It’s nice that the power play came together, we were good on special teams, but we got to follow it up next game.”
Are you still awake to read the rest of this post?
It’s difficult to decide whether you’d rather have this Marchand or the one that gave one-word answers in the postgame dressing room after the Game 6 clincher in Columbus. But what we really want is the Little Ball of Hate to make a return, snipe a few goals and then throw some barbs St. Louis’ way.
Hopefully Marchand is just waiting for the Bruins to raise the Cup before he gets back into rat form. Brad Marchand as a mature, mild-mannered man is as dull as Steve Martin strumming bluegrass tunes. We want the wild and crazy guy back!
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