Brad Marchand blames 1 player for the Bruins failure to advance.
Boston Bruins forward Brad Marchand had some harsh words to share following the conclusion of Game 7.
The 2022-23 Boston Bruins, the most dominant regular season team in the history of the National Hockey League, have seen their Stanley Cup playoff run come to a shocking end after just 7 games.
The fallout from such a monumental failure will no doubt continue for weeks and months and there will be plenty of blame to go around when it comes to reasons for why things transpired the way they did. But when it comes to Boston Bruins forward Brad Marchand, the blame will be focused entirely on a single player on the Bruins roster.
On Sunday night, following the elimination of his Bruins at the hands of the Florida Panthers, Marchand laid into himself for failing to capitalize on a potential series-winning goal.
“That was my moment and I didn’t capitalize on it," said Marchand of failing to score on a breakaway at the end of Game 5.
Even worse for the Bruins agitator though, he admitted that his failure in that moment would likely be something that would haunt him for a very long time.
“Going to stick with me forever," admitted a very emotional Marchand.
When asked about the season overall Marchand admitted that he was proud of what the team had accomplished, but emphasized that the goal was not regular season dominance but to compete for a championship.
"At the end of the day you play in the regular season to get a spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs to play for a cup, that's the goal every year to play for a Cup not to dominate the regular season," said Marchand. "Special what we built and what we were able to do together but we fell short of our goal."
Marchand placing so much of the blame at his own feet certainly would go a long way to explaining why he was so overcome with emotion when hugging Bruins captain Patrice Bergeron after the end of Game 7.
