Brad Marchand mired in major slump

The good news for the Boston Bruins this season is that they're easily the top squad out of all 32 National Hockey League teams, having already secured the President's Trophy as the top regular season squad with plenty of games to go still on the schedule. 

The bad news is that forward Brad Marchand, who is one of the focal points of the offensive attack, is mired in a pretty big slump of late. To be specific, it's been 13 games since he's last lit the lamp, which took place on March 9 against the Edmonton Oilers. It's been eight years since he's experienced something like this, as it was in 2015 that he underwent a career high slump of 15 games of not finding the back of the net.

For Marchand, who missed the first portion of the regular season after recovering from offseason surgery, he's admitted to feeling not in perfect form. 

“I thought I’d feel better now than I do, to be honest with you,” Marchand said on March 8, just before the start of his current drought. “I think it’s been great, it’s been really relieving that we have the team we have and we’re as deep as we are. That definitely takes pressure off. But I thought I’d be kind of where I was last year right now, and I don’t necessarily feel like that.

"It just gets a little frustrating when I have an expectation to play a certain way and it’s not necessarily there yet,” he added.

Right now, Marchand has tallied 63 points in 68 games played, good for just slightly under a point per game pace.

He and the Bruins will be back in action tomorrow night when they take on their division and Original 6 rival Toronto Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena in downtown Toronto.