Cassidy calls out NHL official over treatment of Brad Marchand.

Bruins coach is not happy.

HockeyFeed
HockeyFeed
Published 4 years ago
Cassidy calls out NHL official over treatment of Brad Marchand.
Keystone Press

The Boston Bruins are apparently not happy with the treatment that was given to one of their star players in Game 2 of their second round series against the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

On Sunday Boston Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy was quick to express his displeasure over a particularly penalty that veteran Bruins forward Brad Marchand was awarded following a scrum that occurred after a period of play had ended. The scrum saw plenty of pushing, shoving and even some punching from both sides but it was only Brad Marchand who would eventually earn himself a penalty to start the very next period. Cassidy was quick to blame this call on Marchand's reputation as well as his actions in Game 1, and openly questioned the kind of calls that were being made against what is one of his star players.

“Marshy had no penalty minutes in the playoffs. None, until last night, zero,” Cassidy said as per WEEI Sports Radio. “Leading scorer on our team. All of a sudden I’ve got NHL [news}, like ‘keep an eye out.’ I’m kind of like ‘what are you talking about?’ ‘Why are you going down this road on a guy that’s kept his nose clean?’

“Atkinson, all he cared about was his 300 bucks. We could arrange it. He said it was a clever play, whatever. So the victim of this perpetrated crime is not really upset.

“So no I don’t like the penalty personally. Is it a cross check, is it a scrum? You know generally the scrums you take one from each side. … They’ve got a guy [Oliver Bjorkstrand] grabbing [Torey] Krug, wants to obviously get him off the ice for five minutes, and the ref’s going to go and break him up.”

Given how Marchand is perceived around the league these are certainly some interesting comments from Bruce Cassidy, although I doubt he will get very much sympathy at all outside of his own fan base. Cassidy was not done there yet however, he continued his defense on Marchand and did so in even stronger terms.

“So I have a bit of a problem with the treatment of Marshy with certain officials. And I think he’s earned some of his, obviously, his reputation. But not right now. He’s been clean all year, he’s been clean all playoffs. So I hoped that would go away and the talk would be about ‘hey he hasn’t scored in two games, what can we do to get him going there?’ More like Pastrnak. I think Marshy’s generated, they just haven’t gone in, so that would be my answer to that part of it.

“Anyway, here we are again talking about him, his two penalty minutes in nine playoff games. That’s kind of my take on the Marshy stuff.”

It was a costly penalty for the Bruins at the end of the day, and that is something that will be acutely aware of. While he seems to be putting all of the blame on the NHL and it's officials in front of the cameras, I have to wonder if Marchand may not get spoken to behind the scenes as well.

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