Well this is a particularly interesting result.
On Monday the National Hockey League Players Association released the results of it's annual player poll, a poll in which players that are current members of the National Hockey League Players Association answer a wide ranged of questions on a variety of topics around the league. Unsurprisingly the categories that are often the most interesting are the ones that involve players voting on the qualities of opposing players.
It is very rare that you will get a genuine opinion, on the record, from on NHL player when it comes to a different NHL player and that is especially true when it comes to any kind of negativity. Players in the NHL have received intense media training and as a result they will often shy away from engaging in topics that would cause them to even potentially bad mouth an opposing player. The anonymous poll however gives those players all the freedom imaginable to do so.
One of the most interesting questions this season was regarding who the National Hockey League's best trash talk was. Now the results of this poll on it's own were not particularly surprising, however they do get more so in a little bit.
Taking sole possesion of first place in this poll was Boston Bruins forward Brad Marchand, shocking I know, and he walked away with a staggering 21.3% of all votes cast in this category. when you consider that 272 players voted on this poll and that over 53% of votes went to players who did not even crack the top 5, that is an impressive feat from Marchand. Rounding out the top 5 were Los Angeles King Drew Doughty (11.8%), Las Vegas Golden Knight Ryan Reaves (5.5%), Philadelphia Flyers forward Claude Giroux (4.8%) and Arizona Coyote Nick Cousins (3.3%).
What makes Marchand's top placing in that category so surprising though are the results of the poll for the worst trash talker in the league. Somehow Marchand also walked away with that crown, taking 12.5% of the votes. No one else even cracked double digits with Antoine Roussel of the Vancouver Canucks, P.K. Subban of the Nashville Predators, Nick Cousins of the Arizona Coyotes and Brendan Lemieux of the New York Rangers rounding out the top 5.
