Boston Bruins captain Brad Marchand is apparently cooking dinner in the collective head of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Brad Marchand scored two goals and added an assist to help lead his team to a 4-2 win in Game 3 and give the Bruins a 2-1 series lead over the Maple Leafs, but that didn’t seem to be Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe’s main concern in his post-game press conference. When asked about the 35-year-old Boston Bruins captain coming up big again in a playoff game, Keefe began to praise Marchand but then indicated, despite his team getting five powerplays to the Bruins’ three, that Marchand gets preferential treatment from the officials.
“You gotta play through it. You gotta recognize he’s a world-class player both in ability and how he plays,” Keefe first replied. “His gamesmanship and everything is world-class.”
That’s when it got weird, and Keefe went on one heck of a baseless rant.
“He’s been in the league long enough, as you can see, and he gets calls,” Keefe claimed. “It’s unbelievable actually how it goes. But we gotta play through that; we gotta play through that stuff. I don’t think there’s another player in this series who gets away with taking away other players’ legs the way that he does. There’s not one other player who gets away with that in this series, but he does. It’s an art, and he’s elite at it.
So, we have to manage our way through that and avoid putting ourselves in situations where he can. …he can. …he’ll put us into spots, and as far as his game, I think we’ve managed that pretty well for the most part. Obviously, tonight, we make a mistake at key time that allows him to get the winner.”
Keefe was likely referring to these two exchanges in the ongoing battle between Marchand and Leafs winger Tyler Bertuzzi, but clearly, there were no infractions by Marchand on either.
While such accusations are commonplace for head coaches trying to sway officials in a playoff series, the irony of saying Brad Marchand ‘gets calls’ was pure comical gold from Keefe.
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